WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) - The Latest on Wisconsin campaigns (all times local):
11 a.m.
Gov. Scott Walker is saying for the first time that he wants to enact the “exact same language” that’s in federal law at the state level guaranteeing insurance for people with pre-existing conditions.
Walker has previously supported a bill passed by the state Assembly, but not the Senate, that guaranteed coverage but was not as expansive as what is currently guaranteed under the federal Affordable Care Act.
Walker wants to repeal the federal law and authorized Wisconsin’s participation in a federal lawsuit seeking to strike it down.
But he told reporters on Thursday in Waukesha that he now wants to enact the same federal protection in Wisconsin.
A spokesman for Democratic challenger Tony Evers calls Walker’s statement a “desperate lie from a politician who is losing on the most important issue to voters: health care.”
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10:30 a.m.
Republican Gov. Scott Walker is urging his supporters to get out and vote as polls show him deadlocked with Democrat Tony Evers.
Both Walker and Evers were campaigning across the state on Thursday, just five days before the election.
Walker has long said this will be his toughest election yet, and he emphasized that Thursday in an interview with WTMJ-AM. Walker says being the same party as the sitting president in his first midterm election is a hurdle as is running for a third term. Only one other governor, Tommy Thompson, has been elected to a third four-year term in Wisconsin.
Walker says “if the facts are out to voters, we win the election. If the lies are out, we don’t.”
Evers argues that Walker has failed to lead on education, health care and infrastructure and eight years in office is enough.
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8:48 a.m.
Candidates for governor and U.S. Senate are blanketing Wisconsin as part of a final push to Tuesday’s election.
Republican Senate candidate Leah Vukmir was campaigning with House Speaker Paul Ryan and Gov. Scott Walker on a bus tour from Waukesha to Green Bay. Vukmir also had a stop planned with presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway in Appleton.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers is on his own bus tour through western and northern Wisconsin. Baldwin was campaigning in Marshfield, Mauston and Madison where she planned to cast her ballot.
Evers launched a new campaign ad Thursday emphasizing criticism of Walker from four of his former Cabinet secretaries.
A Marquette University Law School poll on Wednesday showed the governor’s race to be a dead heat and Baldwin leading Vukmir by double digits.
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