1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:20,720 Do endorsements matter? 2 00:00:20,720 --> 00:00:24,840 This week we look at a few examples including in heated primaries for the 7th congressional 3 00:00:24,840 --> 00:00:27,120 district and the governor's office. 4 00:00:27,120 --> 00:00:32,200 Plus, the latest Republican party drama following the Supreme Court blowout. 5 00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:36,120 This is Inside Wisconsin Politics. 6 00:00:36,120 --> 00:00:40,840 I'm Sean Johnson, here with my colleagues Anya Ben-Wagtendank and Rich Kramer in Eau Claire. 7 00:00:40,840 --> 00:00:41,840 Hey gang. 8 00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:43,480 Hey Sean. 9 00:00:43,480 --> 00:00:47,960 So part of the reason we wanted to talk about these races is that they are interesting, 10 00:00:47,960 --> 00:00:48,960 okay? 11 00:00:48,960 --> 00:00:52,680 If you haven't been following these primaries yet and you'll be forgiven, it's April. 12 00:00:52,680 --> 00:00:57,240 But the races for the 7th congressional district, especially on the Republican side and the 13 00:00:57,240 --> 00:01:00,920 Democratic primary for governor, are pretty dramatic. 14 00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:04,880 Let's start with the 7th though, Rich, because another reason we want to follow these is 15 00:01:04,880 --> 00:01:10,440 that they involve endorsements that seem like they could define the race. 16 00:01:10,440 --> 00:01:14,120 Tell us about what happened up in the 7th where you got kind of the biggest endorsement 17 00:01:14,120 --> 00:01:15,640 of all. 18 00:01:15,640 --> 00:01:18,840 Yeah, truly. 19 00:01:18,840 --> 00:01:26,000 Donald Trump way back in January endorsed one of the candidates running for that seat. 20 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:31,680 Michael Alfonso, of course, Michael Alfonso is the son-in-law of US transportation secretary 21 00:01:31,680 --> 00:01:37,400 Sean Duffy who also had that congressional seat before. 22 00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:42,000 So it definitely created a stir within the GOP primary and I'm sure you'll be hearing 23 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:45,760 a little bit about that endorsement in the general. 24 00:01:45,760 --> 00:01:52,560 And the reason we have an open race up there, Anya, is because the current office holder, 25 00:01:52,560 --> 00:01:55,040 Tom Tiffany, is running for governor. 26 00:01:55,040 --> 00:01:56,360 We're going to get to that race in a bit. 27 00:01:56,360 --> 00:02:00,040 But first of all, with Tom Tiffany, as he transitioned to the governor's race, he also 28 00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:03,200 got that Trump endorsement. 29 00:02:03,200 --> 00:02:05,320 How has that played out in his race there? 30 00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:11,240 Yeah, I mean, if people go all the way back in time to 2025, there were briefly three Republican 31 00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:14,600 candidates for governor alongside Tom Tiffany. 32 00:02:14,600 --> 00:02:18,240 One dropped out after some negative reporting about some of the stuff he'd been following 33 00:02:18,240 --> 00:02:19,240 on social media. 34 00:02:19,240 --> 00:02:20,240 That was Bill Baryon. 35 00:02:20,240 --> 00:02:25,400 But then Josh Sherman, Washington County executive, stayed in the race until the morning after 36 00:02:25,400 --> 00:02:28,520 Tom Tiffany got the Trump endorsement and he dropped out. 37 00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:33,720 And so it was a little bit of this nod to the fact that in a Republican primary, a nod 38 00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:38,640 from Trump can really be a sort of king-making move, at least in the primary, but then it 39 00:02:38,680 --> 00:02:41,720 can also lead to all kinds of stuff in the general. 40 00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:45,620 It was a really cause-effect situation there, right? 