Jacque, Plumer win GOP primaries, advance to June 12 special elections

In an election they didn't want, Republicans ended up with a candidate who has long clashed with party leadership.

State Rep. André Jacque (R-De Pere) won a Republican Party primary for Senate District 1 on Tuesday night.

Jacque garnered 52% of the vote and defeated businessman Alex Renard in a tight race to advance to the June 12 special election. He'll face Democrat Caleb Frostman, the former executive director of the Door County Economic Development Corp.

The district includes all of Door and Kewaunee counties, and parts of Manitowoc, Brown, Outagamie and Calumet counties.

In Assembly District 42, karate school owner and Lodi Town Board member Jon Plumer easily won a four-way primary.

Plumer defeated Colleen Locke-Murphy of Poynette, Columbus Town Chairman Darren Schroeder and self-described "Trump conservative" Spencer Zimmerman of Janesville.

In the special election, Plumer will face Democrat Ann Groves Lloyd, a Lodi alderwoman and University of Wisconsin-Madison academic adviser, and independent Gene Rubenstein of Pardeeville.

The district includes most of Columbia County and covers parts of Dane, Dodge, Fond du Lac, Green Lake and Marquette counties.

The special elections were held to replace former Sen. Frank Lasee (R-De Pere) and former Rep. Keith Ripp (R-Lodi), who stepped down in December to take jobs in GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s administration.

Walker tried to leave the seats open, but in March ordered special elections after losing a string of court rulings that found he was required to do so. A group led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sued the governor.

The winners will hold the seats briefly and have to run again in the fall if they want to remain in the Legislature.

Jacque has long clashed with GOP leaders as he has pursued conservative causes. Some of those GOP leaders, in turn, backed Renard, the operations manager at his family's Renco Machine Co. in Green Bay.

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In 2015, Jacque helped advance a bill to eliminate the state’s prevailing wage law even though Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) insisted there weren’t enough votes to pass it. That law set minimum pay levels for those building roads, schools and other publicly funded projects.  

Later that year, lawmakers and Walker scaled back — but did not eliminate — the prevailing wage law. They fully repealed the law two years later.

Jacque has also battled with leaders over legislation to ban the use of aborted fetal tissue. GOP lawmakers were unable to pass legislation on the issue because of differences over how strict any limits should be.