Fox Valley Initiative (FVI) held its monthly public forum on December 1, 2025 at Freedom Project Academy in Appleton, hosting State Senator André Jacque and gubernatorial candidate Josh Schoemann.
Senator Jacque previewed the 2026 legislative and state-wide races, noting the impact of the 2024 gerrymandering of the district maps, which gives an advantage to Democrats in several races. The State Senate, which currently is at an 18–15 Republican advantage, may flip to Democrat control, with four expected competitive elections in 2026, three of those with the rigged maps favoring the left-sided candidate.
The State Assembly races, currently at 54–45 Republican, will feature five districts won by Republicans in 2024 even though Kamala Harris won more votes than Donald Trump in those districts on the same election day. Those five Assembly seats, along with one current Democrat seat, are expected to be very tight elections in 2026, so again flipping of the Assembly is possible.
The senator also gave his thoughts on the April 2026 state supreme court and November gubernatorial elections. He noted the mid-term elections are often tougher for the political party holding the office of the Presidency and discussed the influence of massive out-of-state money funding the Democrat candidates at all levels. Republican candidates, likely to be outspent, will need to win through organized grassroots, aggressive door-knocking, and other face-to-face voter contact.
Josh Schoemann reviewed his 12 years of experience on the Washington County Board of Supervisors, the last five as Executive (lead supervisor). Schoemann has an excellent record of reducing the number of county employees by 25% without any reduction of county services, while also reducing property tax mill rates to the lowest since World War I.
Schoemann has been campaigning statewide for five months and identified Affordability and Education as the main issues he consistently hears about from voters in his travels. He discussed specific ways to make home ownership available to young families, including through a reduction in the expensive over-regulations faced by homebuilders and subsidies (through loans) for the building of smaller, starter homes. Advocacy for universal school choice, reform of the UW system, election integrity, dismantling the Wisconsin Election Commission in favor of an elected position, and fixing roads were other priorities he reviewed.
Coming Up
FVI recently received 501c4 status and is changing its name to Fox Valley Conservatives (FVC). The mission of FVC is to inform and activate the voting public. The next monthly forum of FVC, on January 5, 2026, from 6:30–8:00 PM at the Freedom Project Academy in Appleton, will be dedicated to the Damascus Road Project.
The Damascus Road Project was founded in 2009 to battle the evils of sex trafficking. Damascus is committed to bring awareness through educating, restoring, and empowering the abused, and advocating for the prevention and abolition of sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. Sex trafficking is a bigger problem in the Fox Cities than most lay public understand: The public is encouraged to attend this important presentation to learn about the issue and what they can do to help diminish the problem.