41 00:02:45,620 --> 00:02:48,560 Endorsement one day, he drops out the next. 42 00:02:48,560 --> 00:02:50,960 That has not been the case in the seventh, though, Rich. 43 00:02:50,960 --> 00:02:56,760 I mean, I think that is the general playbook, is that Trump endorses and people sort of 44 00:02:56,760 --> 00:03:01,080 assume that in a Republican primary that seals it. 45 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:02,720 That is not what's happening there. 46 00:03:02,720 --> 00:03:07,520 And you kind of saw it firsthand last night at a candidate forum in Mercer. 47 00:03:07,520 --> 00:03:09,120 Tell us about that. 48 00:03:09,120 --> 00:03:15,280 Yeah, so this forum was hosted by the Iron County Republican Party. 49 00:03:15,280 --> 00:03:21,440 It was in a former gymnasium of a very old school and it happened on the first 80-degree 50 00:03:21,440 --> 00:03:24,000 day that Mercer saw this year. 51 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:31,000 So it was a nice event, but the theme was, if I might summarize the candidates and some 52 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:36,360 of the people I talked to in the audience, we support President Trump, but that doesn't 53 00:03:36,360 --> 00:03:39,560 mean we have to vote for who he tells us to. 54 00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:48,440 So a lot of people up there, and this was actually the first time that I saw candidates, 55 00:03:48,440 --> 00:03:54,480 Republican candidates, Kevin Hermanning and Jesse Eben go negative against Alfonso. 56 00:03:54,480 --> 00:04:01,840 They were criticizing Alfonso, who is 26-year-old, 26-years-old, for not having very much experience 57 00:04:01,840 --> 00:04:04,280 in politics or local government, et cetera. 58 00:04:04,280 --> 00:04:08,960 And they were portraying themselves as the better choice. 59 00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:17,800 But there was discussion about, does Alfonso or Duffy feel like this congressional seat 60 00:04:17,800 --> 00:04:21,080 is something that he's entitled to? 61 00:04:21,080 --> 00:04:23,680 So it was really interesting. 62 00:04:23,680 --> 00:04:28,120 People up there tiptoeing the line of still supporting the president, who did very well 63 00:04:28,120 --> 00:04:35,160 in this district, which leans pretty Republican, but they just don't, there's this independent 64 00:04:35,160 --> 00:04:39,000 streak where they don't like the idea of being told what to do. 65 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:44,160 And I got to ask you about what they did on the stage there, too, because they had assigned 66 00:04:44,160 --> 00:04:49,600 seats for all the candidates, including Michael Alfonso. 67 00:04:49,600 --> 00:04:57,160 Yeah, in fact, the only seat that had a sign on it was Michael Alfonso. 68 00:04:57,160 --> 00:05:00,880 So he had the three of the Republican candidates were on the stage. 69 00:05:00,880 --> 00:05:04,280 That's Nina Baum, Jesse Eben, and Kevin Hermanning. 70 00:05:04,280 --> 00:05:10,280 And then there was an empty chair with Michael Alfonso's name on a piece of paper taped to 71 00:05:10,280 --> 00:05:11,280 it. 72 00:05:11,280 --> 00:05:18,760 And even during the debate, Kevin Hermanning stretched his arm out and kind of put it on 73 00:05:18,760 --> 00:05:24,800 the chair, had a big smile, his campaign person took a picture that made it up, made it on 74 00:05:24,800 --> 00:05:26,920 social media pretty quickly. 75 00:05:26,920 --> 00:05:31,560 So there was that, but even before the debate, one of the interesting things that kind of 76 00:05:31,560 --> 00:05:37,840 got me interested in going up there was this Republican party, their Facebook page was 77 00:05:37,840 --> 00:05:45,640 essentially goading or kind of making a little bit of fun of Alfonso's campaign for not responding. 78 00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:50,320 The GOP chair up there told me that people he knows with the Michael Alfonso campaign 79 00:05:50,320 --> 00:05:54,280 told him that the Trump endorsed candidate doesn't need to debate. 