stiffer sentence. Steil Dugan is expecting to
appeal the conviction. And then there were five. This
week, one of the six Democrats running for
governor dropped out of the race. Milwaukee County
Executive David Crowley announced he would no
longer seek the position, saying it has become clear
that I will not be the Democratic nominee for
governor. After being outpaced by other
candidates, he threw his support to Lieutenant
Governor Sarah Rodriguez, also still in the race.
Francesca Hong, Mandela Barnes, Kelda, Roys and
Joel Brennan. This week's Inside Wisconsin politics
took up changes in the primary campaigns for
governor. >> Now we're down to five.
Zac is it's still crowded, or is this race shifted to
you in a meaningful way? >> I think the crowd. It
depends more on the lanes of what we're talking about.
I think there's clearly a progressive lane. There's
clearly a more establishment center,
government lane. And then there's a question of if
there's room in between for any of the rest of them to
kind of stake their own area, or if they're
competing for those two groups. But there clearly
is this sense, as the two candidates have dropped out,
that have now endorsed Sara Rodriguez, that there is an
establishment going on and that fits this national
theme that we're seeing of establishment Dems worrying
about progressive Dems potentially undermining
chances to win seats in November, versus
progressives who are saying, no, we are the ones that
are going to win these primaries and win in
November, get behind us as we keep going forward. So
there's definitely a shrinkage there, but it's
almost a shrinkage into lanes as opposed to these
individual candidates. >> How do you see those
lanes? I mean, I think just a few weeks ago, I was kind
of having a hard time putting the candidates into
different lanes or buckets, however you want to do it.
What are the lanes now as you see it?
>> Yeah, I think Zac sort of hit the nail on the head
with establishment versus progressive. And one way
that we're seeing that is when these candidates are
dropping out, that they are endorsing other candidates.
There's a world in which you drop out and you say, I
love my party and I all I want is for a Democrat to
win. And David Crowley did that kind of initially in
his original announcement that he was stepping down.
He didn't immediately endorse anyone. He said,
the most important thing is just that somebody beats
Tom Tiffany in the fall and then this morning came out
and endorsed Sara Rodriguez. So I think that's a sign
that people are kind of choosing teams and trying
to say, who do I think is the best ability for
Democrats to win in November? Is it the sort of
Hong progressive lane? Is it the Rodriguez, more sort
of establishment? Lane? >> Nobody that I've heard
has come out and said, well, we got to stop Francesca
Hong, you know, but we've seen this debate that
you've referenced at the national level where you
have sort of the national establishment, Democrats
fighting against this, you know, Democratic Socialist
caucus that's growing. Is there an unspoken we got to
stop Francesca Hong in all this, or are we making that
up? Are we looking for conflict where there is
none here in Wisconsin? >> I don't think it'd be
wise for anyone to say that out loud from the
Democratic Party, because there's a very good chance
that Hong can win this, and then they have to unite
behind her. So that is the the other half of this game
is you can drop out and you can endorse someone that
you would prefer, but then you still want to create a
sense of party unity that that is still the goal is
for the Democrats in their minds, is to beat Tom
Tiffany. And whether that is Francesca Hong or
whether that's Sara Rodriguez or Mandela Barnes
or Brennan or Roys or anyone that's still in this
race at this point. They have to worry about that in
the long run. So in the short run, we're not seeing
some of the disunity of attacking each other. That
was a potential with a more crowded race. There's still
time. There's still million dollar ad buys coming up.
Kelda Roys just announced an hour ago that she's got
1.2 million that she's going to announce, and
she's going to spend every last penny of it. She's not
going to drop out of this race. And she has a history
in some of these big competitive elections of
towards the end. So I don't think it's going to be all
quiet and rosy from from here until August. There's
going to be some fireworks going to be some fireworks