A new leader for the city's violence prevention efforts and the GOP sets their sights on Wisconsin's 3rd District

Mayor Cavalier Johnson taps Ald. Ashanti Hamilton to lead the Office of Violence Prevention as former director slams firing

• Ald. Ashanti Hamilton will take over for Arnitta Holliman, who was fired by Johnson after facing months of questions about the effectiveness of her office. Holliman on Monday spoke out for the first time since losing her job, saying she had been unfairly maligned and calling her termination "unwarranted."

• The Office of Violence Prevention, housed within the city's Health Department, was created in 2008 and has dramatically changed in the past decade. Once a one-person office that focused primarily on gun policy issues, the Office of Violence Prevention now has a staff of 15 and a budget of more than $4 million. It coordinates community-based organizations and efforts addressing the root causes of violence.

• Hamilton will be the office's fourth director and the second to come from a political background. In contrast, Holliman and Moore both had years of experience of direct service work. Holliman is a trained psychologist and served as director of a program to help women engaged in sex work lead safer and healthier lives. Moore founded the Center for Youth Engagement and co-founded Urban Underground, which provides youth mentoring, before taking the post at City Hall.

Republicans focus on Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District as they seek to control the US House

• The GOP sees the seat held by retiring Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Kind as among its best chances to flip as Republicans push to take control of the House in November. And before last week's primary set the matchup between Donald Trump-backed retired Navy SEAL Derrick Van Orden and Democratic State Sen. Brad Pfaff, outside groups had already taken notice. The National Republican Congressional Committee has reserved a total of $2.16 million in ad buys in the La Crosse and Wausau media markets. The Congressional Leadership Fund, aligned with the House GOP leadership, reserved $722,700 worth of ads. House Majority PAC, Democrats’ largest outside group for congressional campaigns, reserved $1.68 million in TV and digital ads of their own — putting $780,000 into the La Crosse media market and $900,000 into Wausau.

• Sabato's Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political newsletter based at the University of Virginia, rates the race as “lean Republican.” So does The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. “A lot of people look at it as kind of low-hanging fruit for the Republicans in this election,” said Kyle Kondik, Crystal Ball’s managing editor. “Because in this kind of political situation and environment, this is the sort of seat that usually flips.”

• “There’s sort of a political realignment that’s been going on,” Kondik said. “For as much as Democrats are gaining in highly-educated suburban areas, they’ve been losing ground in more working class places. I think Wisconsin Three classifies as that.” But that’s not to say the race is a foregone conclusion. Pfaff grew up on a dairy farm just north of La Crosse, and he worked for both Kind and Democratic U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl and served with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency in the Obama Administration. Pfaff was also Gov. Tony Evers’ former agriculture secretary. Pfaff and other Democrats across Wisconsin have slammed Van Orden for being in Washington, D.C., during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Pfaff has also attacked Van Orden’s temperament, often pointing out things like his confrontation with a teenage library worker in Prairie du Chien over an LGBTQ book display. Van Orden, who served in the military for 26 years, has cast himself as a political outsider, going after Pfaff as a career politician and tying him to President Joe Biden.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: A new leader for the city's violence prevention efforts