80 00:05:54,280 --> 00:05:59,960 And people in the audience say that they told me that's just not the case, like this 81 00:05:59,960 --> 00:06:00,960 is important. 82 00:06:00,960 --> 00:06:05,320 You've got to get out in this district and meet people one by one. 83 00:06:05,320 --> 00:06:08,000 And that's, that's what it takes to win. 84 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:12,960 So you have the candidates who are in that race saying, you can't tell us what to do. 85 00:06:12,960 --> 00:06:17,520 We're still running up here on yet, although one of the candidates who Rich has done some 86 00:06:17,520 --> 00:06:21,240 reporting on did drop out this week. 87 00:06:21,240 --> 00:06:23,520 Tell us about that Paul Waskering left the race. 88 00:06:23,520 --> 00:06:26,320 Yeah, so Paul Waskering is a successful business person. 89 00:06:26,320 --> 00:06:29,040 He had a largely self-funded campaign. 90 00:06:29,040 --> 00:06:33,240 And so him dropping out is kind of the first big dropout of the race. 91 00:06:33,240 --> 00:06:36,040 And that's one of the things we kind of looked to going into a primary, especially in these 92 00:06:36,040 --> 00:06:39,360 crowded fields is when will people start dropping out. 93 00:06:39,360 --> 00:06:40,720 So this is kind of the first one. 94 00:06:40,720 --> 00:06:44,760 He had raised quite a bit of money from himself, as I mentioned, but very little in terms of 95 00:06:44,760 --> 00:06:46,440 independent donors. 96 00:06:46,440 --> 00:06:50,880 And then by contrast, you have Alfonso, who has received quite a bit of money from this 97 00:06:50,880 --> 00:06:57,560 kind of DC connected past studies on one thing that when Rich covered the empty chair, 98 00:06:57,560 --> 00:07:02,360 Alfonso was posting at the same time on Facebook photos of him with Republican Congress people 99 00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:03,360 in DC. 100 00:07:03,360 --> 00:07:05,160 So he has these big connections. 101 00:07:05,160 --> 00:07:09,800 And so I think it was a little bit of a signal that even people with deep pockets are not 102 00:07:09,800 --> 00:07:12,320 necessarily feeling up to the challenge. 103 00:07:12,320 --> 00:07:15,840 He also said that he didn't want to, Waskering said that he didn't want to kind of contribute 104 00:07:15,840 --> 00:07:19,080 to a bloody primary that that could only empower Democrats. 105 00:07:19,080 --> 00:07:22,800 So I think we're going to see a little bit of that, you know, bowing out in order to 106 00:07:22,800 --> 00:07:24,880 maintain the good of the party. 107 00:07:24,880 --> 00:07:25,880 Rich? 108 00:07:25,880 --> 00:07:31,040 Yeah, if I could just chime in on that. 109 00:07:31,040 --> 00:07:36,520 So the other thing is that, you know, there's this political action committee that has been 110 00:07:36,520 --> 00:07:37,800 raising money. 111 00:07:37,800 --> 00:07:38,960 It's based in Alabama. 112 00:07:38,960 --> 00:07:40,840 It's brand new. 113 00:07:40,840 --> 00:07:44,440 And it's been getting some of that money, a million dollars from Sean Duffy's former 114 00:07:44,440 --> 00:07:46,320 congressional campaign. 115 00:07:46,320 --> 00:07:51,240 And so they've essentially been doing a lot of ads, a lot of work for Alfonso, therefore 116 00:07:51,240 --> 00:07:55,400 he hasn't had to spend as much of the money that he's actually raised. 117 00:07:55,400 --> 00:08:01,520 And with regard to Waskering, what you noticed, Sean, on that last finance report that we 118 00:08:01,520 --> 00:08:06,920 looked at when I was reporting on it, there was some interesting loan information. 119 00:08:06,920 --> 00:08:07,920 You want to talk about that? 120 00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:08,920 Oh, yeah. 121 00:08:08,920 --> 00:08:12,960 I mean, well, I think the thing that got his attention for Paul Waskering when he jumped 122 00:08:12,960 --> 00:08:16,640 into the race was, as you mentioned, an ability to sell funds. 