Well, there's a whole event coming
up on data centers.
It'll never.
All right obviously things
move rapidly in campaigns and
we're looking at this last home
stretch here.
Last time we checked it was a couple
months ago. How are you feeling
going into this final?
It's 28 days, right, four
weeks from today.
And what I feel is like there's wind
at my back on things.
My challenge from the beginning has
been that I am just not as well
known as other candidates, not as
known in some parts of the state.
I think when people have seen and
heard from me, they understand my
experience, the work that I've done,
the vision that I have.
Like I win over lots of those
people. So, you know, I feel like
there is wind at back, but
there's still a long way to go.
And as you say, campaigns change.
Campaigns change in very short
order. There have been big changes
in this one just in the last couple
of days.
How does that impact things?
As you talk to voters, are they
still making up their minds?
Are they down to a candidate or two?
How are they deciding?
Well, it was nice to me, I just
talked to a guy who already voted
for me, so people are voting.
People who vote by mail are doing
that, but I think more and more
people are now starting to pay
attention. You know, I mean, we're
here amongst Democratic Party
people, there are lots of people who
are active and who have been engaged
for several months, and I love that
and we need more of that, but in the
general public, and the voting
public is like the general public
too, and a lot of them are just
starting to tune in, and so I think
there's It's still a huge
opportunity for...
Defining who I am, what I
stand for, what's different about me
than the rest of the field, and how
I can be the best person to be Tom
Tiffany and start governing on day
one. Like, those are the things that
are still the most important thing
for me and they're not different
than they were on day 1.
There's a growing consensus
among a lot of political observers
that want to try and loop the
Democratic primary into a couple of
lanes, like a centrist,
government-moderate lane and a more
progressive, farther-left lane.
Is that fair?
Do you put yourself in that?
I think we'd better all be in
the let's get something done way.
It should be in that let's win,
let's be able to govern, and who is
going to be equipped to bring along
a democratic majority in the state
legislature. And then the
expectation is for people who are
hurting, for farmers in Wisconsin
who have been challenged, like who
is actually going to there and be
ready to hit the ground running on
day one to address issues around
child care, around education, around
health care costs, utility costs
for people, like, who is the one who
is there? So. Rather than putting
any ideological markers or
ideological purity tests on this, I
think it should be, and it is for
most people, who is actually going
to demonstrate that they can get
stuff done.
There's always a tendency, like a
year or more out from the election,
for people to fall in love with
maybe a candidate that's a little
farther out, with bigger, bolder
ideas, but then as the election gets
closer, they go, no, I just want to
win. I'm more nervous about having
my party win than maybe the
person who's got the biggest,
dreamiest ideas. Are you sensing
that too?
I mean, I certainly have
the sense that winning always is
important, this year it feels
existential.
The harm that's being done to
Wisconsin at the federal level, the
fact that cynically the worst harms
when it comes to Medicaid, when it
come to SNAP and food share, those
are pushed off until after the
midterms because they're hoping that
people won't know what's coming.
I think people understand what the
stakes are and I think that people
are elevating this race both
nationally and in Wisconsin about
that.
There are real problems that we need
to solve and if we're only
going to get half measures,
if we if there are you know we're
going to be so ideologically
pure that we can't get stuff done,
we will have a very short time in
the sunlight or we won't win at all
and I think this is something that
people are starting to pay more
attention to.
When we talk about campaigns,
one of the first things you can
demonstrate, aside from your
past history, is how well do you run
a campaign?
How much should that matter when
there are candidates who have had
some issues with having consistency
in people or fundraising?
How big of a sign is that or
signal to voters that
you know how to get the job done?
Campaigns should be about
competence.
Governing is about competence for
the last 20 years.
I've had nothing but executive
experience, including running the
state's most important agency at the
Department of Administration and
doing it during times of COVID.
You know, today is July
14th. Tomorrow is July 15th.
When we turn in our campaign finance
report, I'll be the last person to
see it, and I'm going to make sure
that I know every detail on it.
The same in January for somebody
to say that they didn't know until
last week that hundreds of thousands
of dollars are missing.
I I think. That's something that's a
question for voters to answer.
Is that person, if they're not
competent to do $600,000 on
a campaign, how are they going to
put together a $110 billion budget?
How are they gonna manage the
complexities around state
government? I know my approach to
that, because I've already done it,
and I did it during COVID.
I know what people can see,
what's in my past.
I put out all of the stuff,
all of negative research I could
find on myself.
I may be the only candidate in the
country who's done it.
But I did because it's important for
people to know before they vote for
the primary. It's important for
people to know as we head into the
general election.
For people that are kind of making
big national comparisons, obviously
the Democrats had some issues in
Maine. There are other states where
there's a lot more intra-parter
party fighting.
Is it fair to bring any of that, or
is this simply about Wisconsin
voters?
I mean, what we do in
the United States is we have 50
statewide elections, whether you're
running for president, whether your
running for governor.
The issues in Wisconsin are going to
be determined by Wisconsin people.
So yes, there are national issues.
There is national harm that's being
done by Donald Trump to people.
If you're a farmer in Wisconsin,
like everywhere else, every input
cost for you has gone up, the cost
of health care, pitting property
taxpayers against kids.
Those are some of the things that
we're dealing with, and some of them
have national but Wisconsin
voters determine Wisconsin
elections. Wisconsin runs Wisconsin
elections, which is another issue we
better be prepared to defend,
but the idea that
there's some national wave
of things, I think it's still about
individual voters making individual
decisions and making sure
that every candidate is up to snuff
for them.
While this primary has been going
on, Tom Tiffany has had a lot of
free play to paint himself
positively.
And he's done a lot ad showing him
as a folksy regular guy that
everyone would love to hang out
with.
