MADISON, WIS. (AP) – Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels defended his ties to Wisconsin, saying Monday that he still votes and spends most of his time in the state after a published report revealed his vast East Coast properties and that his children attend high school there.
Michels went on the radio to respond to a report on the conservative Wisconsin Right Now website detailing more than $ 30 million of properties Michels bought in New York and Connecticut between 2015 and 2020. The report also shows that children they attended and graduated from high school on the East Coast between 2013 and 2021.
Michels is running for a four-party Republican race for governor. The winner of the August 9 primary will face Democrat Tony Evers.
Michels, who ran for governor last week, said in an interview Monday with conservative radio host Dan O’Donnell that he has lived in Wisconsin at least 183 days a year to maintain a residence, both for voting and paying taxes. He has lived in New York for most of 2015 and paid taxes there that year, he said.
Michels has paid more than $ 11.2 million in personal income taxes in Wisconsin over the past 10 years, including $ 7.8 million over the past five years, his campaign said.
To run for governor, a candidate must be a qualified Wisconsin voter. Records maintained by the Wisconsin Electoral Commission show that Michels has voted regularly in Wisconsin over the past decade, including both in person and absent.
Michels said the only time he had voted absent was to release the ballot early from Wisconsin.
“I have never sent the newsletter in the mail from another state,” he said.
Michels said his family decided to buy a property in New York after his construction business Michels Corp. won a $ 201 million subway contract there in 2013. This project ended in 2016.
“We did the right thing for our family,” Michels said. “I did the right thing for the company. But I’ve always been a Wisconsin. I go where debt demands, where things are difficult. ”
Michels highlighted her roots in Wisconsin at an event he said was right on the street from where he grew up in Dodge County. He still owns a home in Hartland, Wokesha County, and uses that address to vote. In 2020, Michels bought a home for $ 17 million in Greenwich, Connecticut, and still owns the penthouse in Manhattan, which he bought in 2015 for $ 8.7 million.
“We could probably move back a few years ago,” Michels said in a radio interview, but he said they did not want to disrupt their daughter’s last year in high school. She graduated from high school in New York in 2019, according to a report by Wisconsin Right Now.
Michels also mentioned that his son, who is now a freshman in Dartmouth, was a racing sailor in high school and was the best in college.
“There are a lot of competitive voyages on the East Coast in Connecticut, some would say the most competitive, and it worked out,” Michels said. “He was, maybe, I don’t think anyone could drill a hole in him, one of the top three rookies in the country last year.”
Michels Corp. won another $ 100 million project in Brooklyn after the subway project was completed, which also required it to be very much in place, Michels said. He did not say whether the project was ongoing and whether he continued to divide his time between Wisconsin and the East Coast. His campaign spokesman Chris Walker said he was investigating.
“I am the person on the ballot. “I’m the one running for governor because I can’t take it anymore,” Michels said in a radio interview. “Anyone trying to portray my family as something other than really hard-working Wisconsin people is just politics.
Add Comment