123 00:08:16,640 --> 00:08:20,120 So he loaned himself a million bucks there to start out. 124 00:08:20,120 --> 00:08:23,840 He had repaid a lot of that in the last report. 125 00:08:23,840 --> 00:08:28,840 So I think it is a situation where you put the money in there to send a message. 126 00:08:28,840 --> 00:08:34,760 He decided it was now well received and took the money back and got on out of there. 127 00:08:34,760 --> 00:08:39,120 Rich, I guess one thing we got to ask here, this is a very Republican district. 128 00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:41,840 And so we are talking about this Republican primary. 129 00:08:41,840 --> 00:08:48,120 But is this a situation where because of this infighting, you know, uneasiness among 130 00:08:48,120 --> 00:08:54,000 Republicans up there, is this door open for Democrats? 131 00:08:54,000 --> 00:08:56,760 I've heard that it is, and I've heard that it isn't. 132 00:08:56,760 --> 00:09:04,320 So this is a district that has tended to be more and more Republican since, say, 2010. 133 00:09:04,320 --> 00:09:10,480 We have to also remember that former Democratic Congressman Dave Obey represented the seventh 134 00:09:10,560 --> 00:09:12,760 for many, many years. 135 00:09:12,760 --> 00:09:19,440 But of course, with the Tea Party wave, Sharam Daffia got in, and it stayed Republican 136 00:09:19,440 --> 00:09:20,440 since. 137 00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:24,480 Of course, the map also changed, but just what I've been told by Joe Hendrick, who's kind 138 00:09:24,480 --> 00:09:34,120 of like the maps and elections data guru for the Republicans, is that it is Republican. 139 00:09:34,120 --> 00:09:39,840 It would be an uphill battle for any Democrat, but it's not impossible. 140 00:09:39,840 --> 00:09:44,800 And he said, if the GOP picks the wrong candidate in the primary and it's a wave year, 141 00:09:44,800 --> 00:09:50,440 which he said it seems to be looking like it might be, it's possible for this to flip 142 00:09:50,440 --> 00:09:53,880 back to Democratic hands. 143 00:09:53,880 --> 00:10:00,080 Whether that happens or not, Hendrick said it's unlikely, but it's not off the table. 144 00:10:00,080 --> 00:10:05,360 So let's turn to the Democratic primary for governor here, where we have seven candidates 145 00:10:05,360 --> 00:10:10,400 running, and it is at this stage not getting a ton of attention statewide. 146 00:10:10,400 --> 00:10:13,440 I mean, we did just have a Supreme Court race that ate up some of that. 147 00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:19,320 There's a little national news right now that has people's attention, but in that race, 148 00:10:19,320 --> 00:10:23,920 it feels like you could be talking about endorsements every week in a way about how that 149 00:10:23,920 --> 00:10:25,920 might affect the race. 150 00:10:25,920 --> 00:10:27,720 What's one that caught our eye this week? 151 00:10:27,720 --> 00:10:28,720 Yeah. 152 00:10:28,720 --> 00:10:31,840 I mean, so there have been all of these kind of smaller or more local endorsements that 153 00:10:31,840 --> 00:10:36,120 have been coming through, so local firefighters, unions, or this kind of thing. 154 00:10:36,120 --> 00:10:40,080 But then this week was the first, at least that I've noticed, sort of national figure 155 00:10:40,080 --> 00:10:41,600 to back a candidate. 156 00:10:41,600 --> 00:10:47,320 So Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, back to Francesca Hong, who is a Democratic representative 157 00:10:47,320 --> 00:10:48,320 from Madison. 158 00:10:48,320 --> 00:10:51,200 She aligns with the Democratic socialist sort of platform. 159 00:10:51,200 --> 00:10:55,560 And so she's one of the further left candidates, obviously getting the backing of a further 160 00:10:55,560 --> 00:10:57,240 left member of Congress. 161 00:10:57,240 --> 00:11:01,360 And this really caught our attention for sort of a double-edged reason, right, that can 162 00:11:01,360 --> 00:11:06,880 really signal where Hong stands here in Wisconsin, but of course Ilhan Omar has plenty 163 00:11:06,880 --> 00:11:12,000 of people who don't care for her in the Republican and sort of conservative side of things. 