The Democratic primary for governor
starts to get negative, and
one candidate turns to national live
streams to raise money.
Not everyone's happy about it.
This is Inside Wisconsin Politics.
I'm Sean Johnson here with Anya Van
Wegtendonk and Rich Kramer in Eau
Claire. Hey gang.
Hey Sean.
So I wanna start this discussion
with a simple question.
I think a lot of people probably
associate political campaigns with
negative attacks.
Candidates run for office, they
attack their opponents.
So Anya, I'm wondering, why
is it noteworthy that here in the
middle of summer, we have
overt negative attacks in this
Democratic primary?
Yeah, you know, I think for the last
couple weeks, months, there have
been some snipes, what I might call
sort of a Midwestern nice approach
to trying to get negative.
This is the first week that we got,
you know, a press release from a
candidate explicitly saying, my
opponent has done something bad.
I am going to do something great.
And that was Mandela Barnes calling
out Sarah Rodriguez,
a former Lieutenant Governor,
calling out a current Lieutenant
Governor over donations that she
received while she was in the
assembly. And essentially trying to
suggest that she is viable,
that he is not, so making an issue
of this in a much more explicit way.
So a little bit of a shot across the
bow, six weeks out from the midterm,
to really kind of start to make
these more explicit points.
Rich, I think this kind of
pales by comparison from
attacks you would see in national
politics right now, for sure, and in
past Wisconsin campaigns.
Have you seen anything like this yet
this summer?
Not really.
As Anya mentioned,
these have been pretty mild.
And I guess if we're thinking
about boneless buffalo
wings, these would be the ranch
and the
blue cheese type of attacks that
we've seen thus far.
We're starting to get into the
actual Frank's red hot kind of
territory, but even still, it's
pretty tame.
And what I was thinking about
is the earlier veiled
criticisms that we heard like
during the Democratic convention or
something Most people
aren't really tuned into this race
yet. That is your regular
voter, but the people
that might be Getting
these communications from the
candidates could be you know
fellow politicians looking to
endorse one of the six
candidates in the race could
also be messaging out
to money groups or donors.
I mean, that's speculation, but
really, unless you're really tuned
in, you wouldn't be able to connect
the dots between some of the attacks
we've seen until this moment between
the candidates when they're talking
about electability or
first time politician, et cetera.
You'd really have to do some
homework to find out.
And now it's a little more blatant.
Right. So you would have to know,
like at convention, for example,
when Calderoy says, we
can't have anybody without
experience stepping in here at this
time, she's, you know, we kind of
know who she's referring to, but
she's not saying it.
Francesca Hong saying, you know,
voters can detect BS.
I don't know, I suppose she could be
saying that about everybody but her.
But this is like
a candidate against another
candidate.
So I guess I'm wondering, What does
it say about Mandela
Barnes and Sara Rodriguez
right now that the attack is coming
from Mandela Barnes against Sara
Rodriguez. And by the way, she
responded in kind.
Absolutely right.
It was kind of a forceful exchange
of words. So then her response was
essentially, you ran for Senate
and lost. I ran for Lieutenant
Governor and won.
And so again, them's fighting words.
That's a little bit not quite
Midwest nice.
So I think it tells us a couple of
things. One, it says that Sarah
Rodriguez is considered to be
a serious contender, right?
You don't need to take down somebody
who has nowhere to come down from.
Another thing is that Mandela Barnes
is really trying to make utility
rates a kind of central platform.
And so using this particular thing,
donations around utility rates is
also a way to kind of draw attention
to himself. And then I think the
third thing is, you know,
voters are pretty checked out, even
though again, we are less than six
weeks away from the primary absentee
ballots have already started being
sent out.
But there's like a way
that these candidates need to be
drawing contrast between themselves
in a crowded race where there's not
super strong distinctions, right on
the sort of major issues, they're
relatively unified.
And so this is also a way of
distinguishing in terms of lanes.
So he didn't go after, for example,
Francesca Hong, who is a little bit
more on his wing of the
Democratic party.
