so that big budget deal that got voted down in the
Wisconsin legislature. Turns out it's really
popular. What can we make of that finding? In the
latest poll by Marquette University? And Tom,
Tiffany has the Republican field largely to himself as
he runs for governor. We talk about his approach.
This is inside Wisconsin politics.
I'm Shawn Johnson here with my colleagues,
Zac Schultz Anya van
Wagtendonk and Rich Kremer in Eau Claire. Hey,
everyone. >> So we have used the word
rare to describe this budget surplus deal more
than once in the last few weeks. I mean, it's rare to
see a Democratic governor and Republican leaders come
together to negotiate something like this in an
election year. Rare to see this kind of bipartisan
opposition kind of backstabbing after the vote.
Rich, I'd say it's rare to see this kind of a poll
from Marquette University, where you have such
lopsided support in favor of any issue. What did
Marquette find? >> So they found that among
the 454 Wisconsin residents that they surveyed, 80%
said that the legislature should have passed the
surplus spending deal. And what's really striking, to
your point, is that when you break that down by
partisanship, the numbers don't vary that much. Among
Republicans, it was 77% who said that it should have
passed. Independents 81%. Democrats 80%. So that is a
I mean, that's a strong majority of people cutting
across all partisan demographics who wanted to
see this thing get passed. And the poll also asked
questions about, you know, are you going to remember
this in the fall? ET cetera. ET cetera. And some people
said they will. And it's just really fascinating. I
talked to Charles Franklin, who's Marquette's pollster,
and he said he wanted to do this poll, which is
different than others, because it was really
interesting to him to see the bipartisan birth of
this legislation and the bipartisan death of it. So
he wanted to see where the public stood.
>> When you saw those numbers come out, Zac Ana,
what stood out to you? I mean, to me, I think the
obvious top line number 4 or 5 is, is sort of eye
popping. I would not have imagined that level of
support for any bill that comes out of Wisconsin
legislature. there are two things that
jumped out at me. The first is we talked about it from
the very beginning. This was the definition of a
bipartisan bill that the public has repeatedly said
they want their lawmakers to do. And two, this is why
we do not legislate by referendum. The public will
always support something that gives them money, no
matter the fiscal complications down the road.
And they hate nuance. Most people in the state just
want things done in a sane fashion. They don't like to
get into the details of what will it mean for the
structural deficit in two years that they're worried
about their gas tank today? So it's not. If anything,
it's surprising there weren't more people that
wanted this deal done closer to 90% because it
looked like a win win for everybody. But it is those
little nitty details that the Democrats and some
Republicans jumped on to say why this didn't get
passed. >> Ana how about you? I
mean, to me, this finding sort of puts the way that
people reacted to this bill in kind of a new light. You
know, I remember asking you last week, why would some
Democrats not want to come out against this when other
Democrats are. Well, maybe we have a pretty good
answer here. >> Well, yeah, I think, you
know, we've talked about it as a messaging tool as well.
And there is to Zac's point, there's like the
nuanced messaging and the unnuanced messaging. And
one of those is more is easier to resonate with
voters. And so you can kind of say, do you want money
in your pocket or not? Do you want money for your
schools or not? And most people, I think, are going
to say, yes, I would like money in my pocket. I would
like money in my schools having the more complicated
messaging. You know, the opponents of the deal are,
are the ones who are going to really have their work
cut out for them because they have to kind of prove
a negative and say, well, but if we had done this,
there would have been this deficit. We would have had
to live under, you know, austerity measures going
forward. That's a much more complicated thing than, do
you want 300 bucks in your bank account or not?
>> Yeah, I will say that when I saw this poll, my
immediate thought was, well, you didn't tell them about
the other side of this, that if you do this thing,
you're going to blow a $2.9 billion hole in the budget.
Actually, the Marquette did ask about that, rich. They
they said in so many words, you know, that this could
create budget issues down the road. And, you know, do
you really want to do this now? And the public said.
>> They said, we don't care. I mean, they might care,
but they said that we still think that it would be
better to get this money to schools and to ourselves in
the form of property tax relief and rebate checks,
$300 for single adults and tax filers and 600 for
married couples. So they said it'd be better now
than next year, even considering the potential
for a nearly a $3 billion budget deficit going into
the next state budget. And I also wanted to mention
that it has been really interesting seeing the
opposition. Almost every major candidate in the race
for governor was against it. Tom Tiffany on the
Republican side and on the Democratic side, the only
Democrat who came out and said we should be
supporting this is former Wisconsin Economic
director, CEO Missy Hughes. And so after the vote
failed and especially after this poll came out, she
said, see, you know, this is why, you know, I want to
get things done. People want to get things done. So
it's going to be interesting to see what, if
any, ads, campaign attack ads come from this because
essentially, you know, Tiffany would have to say
they didn't pass the thing that I didn't support or
vice versa, you know? So it'll be really interesting
to see if it if it plays into the campaigns much.
>> I also wonder if this was just another window
into an issue that we already know is, is big and
that is the cost of living. People feel that cost of
living. And when you ask them, would you like a
little help might sound like a little in terms of
the state budget and 300 bucks, you know, you can
say that's not going to solve all their problems,
but the answer is a resounding yes when you ask
that question. >> Well, it's the number
one issue that people have been talking about for more
than a year now. Affordability has been an
issue. It was an issue in the 24 presidential
campaign. So in some ways, it's surprising that all
these major candidates dropped the ball. And,
Shawn, I'll turn around the point that Rick brought and
brought back to you, which is it seems like a lot of
these major candidates other than Missy Hughes
have flubbed their chance to have themselves a really
nice issue to campaign on in the fall. If there's
anyone that would take back their opposition, do you
think there's 1 or 2 candidates that would be
better off if they'd been supportive?
>> Maybe. Maybe. I think for Democrats, they have to
focus on winning that primary. And so in the
moments after this thing was made public, they had
to decide what is the left position and how close do I
want to get to that? And they made those
calculations. You know, I think in hindsight, seeing
an 80% issue, maybe you would want to be on the
side of the 80%, especially when Democrats and
independents basically feel the same way about that
stuff. I think it's an open question, though, about
whether or not when we've talked about this before,
but whether or not they'll pay the price for this in
November, I should say, you know, voters were asked
about that Rich and whether or not they'll be thinking
about this as they vote in November. How important is
it to them? Would they say they're.
>> So 73% of the respondents said that this
you know, where candidates stood on this. Them
opposing this legislation will be either somewhat or
very important to them come November. And I asked
Charles Franklin about this, you know, because in in our
world in November, might as well be three years away in
terms of how fast things can change on the campaign
trail. And he said, well, people might not remember
individual votes on this specific bill, but to
Zac's point, Franklin said that cost of living
affordability, property taxes, school funding have
been and will likely continue to be top of mind
for them. >> Yeah, I'm tempted to say
I don't believe you voters. You know, something else is
going to come along between now and November. But still,
that is a pretty overwhelming finding from
people right now saying, yeah, I'm going to remember
this. How about the candidates for governor
specifically, though? Because that was one where
I thought the findings were a little squishier more.
This is more the Wisconsin I know when people are
presented with this idea of whether or not they thought
it was wrong for Tom Tiffany to take a stand
against this, or for other Democratic candidates to
take a stand against this as more as closer to 50/50.
Right. You had it seems like Democrats and
Republicans may be willing to give their candidate the
benefit of the doubt. If you hear the right
messaging between now and November on you.
>> Yeah. You know, one of the sort of upsetting
truths for those of us who really care about facts and
details in the public, you know, media world is that
voters don't really care about those things, right?
They care about sort of feeling heard and feeling
considered. And so one of the things that candidates
need to do right now is present, that they take
people's concerns seriously. They take the affordability
concerns seriously, they take the school funding
concerns seriously. And the kind of details of it are a
lot less important to your everyday voter. And so how
do you kind of message that in a way that makes people
feel heard and understood enough to want to check
that box at the ballot box, rather than kind of getting
into some of this infighting around the
capital by which it could have or could have not
occurred. >> I think you've brought
up a really important element, and that is that
feeds into the cynicism of some people out there. And
the question for every midterm is turnout.
Presidential elections will always have high turnout
just because there's so much attention. Midterms,
the candidate success rises and falls with who shows up
and which party can get their people out. So if
there are voters, independents, or moderates
on either side who feel like they're not being
heard by their politicians because both sides, all the
candidates in front of them, said, no, I'd rather do it
my way later on. You don't need anything right now.
You can just wait. That may feed into them saying, well,
forget it, I'm just going to tune out. None of you
deserve my vote. And that could impact turnout. Who
were those voters more likely to be persuadable?
By which side could they have gone to if they vote
at all? That is a big factor. When you see the
potential of this midterm with wave elections and
people feeling upset and angry, some of them just
tune out and they are votes that are not even counted
at all because they never show up.
of the candidates for governor in a little more
detail here. Tom Tiffany had a forum in Madison on
the day that this poll came out. So it was a few hours
after the the poll had been out there. Essentially,
he'd seen the answers to the test by then, and he
knew where the public stood on this issue. Tom Tiffany
was asked Ana at this forum, you know, do you stand by
your comments earlier that you oppose this deal? What
did he have to say? >> He stands by those. But
again, you know, like needing to thread that
needle of. But yes, I want to fund schools. Yes, I
think that people need more money in their pockets. I
just don't think that this was the right deal for that.
And so again, he got kind of squishy on details. So
he talked about he believes basically every penny of
the surplus needs to go back into people's pockets.
This would have obviously split the the surplus
between school funding and some of those rebates. And
then things like no tax on tips. He then didn't really
have a proposal for how he would return that money to
the taxpayers, and he didn't really have details
on how he would then boost school funding, because, of
course, that is the other kind of half of the deal.
But he said he really cares about that. And, you know,
stay tuned for his first budget as governor. So it
was a way of, I think, trying to thread that
needle of I didn't support it because it didn't do
enough for you, the voter vote for me and I'll make
it happen. I will find a way to balance the budget
and find a way to put money in your pockets.
projected surplus as at this forum?
Madison math to try to to if there was going to be a
deficit because of how you spend money, that that is
Madison math. And he's going to do sort of family
checkbook math, which is how you balance a budget.
So again, a lot of sort of talking points, not a lot
of specifics. terms of the Madison math
versus the family math, it is, it is basically like
assuming your family is not going to get a raise in the
next couple of years. And this is what would happen
if you didn't, you would run out of money at this
forum hosted by WisPolitics in Madison, Tom Tiffany was
also given an open invitation to show where he
disagrees with President Donald Trump. One of those
questions was about whether he'd support this $1.8
billion pot of money that Trump's administration has
dubbed the Anti Weaponization Fund. That's
the one the Democrats worry could be used to compensate
people like the January 6th defendants. Here's what Tom
Tiffany had to say. >> So I'm still studying
the details in regards to that. I haven't I'm asking
the administration to give us more as far as how
exactly they expect to implement this. I'd say one
of the just one thought that I have in regards to
it is that, you know, maybe some people are due
compensation. >> So, Zac, this is a 5050
state. And Tom Tiffany has the luxury of not running
in a big competitive Republican primary right
now. One could argue that this would be a chance for
him to say, this is where I differ from the president.
Why didn't we hear that from him?
>> Because he really hasn't differed from the president
on most issues since the president has come into
power. And since Tom Tiffany's been in Congress,
they've been very closely associated. And that's not
just Tom Tiffany's personal belief. That's him
representing his congressional district. The
seventh is the most Maga red of all the Republican
districts throughout the state. So, yes, there's a
political logic that comes with, well, he doesn't have
a Republican primary to worry about. So he already
has Trump's endorsement, the party's endorsement, so
he can afford to split from Trump. It's not the same as
some of these primaries we've seen around the
country, where everyone's desperately clinging to try
and get Trump to give him their blessing so they can
win a primary. He's already got that. So I think this
clearly shows and his prior statements in a lot of
these similar issues about the 2020 election and
election fraud and conspiracies clearly shows
this is who he is, and this has been who he is all
along in Congress. This really isn't any different
from the Tom Tiffany we've been covering for all these
years. I think there may be some Republicans who wish
it was different, because now he's in a more
widespread political spotlight and the little
higher stakes with the gubernatorial election. But
it's not really a change from who he's always been
rich. >> We've had the benefit of
a few days since that forum, but he was he covered a lot
there in this forum by WisPolitics. What were some
people in his own party saying about how that went
for him, and kind of how he maneuvered around these
questions. >> So through my trolling
of social media trolling. Its research, trolling is
something else. That's right. Research. I, I saw a
few conservatives, Republicans, and even one
conservative website say this was an unforced error.
He doesn't he shouldn't be talking about 2020. He
needs to talk about the future and what he's going
to do, and also to the surplus bill and his
opposition to that, they said. A lot of people said
that was another unforced error. And, you know,
there's this race on to for every candidate to define
themselves before they're defined by the other party.
So some Republicans think that Tiffany needs to do a
better job of that. >> Ana one thing that stood
out to you, I remember when we were talking about what
went on at this forum is you said he basically
covered a lot of ground and said very little about the
details. Would that be an accurate summation of what
you saw? >> I think that's right.
And, you know, to be clear, it's not unusual for a
politician in an election year to kind of go broad
strokes, big picture and not necessarily settle on
the details. But I think, again, it speaks to this
thing that we've been talking about, this whole
show about how do you kind of land a message without
getting caught up in these details? And I wonder to
what extent, because he doesn't have to distinguish
himself in a primary the way that the Democratic
candidates do, whether he just kind of wants to
appeal to people who just want a more conservative
person in office, people who, you know, for whom his
sort of Northwoods background is more
appealing and, and is maybe relying on some level of
infighting from the Democrats. And therefore,
he doesn't really need to make a case in that
traditional sense. He doesn't need to explain in
great detail how he would balance that budget. He can
kind of go a little bit on on vibes and hope that
that'll carry him through November.
Madison, he has that luxury. I did check before we
recorded today, and he has a couple campaign ads on
YouTube. Zac, 7 million views and 4 million views
where he talks about basically being a Wisconsin
guy and a damn tender. It seems like that may reach
more people. >> And that is his
background. He started out running a small business.
He's tended the dam and that's what he's going to
run on. Is that folksy, Northwoods attitude
widespread the inside Wisconsin politics? That's
the Madison math he's not worried about.
>> Well, that's all the time we have for today.
Thanks for joining us. This has been inside Wisconsin
politics. Be sure to follow us on PBS wisconsin.org.
WPR.org, YouTube, or wherever you get your
podcasts.