164 00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:15,920 And so looking towards a general election, I'm curious what it will mean to have some 165 00:11:15,920 --> 00:11:18,120 of these more divisive endorsements. 166 00:11:18,120 --> 00:11:23,120 But right now, it's also really interesting for a big national figure with a lot of media 167 00:11:23,120 --> 00:11:27,720 attention, social media attention, to be throwing her weight behind a candidate in the Wisconsin 168 00:11:27,720 --> 00:11:28,720 governor's election. 169 00:11:28,720 --> 00:11:29,720 Yeah. 170 00:11:29,720 --> 00:11:34,360 For me, I think if you're a voter out there who's barely paying attention to these races 171 00:11:34,360 --> 00:11:41,520 at this point and you have this overwhelming list of choices and for any, essentially, 172 00:11:41,520 --> 00:11:46,240 they're probably looking for clues on if they want to go for a very liberal candidate. 173 00:11:46,240 --> 00:11:50,680 This is a way of sending that message that Representative Hong is that candidate. 174 00:11:50,680 --> 00:11:54,640 You don't earn an endorsement like that without being a candidate like that. 175 00:11:54,640 --> 00:11:57,960 So it is a way to send a little hue kind of early going. 176 00:11:57,960 --> 00:11:58,960 Right. 177 00:11:58,960 --> 00:12:02,680 There's not a lot of differentiation on policy issues or some differentiation on sort of 178 00:12:02,680 --> 00:12:03,920 the specifics of things. 179 00:12:03,920 --> 00:12:08,200 But basically, every Democratic candidate supports abortion rights, you know, expanding 180 00:12:08,200 --> 00:12:09,200 Medicaid. 181 00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:11,040 Like there are all of these kind of signals there. 182 00:12:11,040 --> 00:12:16,920 And so an endorsement can offer a more specific kind of endorsement, I'm sorry, a signal 183 00:12:16,920 --> 00:12:21,360 around values and also again, invite some of the media attention that can come with that. 184 00:12:21,360 --> 00:12:25,440 So it's one thing to say, oh, I have the support of this local union in my community. 185 00:12:25,440 --> 00:12:27,640 And what does that say about my support for workers rights? 186 00:12:27,640 --> 00:12:33,800 It's another thing if, you know, Mom Donnie comes in and backs you right, a sort of nationally 187 00:12:33,800 --> 00:12:37,960 famous figure where people have already kind of done the work to understand who that person 188 00:12:37,960 --> 00:12:38,960 is. 189 00:12:38,960 --> 00:12:41,800 And so then they can apply it to the candidates here. 190 00:12:41,800 --> 00:12:42,800 Rich? 191 00:12:42,800 --> 00:12:58,560 We can't hear you, Rich. 192 00:12:58,560 --> 00:13:03,360 So Anya, I guess a question that I have when it comes to endorsements like this on the 193 00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:09,320 Democratic side, is there an equivalent to the Donald Trump endorsement where if this 194 00:13:09,320 --> 00:13:13,400 person comes in, you know, it's kind of all over in a primary. 195 00:13:13,400 --> 00:13:17,800 I mean, put simply, no, Trump is really the standard bearer for the Republican party and 196 00:13:17,800 --> 00:13:19,600 has been for a decade. 197 00:13:19,600 --> 00:13:23,280 Democrats just don't have that equivalent person, in part because, you know, you do have some 198 00:13:23,280 --> 00:13:27,400 of this division between more centrist Democrats and more left-wing Democrats. 199 00:13:27,400 --> 00:13:32,040 And so again, somebody like Ilhan Omar is going to really appeal to people who are kind of 200 00:13:32,040 --> 00:13:37,520 already in the Francesca Hong camp would not necessarily appeal to more sort of moderate 201 00:13:37,520 --> 00:13:39,880 or business-minded Democrats. 202 00:13:39,880 --> 00:13:43,360 And then there are people like Kamala Harris or somebody similar who might appeal more 203 00:13:43,360 --> 00:13:45,360 to those kind of centrist folks. 