By Hallie Claflin, Wisconsin Watch

This story was originally published by Wisconsin Watch.

Leading up to the April 2024 Wausau mayoral election, conservative talk radio host Meg Ellefson of WSAU brought mayoral candidate Doug Diny on her show, and together they blamed incumbent Mayor Katie Rosenberg for high property taxes, raised water rates and a lack of economic development in the city.

“There seems to be a lot of dysfunction that follows this mayor around,” Ellefson said of Rosenberg.

At the end of the segment, Ellefson plugged Diny’s campaign website and encouraged listeners to donate to his campaign or volunteer to knock on doors on his behalf.

The day after Diny defeated Rosenberg in April, Ellefson invited him back to her show to celebrate. In that same broadcast, Ellefson also announced a new focus of her attention: ensuring Donald Trump’s presidential election.

“That’s what we have to do, is take this victory as motivation to win again in November,” Ellefson told a caller.

A powerful force in Wisconsin politics for three decades, conservative talk radio continues to wield significant influence at the state and local level.

For years, radio personalities like Mark Belling and Jay Weber at WISN, Vicki McKenna at WIBA and Charlie Sykes at WTMJ have banged the drum for conservative ideas and Republican politicians. Ellefson and others like Joe Giganti in Green Bay represent a new generation of conservative hosts employing similar methods.

Although less popular than local television and some other forms of media, local radio generally gains strong trust from those who listen, according to Mike Wagner, a University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism and mass communication researcher and professor. In Wisconsin, during the 2016 election, radio stations were airing around 200 hours of conservative talk every day, according to one UW-Madison study.

In 2022, ahead of his re-election to a third term, Sen. Ron Johnson had made hundreds of talk radio appearances — the New York Times reported they tallied more than four full days of listening.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who regularly appears on conservative talk radio shows in the state, told Wisconsin Watch he tunes in daily for as much as a half hour while driving.

“I would say it’s as powerful as it’s ever been,” Vos said of conservative talk radio.

Liberal radio has struggled to gain a foothold in the state, giving Republicans an advantage over the airwaves. With large audiences and little partisan competition, conservative radio hosts wield significant influence over elections, politicians and more in Wisconsin.

And those with political interests in the state are keenly aware of their power. Republican politicians, conservative lobbying organizations and even lawyers helping Trump try to overturn the 2020 election have turned to conservative radio to advance their political aims.

‘Without Charlie Sykes, I don’t think there would have been a Scott Walker’

Perhaps most famously, Sykes, the former WTMJ host, had a unique relationship with former Gov. Scott Walker and boosted his career through on-air endorsements going back to Walker’s days as a state representative and Milwaukee County executive. Having publicly exited the talk radio sphere in 2016 after refusing to endorse Trump, Sykes now takes responsibility for this role and what came of it.

“As I look back on my career … I’m not trying to make the same mistakes that I made early on. I don’t ever want to be a cheerleader for a politician,” Sykes said. “At that point, your show … becomes advocacy and propaganda, and it becomes more about winning and scoring points than it does about what’s right and what’s true. I really do know how you get sucked into that.”

A screen shot shows Charlie Sykes in a videoconference conversation. “As I look back on my career … I’m not trying to make the same mistakes that I made early on. I don’t ever want to be a cheerleader for a politician,” said Sykes.

Sykes’ WTMJ show was Walker’s primary connection to a statewide audience, according to Lew Friedland, distinguished journalism and mass communication professor emeritus and researcher at UW-Madison.

“Without Charlie Sykes, I don’t think there would have been a Scott Walker,” Friedland said, calling Sykes “one of the top three most important political actors” at the time.

Walker told Wisconsin Watch that Sykes had a unique listener block at WTMJ, made up of not just traditionally white men, but also stay-at-home moms and non-conservatives tuning in during the morning commute. Sykes had a larger influence because it was more than just conservatives listening, Walker noted.

