Democrats are getting more
aggressive about jumping into
primaries.
We look at a few examples from
Congress to the state legislature,
plus two legal decisions that could
affect Wisconsin's political maps
for years to come.
This is Inside Wisconsin Politics.
I'm Sean Johnson, here with my
colleagues Zach Schultz, Anya Van
Wachtendonk, and Rich Kramer in Eau
Claire. Hey everyone.
So before we get started with some
specific examples here, I wanna
start with why this kind of
caught our attention.
And for me, it's because in
the very recent past, you had
Democrats and liberals very
wary about jumping into primaries.
What's changed, Zach?
I think the biggest thing that's
changed is the Democrats see more
opportunity to win some of these.
Over the past 16 years, basically
the Scott Walker era on when
the maps didn't favor Wisconsin and
perhaps the political climate didn't
favorite candidates statewide, there
was a concern that a primary just
took up too many resources that were
limited, mainly money and
time and the threat that if they
went negative against each other, it
really hurt their opportunity to
wind statewide. Since Democrats
have gotten on a roll and won a lot
of these races for governor AG,
State Supreme Court, and they've got
better maps, they see more
opportunity, and so there's more
options for people to get in because
the primary doesn't look quite as
devastating.
You know, for me, as I was thinking
about this, I almost
feel like it's directly related
to whatever the national political
situation is at the time.
So we are right now in
the Trump midterm.
Where were we a few years ago in the
Biden midterm? You had Democrats
jumping out of a primary for Senate,
clearing the way for Mandela Barnes.
Where were in the first Trump
mid-term in 2018?
You had about a dozen Democrats
running for governor that year and
on and on, and on.
And I think. It's kind of a really
simple flowchart.
Is it a midterm?
Yes, is your president in the
White House?
No? Well, in that case, you're
probably going to want to jump into
a primary and give a chance
for your party.
Anil, let's jump into one of these
specific examples this week.
And I want to characterize this as
the opportunity knocks kind
of a Democratic primary in
the first congressional district
where we have representative
Brian Stile, a Republican.
Is seen as a
pretty strong candidate.
The district leans Republican.
And yet this week we had a
Democratic candidate say, hey,
it's not too late for me to jump in.
Tell us about what happened.
Yeah. I mean, there have been
several Democrats that have been
running for quite a while, but none
of them have really been a clear
front runner. None of them have
raised a significant amount of
money. Brian Steyl, by contrast, is
a very good campaigner and a very
good fundraiser. He is quite a lot
in his war chest.
And so there had been some rumblings
that this alder person from
Milwaukee was going to jump in and
he did, Peter Berjelis.
He is currently a sitting member of
the Milwaukee Council.
He does not live in the district.
And so him coming out, it's really
interesting because he's essentially
saying I am the person who can get
the national money that is required
to flip this district.
He's trying to make the argument
that it is more flippable than
Democrats think.
It is considered of Wisconsin's
kind of two-ish
congressional districts,
the safer one for Republicans, but
he's saying if we can get money, we
can in the game.
Rich, you've been following this
district for a while now.
Why would Peter Bergellas look at
the field here and say, you know,
why not me?
Well, exactly what Anya said.
So Stile, here's an example of
how good of a fundraiser he is.
He's currently sitting on more than
$5.5 million in
his campaign war chest.
And during the first three months of
the year, he raised
more money than any, I mean,
excuse me, he spent more money then
any Democrat even raised.
So maybe Jealous
is thinking,
I'll get that Democratic money.
Et cetera, but to the point
that this is, this is an interesting
district, because on paper it is
competitive, but
Stiles has just been a powerhouse
and he's easily defeated
every Democrat that has come up
against him.
So I don't know if this is
enough of a Democratic wavier
potentially that it could
make it a little closer, but
it seems like Democrats
think it's worth a shot.
Zach, can somebody come in from
outside of a district and very
prominently outside of the district
too. I mean, he holds elected office
outside the district.
Can you come in and say, I wanna be
your congressman.
Well, running outside the district
is not uncommon at all in Wisconsin.