He went after somebody who's a
little more moderate.
And so it's a way, I think, again,
trying to draw starker distinctions
between lanes in this race, not just
between individual candidates.
Yeah, I'm still trying to make sense
of the lanes in this race.
I mean, I kind of have a sense of
it, but I wonder if they are feeling
it out, too.
And that is kind of the way I read
it, too, is that Mandela Barnes
probably feels like I'm not
going to win over the Francesca Hong
supporters necessarily.
But those Rodriguez supporters, they
might be my people.
Well, and in a crowded primary,
you're fighting over the same
voters. You're fighting over
Democrats, right?
And so you also it's
the kind of thing where a few
thousand votes can be the difference
between winning and not.
It's more competitive in certain
ways than a general.
And so like the contours of what
competition looks like in the
primary is also going to look
different.
Rich?
And this kind of reminds me of
something I heard from a campaign
strategist back in 2022.
This was the Senate race between
Mandela Barnes and Ron Johnson.
Ron Johnson's polling numbers, you
know, approval ratings weren't super
high. And this person who was
a Republican campaign consultant
said, Johnson
doesn't need to improve his
numbers, he just needs to hurt
and bring down the numbers of
Barnes. So in a primary like
this, that might be part of the
calculus, like.
If someone seems to be,
whether it be from internal polling
or whatever,
getting some ground and your
campaign doesn't like that, try to
knock them down a bit.
So I guess wonder if this is
kind of uncorking the bottle,
so to speak, you know, like is
this going to be the new norm now
that a fight started?
Is it okay for Democrats
to say, well, you don't know,
I didn't start it, but but I got
to finish it now or they or they see
sort of the urgency of the primary
coming up and if they want to
stand out, do they have to
attack? Is there any signs that
that's happening?
Well, it's a little bit of a
calculation because, you know,
on the one hand, negative attacks
can get you more attention if you're
like kind of sassy on social media
that tends to resonate a little bit
more. But at the same time, you
don't want to weaken fellow
Democrats terribly because
ultimately they're going to go up
against presumably Tom Tiffany in
November for what is
going to be a close race like a
general election in Wisconsin is
always going to be close.
And so you want to kind of weaken
your opponents enough that you can
get across the finish line.
But not so much that you kind of
leave your entire party susceptible
to potentially Tom Tiffany picking
up what you've already said
and running with it.
Rich, what do you think?
I agree 100% and
I mean no matter who the Democratic
candidate is it would be
surprising if the entirety of
the party doesn't try to rally
around them because this race is
pretty critical for them as they're
they're hoping you know the
best-case scenario would be a
trifecta where they win the State
Assembly State Senate and keep
the governorship so maybe
that's also why The attacks have
been kind of mild, but...
Whoever it is that bad blood
will likely magically disappear
at least publicly after
the August primary
So Anya, there was
a story that you covered this week
involving Francesca Hong's
fundraising strategy here.
It was at the end of the fundraising
period, by the way, where
she wanted a couple of national
live streams to raise money.
Tell us about who she talked to and
why is that significant?
Yeah, so she went on two on Monday.
One was Mike from PA, who's
sort of a progressive streamer
aligned with the Democratic
Socialists of America.
He has a pretty big following.
And then she went on with Hassan
Piker, who is arguably one
of the biggest political streamers
online.
And he's become something of a
kingmaker or perhaps attempted
kingmaker on the left of
American politics. And he's appeared
with a number of DSA
aligned or sort of leftist
politicians.
And so she went on with him.
It was about an hour and a half
appearance.
It was sort of fun
and chatty. They talked about.
Politics but they also ate Korean
food and they talked about
merchandise and they talked about
whether they should erect a statue
of Scott Walker for people to walk
around and slap when they have
big feelings.
So it was this really, you know,
it's a very different kind of
appearance than might occur sort
of here on PBS Wisconsin or
WPR.