“Years ago, before the surge of podcasts … this was the place for a lot of conservative candidates or officeholders to get their message out in ways they felt like they couldn’t elsewhere,” Walker said.

Gov. Scott Walker speaks at the State of the State address at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis., on Jan. 24, 2018. Charlie Sykes, the former WTMJ host, had a unique relationship with Walker and boosted his career through on-air endorsements going back to Walker’s days as a state representative and Milwaukee County executive. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)

Walker used Sykes’ show as a testing ground for numerous political talking points. Private school vouchers were a key issue that created an avenue to attack the teachers unions and Milwaukee public schools, Friedland noted.

Vos said Walker’s early use of talk radio built his credibility among Republicans.

“The reason that I think Charlie Sykes had such an impact on people is because he was there for three hours a day for decades, so people just thought they knew Charlie Sykes and they trusted him,” Vos said. “That’s why I think Governor Walker had such a huge impact because he had that exposure on Charlie’s show.”

Sykes’ influence among Republicans was widely recognized, in and outside of party circles.

“The Sykes Republicans from southeastern Wisconsin are worried that he will castigate them by calling them RINOs, ‘Republicans in name only.’ So (he makes it) very difficult for Republicans to be independent of the party line on any issue,” Jay Heck, executive director of the nonpartisan group Common Cause in Wisconsin, said in a 2005 speech.

The final testament to Sykes’ influence as a host came during the 2016 Republican presidential primary. Sykes interviewed Trump live on air and hit him with hardball questions about Trump’s disparaging comments about opponent Ted Cruz’s wife. Sykes gave a far more supportive interview to Cruz, who went on to win the Wisconsin primary.

Short-lived bipartisanship during the pandemic

The pandemic’s 2020 onset prompted a brief period of bipartisanship in which even Republican state lawmakers and conservative groups like Americans for Prosperity-WI supported the COVID-19 relief bill that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers quickly signed into law.

Evers’ deputy chief of staff at the time, Melissa Baldauff, said the bill fell short of what was needed, and it reflected what Republicans had wanted to see in the legislation. But the governor signed it because quick relief was critical.

Nevertheless, WISN’s Belling used his conservative radio program to criticize the relief measures and the Republican lawmakers and groups supporting the bill, accusing them of “selling themselves out” and caving to Evers without fighting harder against stay-at-home restrictions.

“This level of frustration that I’m trying to communicate to you is real,” Belling told then-Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican, on his show. “And people don’t know who to turn to because on the one hand they know Evers isn’t going to listen to them, but it is extremely apparent to me that conservative think tanks and Republican legislators are not listening.”

According to Baldauff, Republicans in the Legislature were initially willing to let Evers lead on these difficult policy decisions. But she said the narrative started to shift after radio hosts like Belling loudly condemned the pandemic-era restrictions, fomenting Republican opposition to Evers and COVID-19 policies.

“They feel the heat. They have a host like a Mark Belling talking about it and saying they should do this or they shouldn’t do this, and then lo and behold, a little while later they are taking that position,” Baldauff said. “I think that’s a lot of where the power is in conservative talk radio. Republican politicians know that it can really make or break their career.”

Vos had a different take. He told Wisconsin Watch that conservative radio hosts want to be the voice of what conservatives really think, rather than political influencers.

“I look at talk radio as being a mirror to what real people think, not being the one that leads real people to say x, y or z,” Vos said. “They are a megaphone for what the average person thinks, rather than being a mouthpiece that people just copy as if they didn’t have a brain.”

Alec Zimmerman, formerly a top Republican communications strategist for Sen. Johnson and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, said state politicians are aware of what is generally being said on conservative talk radio.

“You have to be aware of what they’re saying,” Zimmerman said. “I think all conservative electeds are. … That power does come from the audience and the listener that they can reach.”

Fake electors sought to tip off radio hosts

In 2020, Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis, two of former President Trump’s attorneys, crafted a plan to overturn the results of the presidential election in Wisconsin and other swing states. The scheme was for 10 Republicans to pose as fake electors and file paperwork falsely stating that Trump had won Wisconsin.