You don't need to live in the
district. You're only supposed to
live there by the time you would
take office.
So he doesn't even have to set up
residence there in order to campaign
there, even if he does win the
nomination.
That's not uncommon.
It is a matter of winning a primary
if you don't live there, because you
have to convince the voters in that
district that he should be the
Democrat to represent them against
style in the fall.
And that is a little bit of a
tougher ask. That is him saying,
I'm the one that's different from
the rest of these that you haven't
really.
Coalesced around in the past, and
this would represent more of
trying to bring in national
attention, but it would require a
national wave to upset style in
this district.
When you look at district
congressional seats in Wisconsin,
the national Dems didn't even invest
into the third, which is a much
closer district in past races.
They didn't come close to investing
in the first, and so it would
acquire a completely different
landscape for national money
to really come in from the
Democratic Party to say we see the
first is in play.
It could be a case of they just want
Brian Steele to spend his money and
not have that sitting around for a
future election, too.
That makes a big difference.
Let's move on to another primary.
And since I'm naming stuff today,
I'm going to call this one the
opportunity knocks.
No, we we did the opportunity nice
primary. I need to get my name
straight if I'm gonna do this.
This is the don't tell me
what to do primary, an important
distinction in Democratic primaries.
We've got a couple of examples here
today. Let's start with one in the
third congressional district.
I've heard a lot about this district
because it's our most competitive
congressional district.
Derek Van Orden is a Republican
incumbent.
I've a lot heard about Rebecca Cook,
the Democratic challenger who has
outraised him recently and seems to
be getting a lot of attention.
There is a primary there.
Who's running?
So the primary is between Cook,
who's an Eau Claire Democrat, raised
on a dairy farm in
the county,
and has done some
political consulting work,
fundraising work for Democrats in
years past, but now she's back.
She's really portraying herself as
kind of of the district,
born and bred Wisconsin, et cetera.
Republicans are trying to
focus the attention on her
consulting work.
The other Democrat is
longtime Eau Claire city council
member, former council president
until just recently, Emily Berge
of Eau Clare, and she
she's portraying herself as
the grassroots choice
in this race and
National Democrats came
in and started sending resources,
staff, etc.
Back in February to
Cook's campaign and Berge
said, well, that's pretty dirty,
you know.
She essentially said DC
shouldn't be deciding who is
the Democrat to face Van Orden.
It should be the people of Eau
Claire. And just anecdotally,
when I'm walking through the city,
I don't see a lot of cook signs.
In fact, I don't remember seeing
any, but I see a whole bunch of
Berge signs.
So this being one of the more,
if not the most populous
areas in the third district,
maybe that makes a difference, but.
In terms of resources, Cook is
way, way, way ahead of
Berge in all the fundraising reports
that I've seen.
Zach, do you get the sense that this
is a competitive
primary here?
It could be, it really depends
on how much the primary voters
pay attention, and that's always the
issue in some of these primaries, is
name recognition makes a big deal.
That's why the national party comes
in and puts resources behind
Cook. It's not necessarily that they
like her more, it's they think she
has the better chance to win in the
fall and get her moving now.
It's the old mentality we talked
about at the beginning of the show
of why Democrats didn't do
primaries in the past.
It takes resources.
It can get ugly.
It can't get negative.
It could. Hurt the candidate going
into the fall.
I ran into Bergeet when she
was campaigning with Francesca Hong
for governor in La Crosse.
They were doing an event at the same
bookstore.
And it's not a coincidence that
while we were talking to them, they
were talking about going and seeing
them at the next stop.
And there is a kind of thematic
fit with that campaign of
more grassroots, more from the
bottom up and running against
party types who tell us who our
candidate should be.
Parties like to dictate sometimes
who the candidate can be, so they
can focus resources.
Sometimes that does run up against a
wall, which is why your title for
this, Don't Tell Me What To Do, does
fit because there are candidates who
are gonna say, no, let the people
decide.
People have to pay attention though.
All right, we've got another don't
tell me what to do, primary Anya.
This is in one of the state Senate
districts that we're watching that
could determine control of the
Wisconsin State Senate this year,
the 17th State Senate district.
Howard Mark Klein is the Republican
incumbent and the
Democratic party had been sending
strong signals that they knew who
they wanted to run for a while now.
And yet there's a candidate who
says, I want to run too, tell us
about it.
Yeah, so Jenna Jacobson, who
currently serves in the assembly,
has been sort of the anointed
democratic choice to run against
Howard Marklein for this district,
which also has been redrawn in a way
that could be more favorable for
Democrats.
So Markleins sort of on his heels in
that way. But then, yesterday
we got the announcement that Corrine
Hendrickson, who if you have written
an article or read an article about
childcare advocacy, in the
last three years you have heard that
name. She has been at the Capitol.
She was a small business owner, a
daycare owner.
In New Glarus, that was very much
her issue, and now she's running for
office. So a political newcomer,
somebody with this kind of
particular set of policy
expectations and preferences,
challenging a fellow Democrat.
And so that is a, it caught our
attention for that reason that it's
a competitive district.
It's not safe for Democrats.
So here's somebody coming in and
saying, I want to throw my hat in
and I want to advocate for my
specific approach to politics.
And, you know, I do feel like we
have this debate about primaries,
pretty much every single primary,
about whether it's going to help or
hurt the candidates.
I think they are making a
bet this year that they can afford
to have those debates.
And the argument for it helping them
is that they are going to
kind of dominate the news cycle for
a little while in August and get
more attention than candidates
that don't have a primary.
Okay, one primary that is really big
this year in our world, the
Democratic primary for governor.
We're not going to talk about today,
but. If you had to name
that one, anybody got any
takers here?
The why not primary?
I think everyone and their mother is
running for governor.
There we go.
There we go. We've got at least
seven candidates running for
governor. Rich, you got any labels
for it?
Oh, and you stole mine.
I want to add, I want a small
amendment to yours.
The why not me, you know,
primaries, actually what I had
thought about. So maybe you stole
both of ours.
It is kind of one of those years
where you see a
race that's kind of there for the
taking.
Why not something.
So, Sean, let's flip this on its
head for you because part of the
idea behind having primaries
in the past or not having them was
fear of wasting resources, but the
other end of it was you can battle
test and whoever comes through a
primary is a better candidate for
the general election.
So what's your take on a wide open
primary like this?
How can it help Democrats if there
are battling this many people there?
I think that there are plenty
of examples in the recent past,
particularly among Republicans,
where you come out of a
battle-tested primary and you are
wounded, and it did not help them
very much in the general election.
I think in 2018,
Tony Evers came out of battle-test
primary and was a little bit out of
money, so there is a risk to it, but
it does also get
attention, I guess is the thing that
it does for sure.
I think another piece of this, too,
is that it's very easy to kind of
present a unified front as a party
when you're in the minority, because
it doesn't really matter, right?
You don't have power.
And so we might know that kind of
behind the scenes, the further left
Democrats and the more centrist
Democrats don't get along
or disagree, but then they all come
forward and kind of vote in
alignment. And so now what we're
seeing, because there's a little bit
more of a sense that perhaps they
could actually win things and gain
power, there's also, I think, a
little bit of a fight for what will
the Democratic Party in Wisconsin
look like. Vote like, will they be
further left? Will it be more of a
Hong kind of situation?
Will they be more moderate, more
kind of aligned with national
Democrats? And so I think we're
seeing that fight kind of play out
or tension play out in a lot of
these primaries.
We have a bunch of court news to get
to here today, including
another endorsement.
This one, technically not a
Democratic primary, but you have
a couple of candidates running for
the 2027 Supreme Court
race already.
Anya, how did this happen?
We just had a court race.
We sure did.
So two weeks after I think the
court race was resolved,
Lindsay Brunette threw in her hat
and she is a former
prosecutor, much like three of the
current sitting liberals.
And then a couple of days ago, Pedro
Colon, who is a Milwaukee area
judge, threw his hat in.
He is also a liberal judge, but he
comes from a lawmaking background.
