Report: Turning Point USA attempted to influence UW-Madison elections

Nick Roll
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 17:06:20 +0000
Campus, National, featured, tpusa, turning point, turning point usa, usg elections

Conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA provided material support to two students who won their student government elections at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, according to a report in The Daily Cardinal, the student newspaper.

The report comes after a February Lantern article detailed an effort by TPUSA to put money into a campaign running in Undergraduate Student Government elections at Ohio State. The leaked audio and text messages from TPUSA staff that The Lantern’s article was based on also mentioned efforts to influence elections across the country.

In both articles, the respective campus chapters of TPUSA said they weren’t involved.

TPUSA provided and designed fliers and yard signs for two candidates at UW-Madison, Maxwell Goldfarb and Dylan Resch, according to The Daily Cardinal. Similar to elections at OSU, there were no bylaws explicitly against organizations supporting student-government candidates, although TPUSA’s involvement at OSU raised questions regarding campaign-finance bylaws and overspending.

“I don’t think I had a formal endorsement, but I’ve definitely been in contact with them,” Goldfarb told The Daily Cardinal about TPUSA’s Campus Leadership Project, which is a program separate from TPUSA’s college chapters. “They were just like, ‘We really appreciate what you’re doing and would love to support you in any capacity that we can.’”