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Wisconsin Republican governor candidate Kevin Nicholson says Biden won “messy, sloppy, messed up election”

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FILE - (LEFT) President Donald Trump gestures while speaking during the second and final presidential debate Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky). (RIGHT) Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden answers a question during the second and final presidential debate Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, Pool)

PEWAUKEE, Wis. (AP) — Republican candidate for governor Kevin Nicholson said he believes President Joe Biden won Wisconsin in the 2020 election, after earlier dodging the question.

Nicholson told a story Wednesday that he thought Biden had won without naming him directly.

“He’s declared the winner,” Nicholson said on WDJT-TV in Milwaukee. “I believe he won a messy, sloppy, messed up election.”

Last week, when asked during another interview whether Biden had won, Nicholson did not directly answer the question.

“I think the 2020 election was a mess,” Nicholson said then. “It was a stinky, smelly mess. … So out of this heaping mess, ballot harvesting and all this other stuff that happened, Joe Biden was declared the winner. And that’s the way it is.”

His campaign spokeswoman Courtney Mullen said Nicholson’s position on the election has been clear and his comments in the interview were being twisted.

“Kevin has made it clear, Joe Biden has been declared the winner of a messy election that was improperly conducted in 2020,” Mullen said.

Biden won Wisconsin by just under 21,000 votes, an outcome that’s been confirmed following recounts, lawsuits and reviews.

Other Republican candidates for governor, former Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch and state Rep. Timothy Ramthun, are questioning whether Biden won.

Kleefisch said five months ago that Biden won the state, but backed off that in recent interviews saying she is withholding judgement until after an ongoing Republican investigation into the election has concluded. Ramthun has gone the farthest, trying unsuccessfully to rescind Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes that were awarded to Biden after he won the state.

Also on Thursday, Nicholson told Wisconsin Republican Party leaders that he would not participate in its endorsement process. The state party votes on who to endorse at its annual state convention in May, a designation that provides the winner with funding and other backing from the state party.

Nicholson is running as an outsider candidate and branding Kleefisch, who served eight years as lieutenant governor under Gov. Scott Walker, as an insider.

Nicholson said in a letter to the party’s endorsement committee that he does not believe in the practice, which he said favors GOP insiders, fractures the party rather than unifying it. He encouraged them not to endorse anyone.

Mark Jefferson, executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party, declined to comment.

Nicholson, a businessman and former U.S. Marine, ran for U.S. Senate in 2018 and lost the party endorsement. Leah Vukmir, who won the endorsement, lost the election to U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

As he did in 2018, Nicholson said he would support whoever wins the Republican primary in the race for governor.

Host of WIZM's La Crosse Talk PM | University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point graduate | Hometown: Greenville, Wis | Avid noonball basketball player and sand volleyballer in La Crosse

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