great combination to get people really engaged as voters.
>> How will the U.S. Senate and congressional races shape up in
Wisconsin, and how will the top of the ticket inform those
elections? We turn to Trygve Olson, Wisconsin native, former
senior Republican advisor, and now with the anti-Trump
organization, The Lincoln for being here.
>> Yeah, thanks for having me. >> So you are a former GOP
advisor, but no more. Why not, >> you know, I still consider
myself, a conservative, but I don't really recognize the
Republican Party today. And I know Ronald Reagan used to say
that the Democratic Party had left him, I feel in many ways
like the Republican Party has left me. I had the chance coming
out of Wisconsin, to get to travel and work and live around
the world. And, you know, things like in places like Ukraine and
Russia with those fighting for democracy. And, you know, that
piece of the Republican Party has left that Reagan peace
through strength, sort of bipartisan. The Republican Party
is no longer that. So that was really a big piece of it for me.
>> So you know a lot about Wisconsin politics and
our electorate here that makes Donald Trump run so even in this
state, which elected a Democratic governor and one of
its U.S. senators. >> Yeah. So I think one of the
things that I say often to people when we talk about
Wisconsin, and I can tell you since, really since 2020, when
we founded the Lincoln Project and we, we started we've been
talking about Wisconsin a lot because it's ground zero. You
know, Wisconsin tends to be a right of slightly right of
center state, you have a lot of people. My best friends are all
a bunch of my buddies are all still up in River falls, and a
lot of them voted for Tony Evers and Ron Johnson. A lot of them
voted for Trump in 16 and voted for Biden in 20. And, a lot of
them will vote for Tammy Baldwin, some of them for some
of them, Tammy Baldwin is the first Democrat they ever voted
for. They tend to be, you know, traditionally more to the right
of center. They don't like a lot of government interference in
their lives. They don't want government telling them what
kind of shotgun they're going to own. Although more recently,
post Dobbs, quite frankly, the ones who have daughters don't
want some theocrat from the state legislature telling their
daughters what they can and can't do, so I just think it's
the nature of Wisconsin. I will say to you, though, one of the
things from from all my experiences traveling around the
world, I am glad that if the decision about what happens with
democracy in the United States is going to be made anywhere,
I'm glad it's going to be made with people in Wisconsin who
take that kind of thing very seriously.
>> As for the U.S. Senate race, of which we just spoke, what do
you make of Tammy Baldwin's >> Oh, you know, I mean, Tammy
Baldwin is probably, And granted, I'm partial since I
came out of Tommy Thompson world, I think she's the most
sort of organically talented politician we've had in the
state of Wisconsin since Tommy Thompson, you know, up where I'm
from, Tammy Baldwin has lots of support amongst Republicans and
sort of those right of center Evers Johnson voters who who
determine elections in the state in large part because she's out
there working constantly and quite frankly. And this might
this might embarrass Tammy Baldwin, but quite frankly, a
lot of the guys know that she came by Jonny's bar during a
Packer game and drank a beer with a bunch of them. Right.
What could be more Wisconsin politician than that? So, yeah,
I think Tammy Baldwin's prospects are pretty strong, you
know, and I think Eric Hovde is not only is he, maybe out of
step with the state of Wisconsin in terms of his politics being
too MAGA, but in addition to that, you know, I think you
know, people in Wisconsin catch somebody who's from the outside
and I just think he was he's been in in Orange County
probably too long to fully get it. Whereas no one's going to
question Tammy Baldwin being a wisconsinite.
does, Tammy Baldwin help Harris in this state and potentially
down ballot as well, >> I certainly think that she
can help Harris and the top of the ticket and quite frankly,
that's something you know, in my Lincoln project capacity, I
really end up spending a lot of time focused on four states,
Wisconsin being one of them, Michigan, Pennsylvania and
Arizona being the others, in all of those, you have Democratic
Senate candidates. Tammy Baldwin, probably the strongest
of the bunch, who are running ahead of the National Democratic
Party ticket, I think, in the last Marquette poll. You know,
Tammy might be a couple points ahead. I think what Tammy
Baldwin, Slotkin, Casey and Gallego, who are the Democrats
and the others? What they all represent is the ceiling, really
for Democrats, and so, you know, one of the things I was saying
to some reporters at the convention, I was getting asked
about a convention bounce because Harris Walls has had a
couple of, you know, has had weeks in terms of bounce, I
think there's still some room to grow in states like Wisconsin
because, you know, they can get closer. Harris Walls can get
closer to that 52 that Baldwin is at. I think that's the
ceiling. >> All right. Well, Trygve