'Real insanity': Wisconsin election denier running for governor -- possibly with Trump's backing

A Wisconsin legislator described by one conservative columnist as the Republican Party's "craziest" is poised to run for governor.

State Rep. Timothy Ramthun (R-Campbellsport), who has alleged ties to QAnon conspiracists, has already been endorsed by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and is running on a platform of election scrutiny after working to undo Donald Trump's election loss in his state, reported the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and conservative columnist Charlie Sykes was alarmed.

"The GOP's craziest legislator is running for governor," Sykes wrote for The Bulwark.

"Wisconsin’s GOP has been tossing bits of red-meat to the MAGAverse in the hope that it will keep the real crazies under control," Sykes continued. "In an attempt to appease the MAGAverse, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos launched an expensive and pointless investigation of the 2020 election, headed by a former state Supreme Court Justice named Michael Gableman."

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The election "audit" has been hobbled by a fatally flawed premise and numerous missteps, but it hasn't satisfied Ramthun or other conservatives who baselessly insist Trump won the state over Joe Biden.

"I'm a servant of, by, and for the people who believes in truth, transparency, and integrity," says a message attributed to Ramthun on his newly launched campaign website. "I will call for an independent full forensic physical cyber audit for the November 2022 election, beginning with my race regardless of its outcome."

Ramthun's efforts to undo the election results caught Trump's attention in November 2020, according to Rolling Stone, to Rolling Stone, and the pair spoke by phone in early December of that year, and a recording shows the then-president offered to endorse his re-election campaign for the state Assembly or an even higher office, and the legislator pledged to pass a resolution to decertify the state's election results.

"You're my kind of guy," Trump told him.

Ramthun's pledge pleased Trump, but it has plunged the Wisconsin GOP into turmoil, and party leadership stripped him of his only staffer for “for lying about fellow GOP members and using taxpayer resources to put out political screeds," but that has only made the right-wing legislator more popular with MAGA diehards.

"For months now," Sykes wrote, "the Wisconsin GOP has tried desperately to keep the real insanity at bay — and by real insanity, I mean Timothy Ramthum."