204 00:13:45,360 --> 00:13:49,640 But there's not really a uniting figure in the same way that Donald Trump is. 205 00:13:49,640 --> 00:13:54,040 You could imagine if, let's say, former President Obama were to jump in with an endorsement 206 00:13:54,040 --> 00:13:58,040 in that primary, which seems unlikely, but you never know, that might turn some heads. 207 00:13:58,040 --> 00:14:04,200 I think one difference is that President Trump has sort of gone after people who don't fall 208 00:14:04,200 --> 00:14:10,080 in line in a way that I don't know that President Obama would or could, Trump rags 209 00:14:10,080 --> 00:14:11,080 about it, frankly. 210 00:14:11,080 --> 00:14:15,160 I mean, he is not afraid to enforce his endorsements. 211 00:14:15,160 --> 00:14:17,760 And so I don't know that you have something like that on the Democratic side. 212 00:14:17,760 --> 00:14:23,680 Well, and you also don't have Tony Evers laying in on who would be a good sort of recipient 213 00:14:23,680 --> 00:14:25,080 of the torch that he wants to pass. 214 00:14:25,080 --> 00:14:29,920 In fact, I have asked him several times if he's going to endorse and he shoots that question 215 00:14:29,920 --> 00:14:30,920 down every time. 216 00:14:30,920 --> 00:14:33,240 So it looks like he's really not playing favorites. 217 00:14:33,240 --> 00:14:36,200 And so that's, again, another lack of a signal, right? 218 00:14:36,200 --> 00:14:41,040 If there's nobody to kind of carry for the specific Evers legacy, then who is the person 219 00:14:41,040 --> 00:14:44,560 who can do what he did, which is win pretty narrowly against a Republican? 220 00:14:44,560 --> 00:14:45,560 Yeah. 221 00:14:45,560 --> 00:14:50,120 I want to just reinforce that that is a perfectly reasonable question, and you should keep asking 222 00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:51,120 it. 223 00:14:51,120 --> 00:14:54,080 And I think in a different year and different circumstances, he'd have somebody. 224 00:14:54,080 --> 00:14:58,600 But in this race, he doesn't want to go there for whatever reason. 225 00:14:58,680 --> 00:15:03,200 So I guess it is an open question that we can ask every single campaign. 226 00:15:03,200 --> 00:15:04,200 But I don't care. 227 00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:05,200 I want to ask it again. 228 00:15:05,200 --> 00:15:06,720 Do endorsements matter? 229 00:15:06,720 --> 00:15:10,040 Do they matter for voters? 230 00:15:10,040 --> 00:15:16,920 To me, I think the answer is absolutely yes, given the circumstances. 231 00:15:16,920 --> 00:15:21,160 One I would think that where you see it definitely matter is in our upcoming court race. 232 00:15:21,160 --> 00:15:23,440 I don't know if you've paid attention to this one yet. 233 00:15:23,440 --> 00:15:24,440 I mean, I know you have. 234 00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:25,520 You've written about it. 235 00:15:26,160 --> 00:15:32,480 You did not have candidates endorse, you did not have the liberal justices endorse in 236 00:15:32,480 --> 00:15:33,480 that race yet. 237 00:15:33,480 --> 00:15:38,760 So in the 2024 Supreme Court race, you had the four sitting liberal justices endorse Susan 238 00:15:38,760 --> 00:15:40,000 Crawford early on. 239 00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:43,880 In 2025, you had them endorse Chris Taylor. 240 00:15:43,880 --> 00:15:47,680 You've had a candidate jump into the race, this race already, Anya, that you've written 241 00:15:47,680 --> 00:15:51,120 about Lindsey Burnett. 242 00:15:51,120 --> 00:15:53,400 She did not immediately get that endorsement. 243 00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:57,840 And so now you have maybe Judge Pedro Colone in Milwaukee could be running. 244 00:15:57,840 --> 00:16:03,040 So the lack of endorsement may be spawning a little liberal primary on that side. 245 00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:07,240 Yeah, again, and especially with the courts, right, there can be a little bit of that king 246 00:16:07,240 --> 00:16:08,840 making approach again. 