— Support for raising tariffs on Canadian goods increased in the latest Marquette University Law School Poll even as more respondents said they’re hurting Wisconsin farmers.
In the school’s final poll before next week’s election, 33% of surveyed registered voters said they support raising tariffs on Canada while 67% were opposed. In the previous poll, conducted about a month earlier, that split was 30-70.
But at the same time, the latest survey found a shift in respondents’ views on how tariffs are impacting farmers in the state.
Eight percent said they think tariffs are helping Wisconsin farmers while 70% said they’re hurting farmers, and 21% said they’re not making much of a difference. In the previous poll, 12% had said tariffs are hurting farmers while 65% said they’re helping them and 22% said there’s no difference.
Back in February, the difference was even greater with 17% saying tariffs help farmers and 55% saying they hurt, while 26% saw no difference.
Meanwhile, registered voters’ views on data centers were virtually unchanged from the prior poll with 75% saying their costs outweigh their benefits and just 24% saying the opposite.
In October of last year, the split was 55-44, even with additional language in that survey’s question referencing community opposition causing Microsoft to reverse course on a planned data center.
Perceptions of rising gas and grocery costs also remain stable between September and this month, with near-unanimous agreement that prices have either increased or stayed the same over the last six months.
In the latest survey, 92% of respondents said their gas prices have gone up while 5% said they stayed the same and 2% said they’ve gone down. On the same question for groceries, 85% said their costs have gone up in the last six months while 11% said they’ve stayed the same and 4% said they’ve gone down.
The poll also found dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump’s efforts to address inflation and the cost of living, which 48% of registered voters said was their most important issue this fall. Illegal immigration and border security was a distant second at 12%.
Just 19% said Trump’s policies will decrease inflation, while 67% think they’re driving it higher, and 16% said they’re better off than a year ago, matching last month’s number.
Poll Director Charles Franklin yesterday said the president has been getting more unpopular over the course of his second term, voters are turning more negative on the economy and there’s real doubt that Trump’s policies are addressing the most important issue facing voters.
The Marquette poll of 818 registered voters was conducted Oct. 14-22 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points. It included 668 likely voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points.
— A multi-billion dollar loan package from the U.S. Energy Department to Alliant Energy will help finance up to 1.6 gigawatts in new power from new natural gas-fired plants in Wisconsin.
It will also finance up to 240 megawatts of increased generation capacity at existing natural gas facilities, an Alliant spokesperson shared yesterday.
The loan package also includes financing for up to 1 gigawatt of battery storage, as well as up to 2 billion cubic feet of liquid natural gas storage.
The $5.1 billion loan package, announced yesterday morning, comes from the federal Energy Dominance Financing Program in the Office of Energy Dominance Financing.
That office previously focused on providing financial support for clean energy projects before its role shifted as part of the 2025 budget reconciliation bill passed by Republicans, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The loan was first proposed during the Biden administration as a $3 billion conditional loan, according to Reuters.
The 30-year loans will allow Alliant to bankroll projects at a lower interest rate than it will get from private lenders and refinance loans on existing projects, per the spokesperson.
The spokesperson named three projects that could benefit from the loans: an operational battery storage project in Grant County, a completed but not yet operational battery project in Sheboygan and a new liquid natural gas plant in Rock County that has received a construction permit from the Public Service Commission.
The utility says savings from these and other projects will save Wisconsin ratepayers some $400 million.
Alliant plans to add 356 megawatts of generation capacity via upgrades to existing natural gas plants and 475 megawatts of battery storage, according to the PSC’s draft 2026-2032 Strategic Energy Assessment. That does not include the Rock County and Grant County projects.
— Wisconsin has joined a group of 19 other states and the District of Columbia in suing the Trump administration over “efforts to weaken” financial crime laws, the state DOJ announced.
In a release yesterday, the state Department of Justice announced the coalition is filing suit over the U.S. Treasury Department exempting nearly all businesses from the federal Corporate Transparency Act. The law covers ownership disclosures for the purpose of helping law enforcement investigate fraud, money laundering and more.
Attorney General Josh Kaul slammed the rule from the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network or FinCEN, arguing the administration “should be stopped from gutting” the federal law.
“This rule makes it easier for criminals to get away with fraud, money laundering, and corruption,” he said in a statement.
The lawsuit targets a rule issued in August, after which FinCEN said it would delete existing ownership information already in the database, “potentially eliminating records that include evidence of unsolved crimes,” DOJ says.
Wisconsin and other plaintiffs argue FinCEN hasn’t followed proper procedure for setting the rule, while acting “arbitrarily and without a reasonable explanation” and failing to consult with other federal officials. They want the rule thrown out by the courts and to require the agency to keep operating the database.
— The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the state’s Eastern District announced the former owner of a long-term care facility has been sentenced to 28 months in federal prison for fraud.
The office says 49-year-old Lori Butts stole about $1.25 million from a Medicaid-funded program supporting residential care services for disabled residents while operating Lordan Care Adult Family Homes.
Between July 2019 and December 2020, Butts billed the program for work that was never provided, including for two workers that were meant to be providing “dedicated services” 24 hours a day to a single resident, according to the release. Caregivers did not provide the billed service.
At the same time, the facilities she operated were “severely understaffed and experienced frequent police contact,” the office notes. It says staffing levels were at times insufficient to address “volatile or inappropriate” conduct by residents.
Along with the prison sentence, U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller ordered Butts to pay the $1.25 million in restitution to the Medicaid program. In the Oct. 22 sentencing, the judge compared her healthcare fraud scheme to the “functional equivalent of grand larceny,” charging taxpayers for thousands of hours of caregiver time that wasn’t provided.
The sentencing followed an investigation by the FBA and the IRS Criminal Investigations unit.
In a statement on the case, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Brad Schimel said the U.S. Department of Justice is “laser focused on punishing” those who commit fraud against federal healthcare programs
“When the defendant stole this money, she took it from every American taxpayer and diverted it from individuals who needed help,” Schimel said.
For more of the most relevant health care news, reports on groundbreaking research in Wisconsin, links to top stories and more, sign up today for the free daily Health Care Report from WisPolitics and WisBusiness.com.
TOP STORIES
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TOPICS
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CONSTRUCTION
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EDUCATION
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ENVIRONMENT
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LEGAL
MANUFACTURING
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POLITICS
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REAL ESTATE
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RETAIL
– Green Bay Public Market readies revised project plan, loses county grant
SPORTS
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UTILITIES
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PRESS RELEASES
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