Politics

The Democratic Candidate Taking On Scott Walker Is Being Accused Of Plagiarism

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Jason Hopkins Immigration and politics reporter
Font Size:

Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers, the state’s education superintendent, is being accused of submitting budget requests that plagiarized other work.

The issue surfaced Friday, hours before Evers and GOP Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker were due to participate in their first debate. Walker’s team released passages from Evers’ September budget plan that revealed numerous paragraphs to be identical, or nearly identical, to work previously written by a think tank intern, Wikipedia and other sources.

Evers’ September budget request included a 15-paragraph section that was nearly verbatim to a 2016 blog post by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and authored by an intern. One section was closely identical to a post by the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability. Another section appeared to be a straight copy and paste from a Wikipedia article. (RELATED: MSNBC Incorrectly Calls Scott Walker The Governor Of Vermont)

Walker’s campaign was able to catch the matching words using software specifically designed to locate instances of plagiarism.

Now, Walker’s campaign team has revealed more examples of plagiarism from Evers’ past budget proposals.

According to documents released on Sunday, the GOP has found at least three other instances where Evers’ submitted plagiarized work. In one glaring example, the Democrat’s budget proposal contained a four-paragraph section that was nearly verbatim to a national policy group — the only difference was that Evers’ submission changed the word “students” to “pupils.” Additionally, Evers’ most recent budget proposal included a passage that taken verbatim from previous work and was not properly cited.

Walker roasted his Democratic opponent on Sunday after the new plagiarism allegations were revealed.

However, Evers’ team has pushed back on the allegations, saying that Walker is “grasping at straws” as he battles a close re-election battle.

“[Walker] is grasping at straws because he can’t defend his record of cutting $800 million from Wisconsin’s public schools, undermining protections for people with pre-existing conditions and always putting his special interest backers first,” Sam Lau, an Evers campaign aide, said in a statement. “That’s what’s important to voters.”

Both Inside Elections and Real Clear Politics rate the Wisconsin gubernatorial race as a “toss up.”

Follow Jason on Twitter.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel