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 Sean Johnson, here with my
colleagues, Zach Schultz, Anya
VanWaagtenonck, and Rich Kramer in
Eau Claire. Hey, everyone.
Hello.
Hey, Sean.
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 Marquett 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 past,
independents 81%, Democrats
80%.
So.
That is a, I mean,
that's a strong majority of people
cutting across all the partisan
demographics who wanted
to see this thing get
passed. And the poll also
asked questions about,
you know, are you gonna 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,
Zach, Anya, what
stood out to you?
I mean, to me, I think the obvious
top line number four of five is
sort of eye popping.
I would not have imagined that level
of support for any bill that comes
out of Wisconsin legislature.
Well, I would think 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.
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.
Anya, 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.
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 we've talked
about it as a messaging tool as
well. And there is, to Zach's point,
there's the nuanced messaging and
the un-nuanced messaging.
And one of those 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 money in schools.
Having the more complicated
messaging, you know, the opponents
of the D.R.
Are the ones who are going to really
have sort of 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 gonna blow a $2.9
billion hole in the budget.
Actually, Marquette did ask
about that, Rich.
They said in so many words,
that this could create budget issues
down the road and do you really
wanna 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 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 as former Wisconsin
Economic Development Corporation
director CEO
Missy Hughes and
so after the vote failed
and especially after this
came out she said see
you know this is why you know
I want to get things done people
want to give 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 big, and that is
the cost of living.
People feel that cost of live, and
when you ask them, would you
like a little help, might sound like
a a little in terms of the state
budget and 300 bucks.
You can say that's not going to
solve all their problems.
But the answer is a resounding yes
when you asked that question.
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 Sean, I'll turn around
the point that Rich 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.
So, if there's anyone that would
take back their new- opposition.
Do you think there's one or two
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 we've talked about this before,
but whether or not they'll pay the
price for this in November,
we should say, you know,
voters were asked about that, Rich,
and whether or not they will be
thinking about this as they vote
in November. How important is it to
them?
What did they say there?
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 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 Zach'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 gonna come
along between now and November.
But still, that is a pretty
overwhelming finding from people
right now saying, yeah, I'm
gonna remember this.
How about the candidates for
governor specifically though,
because that was one where I thought
the findings were a little
squishier.
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.
Ah, it was more, it's 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,
Anya.
Yeah, you know, one of the sort of
upsetting truths for those of us who
really care about facts and details
in the public 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 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 actual
mechanisms at the Capitol 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...
But 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 gonna 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 there
are votes that are not even counted
at all they never show up.
So let's talk about one 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
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, Anya, 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, 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 detail.
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 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 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 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 to put
money in your pocket.
What did he describe the projected
surplus as at this forum?
I believe he said it was Madison
math to try 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 specifics.
Yeah, I would say in terms of the
Madison math versus the family math,
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 Wist Politics 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'm asking the administration to
give us more as far as how
exactly they expect to
implement this.
I'd say just
one thought that I have in regards
to it is that
maybe some people are due
compensation.
So Zach, this is a 50-50
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 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
person belief, that's him
representing his congressional
district. The seventh is the
most MAGA red of all
of 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
endorsements.
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 in his
prior statements and 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
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 a 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 covered a lot there in this
forum by Whist Politics.
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 is
something else.
That's right. Research.
I saw a
few conservatives, Republicans,
and even one conservative website
say this was
an unforced error.
He shouldn't be talking about 2020.
He needs to talk about the future
and what he's to do, and
also to the
surplus bill and his opposition
to that, 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 parties so some
republicans think that Tiffany needs
to do a better job of that.
Anya 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 it be
that be an accurate summation of
what she 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 for
whom his sort of Northwoods
background is more appealing and
is maybe relying on a 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
vibes and hope that that'll carry
him through November.
Maybe at a forum in Madison, he has
that luxury.
I did check before we recorded
today, and he has a couple of
campaign ads on YouTube, Zach.
Seven million views and four 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,
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
pbswisconsin.org, wpr.org
YouTube, or wherever you get your
podcasts.
I didn't realize I was trying to say
the title of the podcast at the end
there.