How much is that going to be a
burden to overcome once you get into
past the primary of like making sure
you can redefine his agenda,
his track record, and redefining
yourself?
Yeah, well, one, I have
people harken back to 2018, where
Tony Evers won in a primary that
was bigger than the one we have now
in Wisconsin.
And he came out of that not running
against somebody who
also wasn't a sitting governor, but
he was running against Scott Walker.
And so, you know, Scott had all that
time to do this, too.
Whoever wins this primary is going
to come out with wind at our back,
with momentum.
And then will be the time where
Tom Tiffany can't just look over his
shoulder and talk about his mother.
He's going to have to look over his
shoulder and talk about Donald Trump
and his relationship to Donald Trump
and the fact that nobody has been
closer to Donald Trump.
Nobody has been more of an acolyte
of the work that Donald Trump has
done. And that has done far harm to
Wisconsin farmers, to Wisconsin
families, to people in our state.
And, you know, these are the things
that he's going to have the answer
to. So he'll have his time for the
next four weeks. And come August
12th, he will have to answer to
a whole different set of questions
than what he does now.
But but I again, I remind people
that Tony Evers came out of
that crowded primary.
He had momentum.
He was able to get that bounce.
I expect that that will be the same
for me as we head into the general
election.
Are you still feeling positive the
grind hasn't gotten to you as you
come down the stretch here?
Are you kidding? On a beautiful day
like today, we're in shade and the
wind is coming through?
No. I mean, in some ways, I think
the last few weeks have been
energizing for me.
My family is involved on the
campaign. I'm here with my wife
today. We're able to do things
together.
Like, this is the time, you know,
one, it's winning time.
And I've always been a competitive
person. And two, it is the times
when people finally are starting to
pay attention. Like, I will tell
you, every candidate, we've been
working at this for seven, eight,
nine months.
And we think that every day is,
you like, We are building, building,
building, we want to start to see
that stone roll downhill.
Now is when I think people are
starting to decide and where I'm
starting to see much more attention
than we did even just a few weeks
ago.
So as you saw, at least a couple of
candidates drop out along the way,
how did you gage that decision that
they were making?
Is that like, as a positive, is the
field narrows or is it...
First of all, it's a personal
decision for everybody, you know,
this is something that is all
encompassing and I think they
have to look at things about were
they able to raise the money, were
they getting the kind of reception
that they need, like, you know, we
still have lots of people
who have their decisions to make,
but I think if you don't have the
resources to be able to communicate
to them, that makes it harder and
harder. We've already spent money,
you now, I won't tell you what's
going to be on my report tomorrow.
But we've already spent half a
million dollars on television around
the state. We were the first
candidate to do that.
And that was an effort to try to
raise my name recognition and do
address the biggest challenge
that I have, which is people just
don't know enough about who I am.
When they learn, when they see the
work that I've done, the work I did
with Governor Evers during COVID and
the vision that I have for taking
the state forward, I win that.
But my challenge is still that they
still gotta get to know me.
That's why I'm here today talking to
people here and You know, while I'll
be in Wausau today and Merrimack
tomorrow and somewhere else the next
day, like we just keep going.
And what is the value of being in
this part of the state?
Because this is not where a lot of
Democrats are spending their time.
Yeah, well, there are Democrats all
over the state, and there are parts
of the state that haven't had
a lot of Democratic success that are
paying attention more because of
the harm that's happened at the
national level, because they are
looking for somebody who can answer
the question of, will you do
something to make my life better?
And Democrats are not always trusted
to do it. In fact, we have less
trust in statewide polls than the
Republicans do, and we need to be
in a position where we can
demonstrate to people that we're
gonna get stuff done.
My career has been about solving
problems and actually getting stuff
done for people who live in this
part of the state during COVID.
If you were a family farm and you
needed support or otherwise you were
gonna get foreclosed on, I was part
of state government that helped.
If you are a small business and you
were in danger of closing your
doors, we were there.
Government doesn't have the answer
to everything, but I have seen it
in opportunities where it had to
work and where it has the
responsibility of working and we
made it work.
That's, I think, what government
needs to do in times of crisis.
And even for what passes normal
times, because we don't live in
normal times but we better be
prepared to do it now.
Anything else you want to add?
I don't think so.
I guess you're not doing as much
directly on Sarah, and her probably
brought that in, but you know.
No, it's relevant,
but we'll be addressing that on
Friday's show.
This will probably air in a bigger
grouping afterwards.
We work on different timelines in
the Daily News Flip.
By the time this airs, that will
have been addressed three times.
Maybe, and I don't have
any idea, again, I will
just tell you that the dynamics of
the race has changed quite a bit.
Last week we saw what happened with
Graham Platner in Maine and
in some ways it wasn't directly as
a result of that, but I paid
somebody to go out and do research
of me and it's a hundred pages and I
welcome you to go read it.
Maybe you have at a time where you
were having trouble going to sleep
one night, But the reason I
did it is because...
The stakes are so high about
making sure that we can elect
somebody who can get things done
related to health care, related to
education, related housing, you
know, economic development.
And if people don't know what
they're getting, if we're hoping
that somebody's not going to have
the bad stuff revealed about them,
we're naive.
And we need to know who we're
getting as we enter into the general
election. And I have been as
transparent as anybody.
Like, you know you can hold a press
conference and say that that's
transparency. But paying somebody to
go out and dig up if there's
anything negative about you and
laying that out in voters, I take
that as transparency as well.
And I think that that's what we need
to do. I may well be the only
person in the country who's doing
this and running for governor this
year, but I shouldn't be.
And there should be more people who
are willing to do that and willing
to show people that this is what you
get.
Alright, that's what we need.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
We'll grab the mic back for him.