MADISON – Republicans in key Wisconsin counties will hear from what would have been an unlikely visitor a few years ago: former Democratic congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard.
And she has not ruled out joining the Republican Party or serving in Republican former President Donald Trump’s administration if he wins the November election, according to interviews Thursday with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and conservative radio host Joe Giganti on “The Regular Joe Show.” .”
Gabbard, who served as vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2013 to 2016 and left the party in 2022, met with Dale Kooyenga, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, a Republican former state lawmaker, for lunch Thursday at the Milwaukee Athletic Club.
She will be in Brookfield on Friday for a lunch with the Republican Parties of Milwaukee County and Waukesha County, and later that evening in Windsor for a dinner with the Republican Party of Dane County.
“Clearly, Wisconsin is an incredibly important state in national politics, and a state with a very independent spirit, which I respect,” Gabbard told the Journal Sentinel.
Gabbard, who served as representative for Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District from 2013 to 2021, is promoting her book “For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind” and speaking out against the current direction of the political party. She has also been suggested as a potential running mate for Trump as he challenges Democratic President Joe Biden — whom she endorsed after ending her own 2020 bid.
When Gabbard was asked by the Journal Sentinel if she could see herself joining the Republican Party, especially if she were asked to join Trump, she said, “I’ll never say never,” but she resisted sticking of labels to her political identity.
“We need leaders, whether you are Democrat, Republican or independent, regardless of the political label that attaches to you, to put the interests of our country and the American people first,” she said.
In an interview on “The Regular Joe Show” the same day, host Giganti asked Gabbard if there was one thing she could do in a future Trump administration to serve the country in the best way possible.
“I think there are a few different ways I could serve – as secretary of state, secretary of defense – and there are a few different ways I think I could best serve our country. Ultimately, we have to save our country and win this. I look forward to finding the best way to do that.”
The U.S. Army Reserve officer left her post at the DNC to support independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for president in 2016. Sanders is in talks with the Democrats in the Senate.
“The basic message really is that there are a lot of different partisan debates happening on different issues. It’s okay to agree on things that disagree. I think one of the things that I have found discouraging, at least in my experience in the National Democratic Party, is how little dissent there is anymore and how what was once a big open tent party has now become a party that adheres to holds the line,” Gabbard said, adding that she sees people in both parties turning inward and shutting out people they disagree with.
The “most fundamental common ground” that all Americans should recognize, she said, is the U.S. Constitution and the rights it provides.
Wisconsin is one of just a handful of contested states that will decide the next presidential election, and recent polls show Biden and Trump locked in a close race in the battleground state where statewide races are often decided by just a few thousand votes.
Democrats dismissed Gabbard’s visit as an effort to sell books and support Trump.
“Since leaving Congress, Tulsi Gabbard has made it clear where she stands: She’s backing extreme Republican candidates like Kari Lake, she’s drawing praise from MAGA believers like Steve Bannon, and now she’s in Wisconsin selling books at Republican fundraisers behind closed doors. Democratic Party of Wisconsin spokesman Joe Oslund said in a statement. “It makes sense that Tulsi Gabbard is on Trump’s list for vice president – if given the chance, she would carry out the same attacks on our freedom that Trump threatens every day.” Gabbard’s visit comes as Democrats are set to gather in Milwaukee for the state party’s annual convention this weekend, and just over a month before the city hosts the Republican National Convention.
She said she believes there are more undecided voters up for grabs than people realize: “disenfranchised” members of the two major parties, along with “politically homeless” independents and libertarians.
The message she hopes to convey to those voters is that it is “time for us to come together again around our fundamental freedoms and rights enshrined in the Constitution.”
“It’s unconscionable to me, and I say this as a soldier of 20 years and a veteran who has deployed to multiple war zones around the world: freedom is something that unfortunately too many people here in this country take for granted,” Gabbard said. “If you don’t like the choices before you in this election, we must come together as Americans to stop those who are directly undermining these basic freedoms.”
Jessie Opoien can be reached at jessie.opoien@jrn.com.
This article originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ex-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard meets with Wisconsin GOP groups
