Robin Vos easily wins reelection over Trump-backed write-in candidate Adam Steen
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos easily held onto his seat Tuesday after a write-in campaign was launched by a candidate endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
With 99% of the district's ballots counted, Vos carried the race against former primary challenger Adam Steen with 73% of the vote.
The Assembly Speaker will begin his 10th term in January, beating a full frontal assault against Vos by members of his own party, and its national leader. Trump leveled his weight in the GOP against Vos in an effort to boost Steen over the finish line with a new endorsement, calling Vos "horrendous." It didn't work.
More:2022 Wisconsin Midterm Election Results
Vos could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.
At his victory party, he thanked his supporters and said it has been "a hard year."
Vos commented on the midterm races across the state and country and said "it still looks competitive."
"I think what we have learned is hard work, telling the truth and doing the right thing almost always wins," Vos told his supporters.
The attack on Vos symbolizes the intense discontent within the base of the Wisconsin GOP following the 2020 election, a loss for Trump that the former president and his supporters argue could have been overturned by Vos.
More:About 25 people attend a 'Toss Vos' event to see Robin Vos flung in effigy night before the primary
Vos has rejected that idea, repeatedly refusing to take the illegal and impossible act of decertifying the election result, but Trump has pressed the case for more than a year — calling Vos out in statements blasted to millions of supporters and endorsing Steen in the final weeks of the primary race.
Criticizing Vos became part of base Republicans' identity over the course of the last year, pushing allies of Vos who were running for statewide office to distance themselves. Two candidates for governor launched their campaigns as referendums on Vos. Dozens of county GOP officials passed resolutions calling for Vos' resignation.
The distrust blossomed in January when Vos punished state Rep. Timothy Ramthun over false claims about the 2020 election — a move that helped catapult the Fond du Lac County lawmaker to an ultimately unsuccessful campaign for governor.
The discipline of Ramthun enraged elements of the party faithful who already believed the powerful Republican in the state Capitol was refusing to do everything he can to litigate the last presidential election and saw his actions thus far as inadequate at best and purposefully stifling at worst.
Even former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, whom Vos hired in 2021 to review the 2020 election following heavy criticism from Trump, publicly turned on Vos in recent weeks, endorsing and campaigning for Vos' opponent. In a robocall ad recorded for Steen, Gableman characterized Vos as a roadblock to his taxpayer-funded review that has turned up no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
But Vos, known for his attention to constituents, ultimately prevailed.
Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.
DOWNLOAD THE APP: Get the latest news, sports and more
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Robin Vos easily wins reelection over Trump-backed write-in candidate