But that was this kind of approach
to, according to Francesca Hong,
meeting different types of voters,
more disaffected voters, the type of
people who keep these streams going.
Again, perhaps very different
voters than our
audience. Um, but at the same
time, Hassan Piker has said
numerous very controversial things
in the past, things about,
uh, Israel in particular that has,
uh offended some Jewish communities.
And so there's also been a response.
She ended the day having raised
about $92,000 from those two
different streams.
Hassan piker has now he's going to
come out to Wisconsin and campaign
with her. But at the time, there's
been this kind of pushback from
fellow Democrats and others saying,
why would you appear with somebody
who has said XYZ in the rest.
And so, like, you did see some
attack there from David
Crowley, kind of like saying,
you just shouldn't go on here,
right? I mean, essentially.
Yeah, he said those comments are
beyond the pale. And you know, I
should perhaps specify what they
were. So he has said, for example,
9-11 was deserved.
And he says that he was referring to
this idea that America's foreign
policy actions have consequences.
And then again, a number of his
comments about Israel and Zionism
has sort of been seen
as conflating Jewish Americans,
Zionists, this kind of thing.
And so I spoke with, for example,
Anne Jacobs, who's the co-chair
of the Jewish caucus of the
Wisconsin Democratic party.
Who was really kind of appalled by
the fact that Francesca Hong would
go alongside this person
and said that, you know, should Hong
receive the nomination in November,
she feels like she's going to have a
lot of work to do to bring Jewish
Democrats kind of into
the ballot box to make sure that
a Democrat can still win.
And again, you now, I reached out to
the Hong campaign for comment and
they said, essentially, we are
willing to meet with just about
anyone to share our vision.
If we don't go on these types of
platforms, that creates a vacuum
that conservative messaging can
instead go to.
So they are trying to create this
sort of big tent.
Some of the concern from other
Democrats is who all should be
in the big tent?
And how much did she raise in a day?
$92,000, $57,000
from Hassan Baker or from that
stream.
And for somebody who's watched those
streams, they kind of know what to
expect. For somebody who doesn't,
it's a little busy on those streams.
Is it not?
Yeah, as a, you know, a public radio
girlie, I will say it was a little
bit stimulating to have that kind of
thing going, but I think people who
are younger than me, like this is
how they are getting a lot of their
news and information and again in
this kind of funny, cheeky
way.
All right, what do you think, Chad?
I don't know.
Is that how it's done? All right fam.
Rich Kramer, what are Republicans
saying about this appearance there
by Francesca Hong?
They're saying a lot.
They're framing it as,
you know, this is the entire
Democratic Party lurching to the
left towards these, what they call
dangerous ideas and comments.
So they've been very
critical of Han.
But again, they're conflating this
to try
to say that all Democrats are
essentially Hassan Piker
fans and they support everything
that he's ever said, which
is obviously an exaggeration but
that seems to be the way you do it
in politics when you're trying to
bring down the other side
and we'll get a sense in
the middle of July, July 15th or
when fundraising reports are due for
the first half of this year.
So you'll see not only that
fundraising, but everybody else's
fundraising up through that point.
And you'll get real sense of who's
got a formidable campaign
right before the campaign wraps up,
essentially. We're gonna be in a
very compressed primary
campaign here.
Rich, Tom Tiffany, the Republican
candidate for governor is.
Had the benefit of not having
a real contested primary on
his side, and
he's getting correspondence
now from the President of the United
States about disaster declaration.
What happened there?
It was really interesting.
So President Donald Trump used
his personal social
media site, Truth Social,
to announce that Wisconsin has
been approved for around $22.5
million in disaster
relief aid.
This is tied to
the storms that we saw earlier this
year, the big time flooding,
other kinds of damage that really
hit local governments pretty hard.
So he made this announcement, which
is not unusual, but...
He didn't mention Governor Evers
once. In fact, he said that the
first call that he made was to
Tom Tiffany, who he also
mentioned I endorsed, and
he kind of re-upped that.
