The only mistake that
I made is to say
once in a period I said I'm running
for Congress. I forgot that I'm
writing for Governor.
It's a crazy lunch, but I'm not
gonna just have breakfast or dinner,
let's sit over here, just cause the
sun's shining.
Oh, okay, yeah.
Actually, we were at a Mandela
Barnes event, and he said he has a
friend named Tiffany Tom.
And he said her social media is all
messed up.
Alright.
I thought that was pretty funny.
You good? Alright.
Well, I guess we've got the
Democratic primary is kind of going
a little nuts right now.
What's your reaction to all the
chaos over there?
I mean, when you look at the
candidates, it's not surprising,
especially with the injection of
the big government socialism that's
really being pushed.
And we've always known that that was
going to be the end point for them,
but they wanted to get there
gradually.
Well, they're boiling the frog fast,
is what they're doing at this point.
And they just don't want to admit
that that's ultimately where they
were heading. There really isn't
a... Worth a difference between the
candidates. I mean they're very
similar and whoever comes out of the
primary is going to be advocating
for the same stuff.
Is that going to be hard to
translate to voters if someone other
than Francesca Hong wins because it
looks like the party's trying to
keep it away from her if they
call it a more centrist?
That the voter might believe, oh,
they're more centrists than her.
I mean, is that a concern that
because of her being there that
makes them all look a little more
centist?
No, no, I don't think so.
I mean, when you have a candidate
that said America's founding
was awful, when you a candidate
who could not keep the health
insurance in
place for county employees,
I mean they have serious problems,
but that's not what I'm going to be
focused on. I'm focused on the
future of Wisconsin.
We're going to make the state more
affordable.
We're going to make state government
more accountable to the taxpayers
and we are going to
revive Wisconsin and make it one of
the great states in America once
again. This is a state that has
really great potential that
needs to be unlocked at this point.
We're gonna do that.
Talk to me a little about the
advantage you've had of kind of
introducing yourself to the rest of
the state that doesn't know you as a
congressman and the advantage of
mostly having the field to yourself
and the money to actually advertise.
Yeah, I mean it was one of the goals
from the start was to make sure that
people got to meet me on
my own terms because
oftentimes when your opponents get
to do it.
They do not relay it accurately,
I would just put it that way.
And we're able to tell it
in our own terms.
I mean, people see it.
I mean I grew up on a dairy farm
like so many people did
in Wisconsin.
We learned the value of hard work.
We raised our family,
you know, in a middle class setting.
We worked hard as small business
people. It was never easy,
but we were better for it.
I mean we achieved, as I said, on
the stage here.
We achieved the American dream here
in Wisconsin. I just want young
people to also be able to achieve
their dreams here in Wisconsin.
So what is this contrast going
to be like when we flip the script
into August 12th and beyond,
where you do have an opponent you
can actually name and identify,
start digging into their record?
What will that look like for voters?
It really will be crazy versus
common sense. I mean, when you see
these things like abolishing the
Senate, abolishing prisons,
and when you see someone
with that unfortunate
shooting in Madison come
out and say the police may
have executed that person,
I mean that's really wild rhetoric.
People from Wisconsin don't want
that. They want to have a steady
hand as their governor and someone
who has a vision for
making Wisconsin.
A really great state once again and
that's what I'm going to bring is
that steady hand.
You were talking about the ads and
defining yourself versus letting
your opponents, and I guess the
contrast to four years ago or even
a Huggies race where those primaries
really took the ability away
from the candidate to define
themselves first and they got
slammed to so many ads versus the
atmosphere you're running in where
people are learning about you from
you. It's completely different,
right?
I mean, we planned our campaign out
this way and we thought we could,
I mean we've been fortunate, there's
no doubt, but this is
how we envisioned it and being able
to deliver the message to the people
of the state of Wisconsin because we
knew this was going to be a really
big election in 2026.
I mean I could have stayed home and
had a safe seat in Congress for
probably as long as I wanted to,
but that's not why I got into
politics.
I got in to politics to make
Wisconsin a better state.
And we did that back when
I was first elected to the
legislature in 2010 when we
fixed that enormous budget deficit
of three billion dollars.
I'm in it to fix problems and
that's what we're going to do when I
become governor.
A few months ago, a lot of
Republicans were saying, well, it's
an off year, it is not a good year,
the presidential is going to weigh
down the party.
Are you seeing more optimism as
people look at your campaign and
say, wait a minute, there's a real
chance.
Yeah, there's really good optimism
out there. I mean, we see it with
this event that we're doing tonight.
I mean there's well over 100 people
that are here. We've been doing
these Tavern Talks all over
Wisconsin and people are really
optimistic and they are really
motivated.
They know what's at stake here in
2026.
They don't wanna go the route of big
government socialism.
They want to save Wisconsin and
that's exactly what we're going to
do. And I think that message is
going to resonate all the way from
here to November and I believe
we're going to win as a result of
it. And I've really,
really tried to be positive
in regards to there's
problems, we need to fix
them, but after we fix them
we're going to lead Wisconsin
in the right direction.
Thanks for your time, really
appreciate it.
Always good to join you, Zach.