Doug Emhoff visit to Hmong festival in Wisconsin causes chaos — derided as partisan ploy
WATERTOWN, Wis. – Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff visited central Wisconsin on Saturday for a Hmong community festival that he planned to attend long before his wife, Vice President Kamala Harris, had assumed the mantle of the Democrat nominee for president.
Coincidentally, however, Emhoff dropped in right in the middle of Harris’ push to target Asian voters – particulary in the Hmong community, many of whom didn’t appreciate the second gent crashing their event to canvass.
Cory Tomczyk, a Republican state senator, told The Post that those he spoke with in the Hmong community were not pleased with the chaos and campaign paraphernalia Emhoff brought to the event.
“There was a huge backlog of people trying to get into the events,” said Tomczyk, who was at the festival manning the Republican booth.
Security checkpoints held up people for an hour trying to get to the flag football games and volleyball tournaments. Eventually, the crowd became fed up – and pushed past security.
“There was nothing the Secret Service could do,” Tomczyk noted. “Hundreds of people were in a line a street wide for a couple of blocks, on foot, waiting to get in because the Secret Service had the main gate shut down.”
Chaos wasn’t the only complaint. Others thought Emhoff’s visit was in poor taste, overshadowing culture with campaigning.
“It’s unfortunate that Mr. Emhoff decided to turn an important event honoring the sacrifices of Hmong veterans into a partisan campaign event,” said GOP Rep. Tom Tiffany, whose district includes Wausau, Wis., where Hmong Americans make up the town’s largest ethnic minority.
“If the Biden-Harris Administration really cared about the Hmong community they would be working day and night to reduce inflation and the cost of energy, secure our borders, and contain the threat posed by Communist China. Anything else is simply ineffective lip service meant to win votes,” he told The Post.
Still, Emhoff proceeded to pander to those in attendance.
“This community right here could decide the election in this state, which could decide the entire election,” Emhoff told festival-goers. “You have the power right here.”
Governor Tony Evers (D-Wis.) and Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) also attended the festival. The latter, who is in a tough re-election race this November, appeared to be there in her official capacity rather than to campaign.
It’s no surprise that Harris wants a piece of the Hmong vote in Wisconsin – they number 60,000 strong statewide, making up about 1% of the population.
Central Wisconsin is not exactly a blue stronghold for the Democrats. Marathon County, where Wausau is located, went for Trump in 2016 by over 18 points: 57% to Hillary Clinton’s 39%. Trump won the county by the same margin in 2020 against Biden.
In 2020 Democrats made a concerted effort to reach the Hmong vote, a strategy that the Harris campaign is building on using the VP’s South Asian heritage.
Republicans in the state have also built relationships with the community. Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker attended the first Hmong Wausau Festival in 2017.
In 2021, a Republican-led effort designated May 14 as Hmong-Lao Veterans Day in Wisconsin in recognition of Hmong fighters’ partnership with US forces during the Vietnam War.
This is the first year there was a Republican outreach booth at the festival and it was “very well received,” Tomczyk told The Post. He also said he brought ten Trump yard signs to the festival, not knowing how many would be wanted, and all of them were taken.
“I interacted with a lot of people,” Tomczyk said. “It’s our fault we’ve been absent from this festival,” noting the family values of the Hmong community that “align with Republican values.”
The Hmong community is the largest Asian racial group in the Badger State, comprising 33% of all Asian residents. Wisconsin also has the third largest Hmong population in the country, after Minnesota and California.
In April of this year, Evers signed into law a bill mandating the teaching of Hmong and Asian American history in public schools, inserting the language into existing law mandating the teaching of American Indian, Black and Hispanic histories.
The Hmong community is not one cohesive voting bloc, as business people and entrepreneurs in the community favor Republican policies, while others favor the Democrats’ social policies.
Memorably, Donald Trump’s administration faced a public backlash in 2020 when it was revealed they were in talks with the Laos government about deporting non-citizen and criminal Hmong and Lao residents back to the communist country.
