Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, credited President-elect Donald Trump for the historic Republican growth in Wisconsin’s Assembly majority alongside Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, Wednesday.
Steineke and Vos are among state GOP leaders to embrace Tuesday’s election results with a unifying tone.
“There’s no question President-elect Trump brought a whole new group of people into the process,” Steineke said. “These are people who haven’t voted in years, if not decades. Donald Trump was able to connect with them in a way no
Steineke noted the party hadn’t seen anything like the resulting 62-37 majority since the Supreme Court decided on the “One Person, One Vote” doctrine, which requires district lines to be drawn based on population.
Steineke initially opposed Trump at the beginning of his campaign. Following the election, he told reporters he is “absolutely” accepting of the president-elect.
“I’m excited about our prospects moving forward, especially when we have a speaker like Paul Ryan who shares a lot of similar ideas and similar goals,” Steineke said.
He said he hopes empowering legislators at the state level is a focus of the Trump administration in its first 100 days.
Vos said Trump being on the ticket was “a help,” but focused more on the success of state Legislature itself as reasoning for Republican gains.
“I also want to give credit to the legislature as a whole and the candidates who were running because they had a good record to run on,” he said. “When people made promises, they weren’t a typical politician making a hollow promise. They were people who said they were going to do things and did.”
After winning 45 Assembly seats in Tuesday’s election, Republicans hold the largest majority over Democrats since the 1950s.
