Wisconsin Senate Candidates Battle Over Policy

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Republican challenger Leah Vukmir battled over abortion, health care, veterans’ affairs and immigration at the Wisconsin Senate debate Monday evening.

The crowd gasped when Vukmir, a registered nurse, graphically described a partial-birth late-term abortion.

“The arms and legs of a baby can be pulled out of their mother, the brain is sucked out, that is vile,” Vukmir said. “And you talk about a woman’s right to choose? It’s a woman’s right to kill her baby.”

Vukmir’s graphic comments about abortion were in response to Baldwin saying she believes women have the “right to choose,” and that she strongly opposes any limitations to reproductive health.

“I think that she [Vukmir] is putting too much of her personal experiences into it and not looking into the big picture,” Mollie Theis, a Milwaukee community member, said about Vukmir’s stance on abortion.

Abortion is just one of the many issues the candidates heatedly clashed over.

The audience also clashed with opposing sides and did not hold back their applause, gasps and shouts saying “Liar!”

The debate was held at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Mainstage Theater Monday evening.

This was the first of three U.S Senate debates before the midterm elections on Nov. 6. The next debate will be Saturday, Oct. 13 in Wausau. The third debate is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 19 at Marquette University.

The election is less than a month away and Baldwin is leading in the polls.

Baldwin has 53 percent of the votes and Vukmir is behind at 42 percent, according to the most recent Marquette Law School Poll.

Throughout the debate, Baldwin focused on pre-existing conditions and claimed Vukmir wants to eliminate coverage for people who have pre-existing conditions. The senator also said Vukmir’s plan to “do nothing” for health care would cost more than the Affordable Care Act.

“I would fall in front of a truck before I would let people go without coverage for pre-existing conditions,” Vukmir said in response to Baldwin.

Vukmir added that Baldwin’s plan for health care (which she dubbed as “Baldwin-Care”) would cost $32 trillion to implement.

Vukmir repeatedly said she is a registered nurse and knows what patients need for successful care.

Baldwin fired back by recalling a vote Vukmir made as a state senator.

“Leah Vukmir voted with insurance companies to prevent oral chemo from being covered,” Baldwin said. “I don’t know how you can run away from the vote.”

When the debate turned to veterans’ affairs, Vukmir mentioned that her son is in the military, and claimed that Baldwin “turned her back” on veterans at the Tomah VA.

Vukmir was referring to the overprescription of opioids that resulted in veteran deaths at the Tomah VA. The reports of overprescription and several other problems at the facility surfaced in 2015.

Baldwin said she enacted Jason’s Law as a result of the scandal and acknowledged the country has an opioid epidemic. Jason Simcakoski was a Marine who died at the Tomah VA while receiving medical care.

Jason’s Law was ratified in 2016 and aims to hold the VA accountable by overseeing opioid prescriptions.

The Tomah VA now has 47 percent less veterans on chronic opioids, according to Baldwin’s campaign website.

Baldwin accused Vukmir of trying to politicize a Marine’s death.

The candidates also starkly disagreed about immigration issues.

Vukmir is a strong supporter of building a wall along the Mexico border. She urged people to think of the wall as a way to prevent human trafficking, drug trafficking and gangs.

Baldwin said the country needs to look for smarter border security, such as technology, not a wall.

Vukmir also said she supports a merit-based immigration system.

A sea of blue and red filled the audience and did not hold back their thoughts on what the candidates said. Many audience members appeared to color coordinate with the candidate they favored.  

The moderators asked the audience to hold their applause and comments several times, but the they did not listen.

Vukmir, the challenger who is behind in the polls, was on the attack, while Baldwin appeared more collected with her responses.

“Both candidates were pretty consistently jabbing at each other,” UW-Milwaukee student Chris Kresser, who watched the debate at home, said.

While Baldwin and Vukmir disagreed on most policy issues, they had relatively similar thoughts on two topics: The Second Amendment and Amazon.

Baldwin told the audience that she is a gun owner and supports the Second Amendment. Vukmir also supports the Second Amendment and believes in a person’s right to protect themselves.

While they came to a common consensus about support for the Amendment, the candidates disagreed about how to best combat gun violence.

Vukmir said the best way to handle gun violence is to address mental health problems and address the lack of information about gun buyers.

Baldwin said the best way to challenge gun violence is to have universal background checks, ban bump stocks and address illegal gun resales.

“Let’s go with common sense safety regulation,” Baldwin said.

Both Baldwin and Vukmir agreed that Amazon is setting a good example by raising its minimum wage to $15 per hour.