After filing 4,000 nomination signatures with the Wisconsin Elections Commission, Kevin Nicholson challenged his fellow GOP gubernatorial candidates to a series of debates over the next two months, according to a press release from his campaign. The press releases quotes Nicholson as saying that beating Tony Evers will “require a nominee who is up to the challenge” and that “it’s time to publicly allow voters the chance to hear from each of the Republican candidates for Governor.” Nicholson then proposed that a series of debates be held in June, July, and August so “voters can decide who will best govern our state and can defeat Tony Evers this fall.”
The proposal from Nicholson’s campaign identified seven Wisconsin cities in which to hold the debates: Eau Claire, Green Bay, Hudson, La Crosse, Madison, Milwaukee, and Wausau. The campaign also recommended a series of criteria that candidates must meet to be eligible to participate in the debates including:
- Attaining official ballot status for the August 9th primary;
- At least 5% support in the most recent Marquette University Law School polling, or other publicly available non-candidate or non-candidate-affiliated statewide surveys meeting a C or better reliability rating from the polling website fivethirtyeight.com through June 30th;
- OR at least a 5% average in the previous two Marquette University Law School polls in 2022;
- OR total individual contributors of at least 5000 people through June 30th.
No public comment in response to the challenge by Nicholson has been made by Rebecca Kleefisch, Tim Michels, or Timothy Ramthun.