Trump also essentially
applauded every Republican in the
congressional delegation and
didn't mentioned a single Democrat
from Wisconsin, even though
Governor Tony Evers
and people like Tammy Baldwin
and the rest of the delegation sent
letters in May asking...
For this assistance.
They were asking for $27 million.
So it almost seemed like
the president was treating Tiffany
like he's already the governor and
that Evers is already
kind of an afterthought.
So that was pretty interesting to
see.
And the Evers administration
essentially doesn't know the detail,
at least when you talk to them, they
didn't know the details of the
funding. You reached out to the
White House press office and
had a series of
questions for them about the details
and they had a very brief response
to you.
That's right.
I wanted to ask, you know, when
might this money be coming?
What type of aid?
Because there's aid from FEMA
that goes to businesses or
governments or individuals.
So those were the questions I asked.
And they just said, we refer
you to the truth, which means
to the president's post.
So they didn't have any additional
information. All right.
So we had two very big Supreme
Court decisions, U.S.
Supreme Court's decisions this week,
which were national news, but
I think it's fair to say there are
some Wisconsin angles in
there.
First, this birthright citizenship
decision, Rich, I think
this was widely expected that
the court would rule against
President Trump's executive order
and say that birthrights citizenship
is protected by the U.
S. Constitution.
But there are Republicans, and I
mean, Noteworthy Republicans in
Wisconsin who are saying we got to
do something about this.
Yeah, to borrow
Anya's term big feelings.
There were big feelings from some
Republicans in Wisconsin.
Congressman Derek Van Orden
basically said that the
Constitution's 14th Amendment was
aimed at guaranteeing citizenship to
freed slaves and not for
children of illegal immigrants.
He said the ruling undermines
the integrity of American
citizenship and that Congress has to
do something about it.
With it being declared
unconstitutional, at least the
executive order, It's kind of.
Unclear what that would look like.
Congressman Tony Weed, another
Republican, said that
this amendment wasn't intended
for what it's being used for today.
There's all this talk of birth
tourism, where the
idea is that people that are
pregnant, women that are pregnant
from other countries come here, have
a baby, strictly so that they can
get that child citizenship
automatically.
One of the more, I guess,
aggressive comments came from 7th
Congressional.
District Republican candidate
Michael Alfonso.
He's the son-in-law of Sean Duffy
the US transportation secretary
He talked about how his
newborn baby had can trace her
ancestry quote back to before
the Revolutionary War and
that the ruling essentially is
telling people that Children
like his are not
equally as American to quote Chinese
spies anchor babies,
so a lot of a lot
thoughts coming from someone on the
right.
And Anya, there was this other
Supreme Court decision involving
national parties and how much
they can raise and spend.
You said it would export the
Wisconsin model.
What do you mean?
Well, so here in Wisconsin, since
about 2015, we have had a rule
on the book that says that our state
political parties can raise and
spend as much money as they want in
political races.
You've actually reported on the fact
that this was a Republican law that
in recent years Democrats have made
very good use of, in particular in
our enormous Supreme
Court races, right, Democrats,
for example, for the election of
Janet Protaseo, it spent $10 million
on that campaign and that sort of
unleashed these floodgates.
Well, now, as of this
Supreme Court decision, this will be
the case at the national level, at
the federal level. So the national
political parties, RNCC,
DLCC, these kinds of organizations,
they can spend as much as they want
on these races in coordination
with campaigns.
And so essentially, it's doing away
with a major cap on
campaign finance regulations
that people I've spoken to have
said, as in Wisconsin,
so now we'll go the nation.
Yeah, and I know the Wisconsin law
everybody thought for sure this is
going to help Republicans that ended
up being helpful to Democrats here.
We'll see what happens with this
change at the national level.
And opened the floodgates for us to
have record-breaking, expensive
elections, it seems like every year.
It certainly did.
That's all the time we have for
today. Thanks for joining us.
Our colleague Zach Schultz will be
back next week.
This has been Inside Wisconsin
Politics.
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