Tipsheet

Wisconsin Democrats Have a Big Weakness in the Election. Here's What It Is.

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  March 30, 2026 10:30 AM

In 2023, Wisconsin's Democratic Governor Tony Evers abused the line-item veto to enshrine property tax increases in schools for the next 400 years. 

No, really. 

In Wisconsin, governors have the authority to edit parts of legislation without vetoing the entire thing. This broad power allows them to remove words, phrases, and sentences, and even combine two sentences together (within limits). So using that power, Evers changed the state's biennial budget to by taking language that that increased how much revenue K-12 public schools can raise per student by $325 a year, which was originally applied the $325 increase for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years, and instead vetoed the “20” and the hyphen to make the end date 2425. The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld that veto in a 4-3 ruling last April.

Such actions have consequences, and homeowners are feeling it when they open their property tax bills. That could be a vulnerability for Democrats in the upcoming elections.

Here's more:

Wisconsinites are fed up with property taxes, and the latest Marquette University Law School poll just handed Republicans a roadmap to make this one of the defining issues heading into November. 

Democrats have spent considerable time trying to tell voters that property tax increases are caused by Republicans. They claim if Republicans simply stopped "underfunding" public schools, districts wouldn’t be forced to go to referendum. Instead, they are making a push to “fully-fund” public schools, but what does that mean?

The short version? Use your income tax dollars to pay for schools to prevent your property taxes from increasing. Even shorter? Taxpayers get screwed. Shifting the education tax burden from property tax to income tax revenue allows Democrats to avoid the annual sticker shock hit and replace it with the slow burn of monthly deductions from your direct deposit that seem less shocking.  

It is not the worst message Democrats could have gone with, but it has a fatal flaw. This is the same playbook Democrats have been using for years. The message has always been more money with no reforms. Despite Wisconsin’s declining enrollment, there is no concerted push by Democrats to make reforms to rightsize public education.

But the numbers don’t lie, and the public isn’t buying the spin.

According to the Marquette University Law School poll, 58 percent of registered voters say they are more concerned about property taxes than funding for public schools. That number is only down slightly from 60 percent in February.

Last month, Wisconsin Leftists filed a lawsuit to end the state's school choice program, arguing it unconstitutionally underfunds public schools. While Wisconsin's Leftist courts will undoubtedly rule in favor of this suit, including the State Supreme Court, it's hard to make the argument that schools are underfunded when Tony Evers installed a four-century tax increase for those schools.

The Daily Signal poll reports that Democrats in Wisconsin are underwater, with only 30% approval and 57% disapproval.

All of the Democrats support ending Act 10 the union-busting law passed in 2011 by then-Governor Scott Walker. And none of them will repeal Evers' 400-year tax increase.

The path for Republicans on Wisconsin property taxes is much better, if they message it clearly. And Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany is weighing in on the issue.

He vowed to lower property taxes and make Wisconsin affordable again.

Wisconsin voters have a clear choice in November: they can continue with the failed policies of Tony Evers' administration and condemn themselves to decades of property tax increases, Leftist insanity, and an end to school choice. Or they can send Republicans back to Madison to make Wisconsin affordable again.