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Wisconsin business leaders group backs Kamala Harris, launches ad campaign

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Wisconsin business leaders group backs Kamala Harris, launches ad campaign

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MADISON — A bipartisan group of Wisconsin business leaders active in recent elections is urging voters to back Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in November with a six-figure ad buy aimed at swing voters.

The ad, launched last week by national Project Democracy PAC (the political action committee affiliated with the national Leadership Now Project), features members of Wisconsin’s business community including Weyco Group chairman and CEO Tom Florsheim Jr., Generation Capital Growth founder and director Cory Nettles, and REV Group president Anoop Prakash. They argue a stable democracy is necessary for a thriving economy.

The group — a collection of business leaders who run in similar circles but don’t necessarily share political beliefs — started meeting somewhat regularly after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and continued attempts to delegitimize the results of the 2020 presidential election, Florsheim, a Democrat, said.

“The idea was, as business leaders, we have an important voice and a unique perspective on ensuring that we have rule-of-law and economic stability in our state,” said Prakash, a lifelong Republican who has in recent years supported Democrats.

The ad campaign aims to reach 465,000 swing voters in the battleground state of Wisconsin in the final weeks before the Nov. 5 election. Distribution includes streaming services, social media platforms and online news sites.

A Marquette University Law School poll released earlier this month showed that the economy was the top issue for Wisconsin voters, with 41% ranking it as their first priority. The same poll found that to be true among 42% of independent voters.

Half of registered voters surveyed for the poll saw Republican former President Donald Trump as the better candidate for the economy, compared to 42% for Harris and 8% who saw them to be about the same, or equally negative.

The group argues a second Trump presidency would result in “chaos” as, it argues, his first term did.

“I think it’s been proven time and time again that the conditions for business growth, for investment, for long-term planning, require there to be conditions for political and economic stability,” said Prakash, who previously worked for the Harley-Davidson Motor Co. and served as a senior political appointee in Republican former President George W. Bush’s administration.

Both Prakash and Florsheim cited as an example the former president’s recent threats to slap John Deere with a 200% tariff if the company moves production to Mexico. Those kinds of proclamations, they argued, hinder companies’ ability to make long-term plans.

They also both stressed a link between economic stability and elected officials who adhere to democratic norms and the administration of free and fair elections.

“We definitely don’t agree on policy, but everyone in our group puts that aside because we see this election as being much, much more than policy,” Florsheim said. “It’s about … the principles of democracy and that link to how that impacts the economy. … So, clearly, our group has different feelings about tax policy, different feelings about how big government should be, and all those typical things that you get when you bring together people from the different main parties.”

The goal of the ad campaign, Prakash said, is to persuade moderate and swing voters to consider the factors that could make a candidate good for the economy.

“I think that sometimes (it) can get lost that there are these larger principles that really impact the economy — and it’s not so much whether you’re cutting taxes, whether your taxes are going to be lower under Trump. It’s all these other things because of what it does to the general environment, as far as predictability … and being able to plan a business.”

The ad is running as Trump has visits scheduled Tuesday in Waunakee and Milwaukee where he is expected to criticize the current Democratic administration’s economic policy.

“When Wisconsinites send President Trump back to the White House, he will lower input costs for our farmers, cut ten regulations for each new regulation implemented, and help, not hurt, farmers’ ability to feed the world,” the Trump campaign said in a news release promoting the campaign events.

“While Kamala Harris desperately tries to run from her four years of failure for farmers, workers, and families across the state, Wisconsinites know that only President Trump can Make America Wealthy, Safe, Strong, and Great Again,” the news release said.

The former president was in Wisconsin on Saturday, with a stop in Prairie du Chien where he spent much of his time criticizing Harris over immigration policy.

Jessie Opoien can be reached at jessie.opoien@jrn.com.

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