Documents released following a March lawsuit settlement include texts that reveal Chesebro and Troupis planned to use conservative talk radio in Wisconsin to carry out their scheme.

In November 2020, as a Supreme Court decision loomed regarding Trump’s attempt to invalidate thousands of votes in Wisconsin, Troupis texted Chesebro, suggesting they “tip off” conservative talk radio hosts McKenna, Dan O’Donnell, Belling and Jay Weber, “Mostly to maximize the chance that SCOW (Supreme Court of Wisconsin) justices hear about this quickly and prejudge the case?”

Attorneys who plotted to disrupt the 2020 election using fake Wisconsin electors discussed sending info to conservative radio hosts with the hope of influencing Wisconsin’s conservative Supreme Court justices. (Source: Jim Troupis / Dane County Circuit Court)

In another message regarding his memo urging the Trump campaign to push back against his loss, Chesebro reminded Troupis to send copies to a number of conservative radio hosts, including McKenna and Belling.

Less than two weeks after the first text, Troupis joined McKenna on the air to discuss why the lawsuit seeking to invalidate over 200,000 ballots was “the strongest legal challenge in the country,” according to McKenna. The Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected the challenge 4-3.

Talk radio flexes power in power line debate

In February, the Assembly passed a controversial bill related to transmission line construction via a voice vote that Vos approved, leaving no record of how each representative voted. The legislation, which had failed before, died without a vote from the Senate in March.

It would have blocked out-of-state competition on long-distance power line projects in Wisconsin, granting owners of in-state transmission lines the right of first refusal to build new projects.

Conservative lobbying groups like AFP-WI, nonpartisan consumer advocacy groups like AARP and free-market conservatives like WISN’s O’Donnell opposed the bill, claiming the lack of competition could drive up utility costs for Wisconsin ratepayers. Supporters, including Wisconsin-based American Transmission Company, said the bill would have protected in-state companies bidding on transmission line projects without raising costs.

LS Power, an out-of-state transmission line company, has lobbied against similar bills in other states, but did not register against it in Wisconsin. Ellen Nowak, a lobbyist for ATC, said in an email to a lawmaker that an LS Power lobbyist told her the reason the New York-based company didn’t register was because it turned to AFP-WI to handle lobbying so as not to look like a “carpetbagger.” The email was first reported by the Wisconsin State Journal.

AFP-WI turned to conservative talk radio to encourage listeners to oppose the otherwise low-profile legislation.

Shortly after the bill was introduced in October last year, Ellefson invited Megan Novak, state director of AFP-WI, to discuss opposition on her show. When Novak returned to Ellefson’s show to repeat her criticism in February, Ellefson noted that she used to work for AFP.

On Feb. 15, the day the Assembly voted on the bill, Jerry Ponio, legislative director of AFP-WI, tagged three prominent conservative radio hosts in a social media post.

“Why does no one want to put their name behind a bill that eliminates competition and leading to higher utility bills for families and businesses in #Wisconsin?” Ponio posted.

Jerry Ponio, legislative director of Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin, posted on social media on Feb. 15, 2024, to call on conservative radio hosts to help defeat a bill that would have given an advantage to Wisconsin-based companies in building new electrical transmission lines. (Source: Jerry Ponio / X)

McKenna, one of the tagged hosts, responded that same day, posting:

“The GOP-controlled WI Assembly passed a bill on a VOICE VOTE with no debate that gives utilities a MONOPOLY in WI. Not because anyone who will pay the rate increases asked for the bill. Not because WI businesses are begging to see their electricity bills skyrocket. No … they did it because utility lobbyists PAID them. To f***k over WI.”

After Ponio’s tweet, conservative WIBA radio host Vicki McKenna and other conservative radio hosts railed against the transmission line bill. It never received a full Senate vote. (Source: Vicki McKenna / X)

Belling, who winters in Florida and only occasionally appears on his WISN show during that time, devoted his one February appearance to railing against the bill.

