Tom Tiffany Loves Trump

Tom Tiffany and Donald Trump.

How loyal has Tom Tiffany been to President Donald Trump? In 2025, according to Congressional Quarterly, Tiffany supported Trump’s position on 99% of the votes taken.

Some Democrats have derided Tiffany as a “puppet” of Trump, but that underplays the strength and philosophical consistency of Tiffany. According to a rating system widely used by political scientists, Tiffany is the most conservative of the state’s eight U.S. House members, and one of the most right-wing members of the House from Wisconsin in modern history.

It’s because they agree on so many issues that Tiffany has been so loyal to Trump. And on those rare occasions where they have disagreed, it’s because Tiffany’s view was even more conservative. His opposition to Trump’s Gold Card program and providing more visas for Chinese students showed Tiffany was even more opposed to immigration than Trump. And while Trump has opposed abortion, with some exceptions, Tiffany backed a national abortion ban that American Journal News said could “make getting an abortion legally tantamount to committing murder,” eliminate access to safe abortion nationwide, and threaten fertility treatments like IVF. The ban provided no exceptions for rape, incest or life of the mother.

Meanwhile the number of issues where they have agreed is remarkable. Tiffany voted to overturn President Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania and Arizona in the 2020 election. Tiffany was the only Wisconsin Republican to sign the Texas brief that sued to overturn the election results in four swing states, including Wisconsin.

In the years since then, he continued to push the issue, supporting FBI investigations in Wisconsin that turned up nothing. He also supported the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund Trump sought to create that could have rewarded the Jan. 6 rioters who tried to overthrow the U.S. government. “I would want to take a look at, what was the harm that was done to those victims?” Tiffany said. “If it’s significant enough, perhaps they should receive compensation.”

By far the most important Trump policy Tiffany supported was the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” which cuts taxes by $4.5 trillion over the next decade, primarily with $2.3 trillion going to the richest 10% of Americans by income. To pay for this, the legislation cut more than $1 trillion from health programs – the largest rollback of federal support for health care in American history. These cuts will result in an estimated 10 million people losing their health insurance coverage.

The legislation also slashes at least $120 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, reducing food assistance for low-income families. The entire package is a dramatic illustration of the priorities of both Trump and Tiffany.

Tiffany voted seven times to protect Trump’s tariffs even as Wisconsin companies and consumers paid approximately $3.5 billion in tariffs between March and December 2025. He continued to support them even while admitting their negative impact. “There have been some people that have been hurt by the tariffs, there’s no doubt about it,” he said.

He voted five times against ending the Iran War, including twice after declaring it was time to wrap up the war, even as it became clear the result was skyrocketing gas prices. Tiffany also backed Trump in voting against a bill to provide aid to Ukraine and sanction Russia.

In September, he supported Trump’s $1 trillion-plus pitch to send $5,000 checks to every American adult if Republicans retain control of the U.S. House and Senate in the midterm elections. No president in history had ever tried to pay off voters for supporting his candidacy.

Tiffany, since his days as a state legislator, has had a nasty edge to his politics, as a story by Wisconsin Public Radio and a Wisconsin Examiner column by Bill Lueders revealed. Trump’s style, his frequent actions to intimidate and terrorize opponents, may appeal to Tiffany. Certainly the congressman has never offered any criticism of this.

“He has always been at my side,” Trump declared in his statement endorsing Tiffany’s campaign for governor. He “has my Complete and Total Endorsement.” Tiffany responded with equal warmth and repeated praise, declaring “I’m especially honored to earn President Trump’s endorsement.”

Indeed, Tiffany hopes to ape Trump’s style as governor, declaring at a forum in July that “we’re going to set out an aggressive agenda from day one, and we are going to put out a whole series of executive orders, not unlike what President Trump has done.”

Tiffany has been so loyal to Trump that a recent Politico story on Republicans breaking away from Trump (“he is kryptonite”) led with the Wisconsin congressman, who has suddenly begun to differ with the president.

“Tiffany responded to Trump renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” by declaring “the Great Lakes are the Great Lakes,” brushing aside the edict,” the story noted. He “criticized the easing of tariffs on beef imports, and deflected questions on the president’s proposed mail-in ballot reforms that the Supreme Court blocked earlier this week. And after years of questioning whether the 2020 election was rigged against the president, including supporting an FBI probe into Wisconsin’s votes in May, he’s now taken to sidestepping the issue.”

Why the change? Trump’s approval rating has sunk so low nationally and in Wisconsin that it’s become political suicide for Republicans, even in some red states, to run a pro-Trump campaign. The latest Marquette poll shows 60% of registered voters in Wisconsin disapprove of the President, including 81% of independents.

So Tiffany has no choice but to distance himself from Trump. But the real Tom Tiffany, the guy who served as legislator for nine years and as congressman for six years, is a politician who loves Trump’s policies and political style. That’s the kind of governor he will be if he’s elected.