And so we're seeing two types
of judicial candidates,
one who more closely mirrors the
Susan Crawford, Janet for to say
what's kind of model of the last
couple of years.
A Democrat, but with a law and order
background, and then one who more
closely mirrors Chris Taylor with
the lawmaker advocacy background,
which again, I think shows that
there's a little bit of this wanting
to push-pull for what kind of
liberal judge do we want
because liberals have the court no
matter what, they think that they
probably have the election in the
bag, and so again, in what direction
will the liberal justice land?
What are we calling this one?
The we, we're gonna win this one
anyway. Let's do what we want.
No, maybe I should let this one go
if we don't have a good name.
It's gotta be on a bumper sticker.
Rich, you talked to Pedro Colon
about why he was getting into the
race.
And these introductory interviews
are usually pretty boring.
They don't say too much.
I feel like Pedro Colon told you
some stuff.
Yeah he did.
I asked you know what differentiates
you from Judge Burnett and
he said unfortunately it's
experience. She doesn't have the
substantive experience
that he does which includes
the decade or so in
the legislature and his
years on the bench and the state
appeals court in Milwaukee.
So that surprised me.
I was not expecting him right
out of the gate to take a little
swipe at his competitor.
And the Brunette campaign
sent me a statement saying as
much as well.
They said, look,
a number of justices have had the
same amount of experience as
Judge Brunett and have been elected
to the state's highest court.
So there's that.
And they also said it's interesting
that during
his announcement, he attacked
Judge Brunnett.
So a little bit of fact.
Yeah, and endorsements too,
as you reported Anya, Justice-elect
Chris Taylor has endorsed
Pedro Colon.
Immediately.
Immediately. And then we also have
an endorsement from Congressman Mark
Pocan, endorsing Pedro Colon.
Mark Pocant and Pedro Colon
were like budget buddies
on the Joint Finance Committee in
2005. I can tell you that they
spent a lot of time together,
right, you know, arguing against
that Republican budget that year.
So you get to know each other in
politics, relationships can be
a big deal sometimes.
Well, what's interesting about this
race is we've got two on
the liberal side that are in.
I heard both those names on election
night. I had someone in a campaign
tell me, Judge Burnett's gonna
announce, just watch your inbox,
that'll be coming out. That was on
election night, Judge Colon was
at the election party.
I interviewed him and talked to him,
and he was doing the, oh, we'll have
to wait and see.
But his name had been floated for
prior campaigns. So if we're looking
for labels, this is, it used to
be a wait your turn, one at a
time, I think there are liberal
candidates realizing...
I might have to wait a long time to
wait my turn.
Why wait?
Just get in there.
Seven justices, 10-year terms.
If you want to do it, better get in.
Zach, we had a couple decisions this
week, court decisions on
redistricting. One in state court,
which I'll summarize a little
bit too quickly here to say that
a three-judge panel basically said,
we are not gonna deal with the
congressional map this year.
Another big decision by
the U.S. Supreme Court, which, you
know, court watchers have said is
going to gut the Voting Rights Act.
What could that mean for Wisconsin?
They're kind of tailed together a
little bit. This is the second
three-judge panel that has thrown
out challenges to our congressional
lines.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has
repeatedly said, we don't want to
handle this right now.
The United States Supreme Court
decision that went after the Voting
Rights Act has to do with minority
majority districts, of which the
fourth congressional, Gwen Moore's
district in Wisconsin, is one of
those. So if lines are going to get
redrawn, if the courts are going
look at this, that could mean some
of those lines getting re-shifted.
In the future in the way that
they're drawn without having to
protect as much of that minority
and majority district in Milwaukee.
So there's a lot of implications,
one of which is will this new
makeup of the Wisconsin Supreme
Court now take a look at these lines
again, especially with new judgment
from the United States Supreme
Court.
Yeah. And it seems like
nationally I've seen a lot about how
this could be a benefit to
Republicans in southern states.
I think in Wisconsin it's an open
question about which party would
benefit.
It does feel like it is potentially
detrimental though to minority
representation nationwide.
That's all the time we have for
today. Thanks for joining us.
This has been Inside Wisconsin
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