In a statement to Wisconsin Watch, Novak said AFP-WI spoke to a variety of additional news outlets to express its position, including WPR, the Wisconsin State Journal and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“AFP-WI’s goal for educating and informing Wisconsinites about the potentially harmful impact of (right of first refusal) was to reach as broad of an audience as we could,” Novak said.

Eric Bott, state director of AFP-WI, and LS Power’s senior vice president Sharon Segner denied the claims made by Nowak, the ATC lobbyist. They didn’t respond to Wisconsin Watch’s request for further comment.

The Wausau mayoral race

In the 2024 Wausau mayoral race, Rosenberg lost to Diny even after the Democratic Party of Wisconsin spent $191,000 in advertisements on her behalf, according to WisPolitics. Republicans spent heavily on Diny in the nonpartisan race.

Diny blamed Rosenberg for an increase in water rates following the discovery of PFAS contamination in city wells — a hike Rosenberg called necessary, but which many constituents opposed. Rosenberg said in an interview that issue shaped the race’s outcome more than any other, with Ellefson’s program playing a role.

On her Jan. 8 show, Ellefson read Diny’s campaign message stating that ratepayers should be “outraged” over these “unacceptable” and “unnecessary” water bill increases. She introduced the message saying “please God let him win” and followed that by calling Rosenberg “unfit” to be mayor.

“It did whip people up into frenzy,” Rosenberg said. “It connected this race to a more statewide network.”

In an interview with Wisconsin Watch, Ellefson downplayed her role in the election of Diny, who has been in the news recently for removing the city’s ballot drop box, an action under investigation by the state Department of Justice.

“I perhaps played a tiny little role in helping to get him elected,” Ellefson said. “I would say it was just giving him the opportunity to share his vision of what he wanted to do, and I’ll admit, being very critical of the former mayor.”

Ellefson’s advocacy for Diny, which doesn’t have to be disclosed as a campaign donation, is legal because of the Federal Communications Commission’s 2014 decision to stop enforcing the Zapple Doctrine. The doctrine used to require radio stations to provide another opportunity for the opposing side to come on the air.

The FCC’s decision to ditch the doctrine came after a 2012 complaint made by supporters of Tom Barrett, the Democratic candidate for governor of Wisconsin. The Barrett supporters claimed they were not being given free airtime on WISN, whereas WTMJ and WISN frequently aired statements supporting Walker, the Republican candidate.

The FCC decided that while WISN and WTMJ had violated the Zapple Doctrine, it was not enforceable because of its ties to the Fairness Doctrine, which the commission eliminated in 1987.

Looking ahead in an election year

In April, O’Donnell of WISN interviewed Trump, then the presumed GOP presidential nominee, ahead of his rally in Green Bay. O’Donnell called himself the “officially Trump-endorsed host.”

Unlike Sykes’ hardball interview of Trump in 2016, O’Donnell, referring to the criminal indictments against Trump, asked how all of this “lawfare” against him has affected him and his family.

“I’m able to talk on shows like yours, which are very important shows. I’m able to talk about it,” Trump told O’Donnell of his criminal trials. “Because if I couldn’t talk about it … nobody would be able to explain that it’s a hoax.”

Share your views on talk radio

Talk radio still wields a lot of power and influence in Wisconsin politics, but the landscape is changing. Investigative journalism students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in partnership with Wisconsin Watch spent the spring 2024 semester reporting on those changes, resulting in a six-part series: “Change is on the Air.”

One piece missing from that series: the perspectives of radio listeners. Do you listen to talk radio in Wisconsin? Do you listen to both conservative and liberal voices, or do you stay in one media bubble? Do you listen to local or national programs? Or during your commute have you switched entirely to podcasts?

Share your thoughts on the state of talk radio in Wisconsin, and we may publish your response in a future part of our series. Send an email to: [email protected].