247 00:16:08,840 --> 00:16:12,960 So I think it is when you have a crowded feel that the endorsements really matter. 248 00:16:12,960 --> 00:16:18,320 But we live in also such polarized times that going into a general election, there are going 249 00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:20,240 to be very few surprising endorsements. 250 00:16:20,240 --> 00:16:25,320 So the people that I've talked to about the politics of endorsements have said, surprising 251 00:16:25,320 --> 00:16:30,880 endorsements really matter, less surprising ones matter less because, of course, democratic 252 00:16:30,880 --> 00:16:37,160 royalty is going to back Democrats and Republican royalty is going to back Republicans in general. 253 00:16:37,160 --> 00:16:42,360 Before we wrap up here, I feel like we got to talk about the aftermath of the 2026 Supreme 254 00:16:42,360 --> 00:16:46,840 Court race, though, in just about a minute here. 255 00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:51,760 There was some talk that the state party chair, Brian Schimming, could lose his job 256 00:16:51,760 --> 00:16:52,760 over that race. 257 00:16:52,760 --> 00:16:55,040 Some people wanted him out. 258 00:16:55,040 --> 00:16:58,200 What's the update on that? 259 00:16:58,200 --> 00:17:00,000 He's still in. 260 00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:03,000 The party webpage still shows him as chairman. 261 00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:04,640 They had an executive committee. 262 00:17:04,640 --> 00:17:10,280 So that's the group of people that could have fired him and they apparently did not. 263 00:17:10,280 --> 00:17:15,280 But the twist is people I talked to that are on the committee said, we can't tell you 264 00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:19,800 what happened there because we signed non-disclosure agreements. 265 00:17:19,800 --> 00:17:24,800 Those agreements were put in effect in December. 266 00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:31,120 And just for context, after the 2025 loss that Republicans had, that was the Schimmel 267 00:17:31,120 --> 00:17:38,680 and Susan Crawford race, there were calls for Brian Schimming to be fired or resigned. 268 00:17:38,680 --> 00:17:40,840 So kind of the same thing. 269 00:17:40,840 --> 00:17:48,240 And shortly after that, the executive committee passed some new rules to kind of clamp down 270 00:17:48,240 --> 00:17:52,240 on people complaining publicly about GOP party leadership. 271 00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:58,440 So this is, Schimming is still in place and there's a new rule where you have to sign 272 00:17:58,440 --> 00:17:59,440 a NDA. 273 00:17:59,440 --> 00:18:04,840 So this powerful executive committee for the party makes decisions like this. 274 00:18:04,840 --> 00:18:08,800 And you know, you talked to one of the members and he didn't really tell you about what went 275 00:18:08,800 --> 00:18:11,920 on, but he said, check the website. 276 00:18:11,920 --> 00:18:14,760 Yes, check the website. 277 00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:15,760 That's right. 278 00:18:15,760 --> 00:18:17,560 And there's Brian Schimming's name as chair. 279 00:18:17,560 --> 00:18:21,760 Well, we'll continue to follow that one in all these endorsements. 280 00:18:21,760 --> 00:18:23,680 They'll do it for this week. 281 00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:25,680 It's all the time we have. 282 00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:27,960 Our colleague Zach Sheltz will be back next week. 283 00:18:27,960 --> 00:18:29,280 Thanks for joining us. 284 00:18:29,280 --> 00:18:31,680 This has been Inside Wisconsin Politics. 285 00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:37,200 Be sure to follow us on PBSWISCONSI.org, WPR.org, YouTube, or wherever you get your 286 00:18:37,200 --> 00:18:37,960 podcasts. 287 00:18:38,800 --> 00:19:04,320 They've been wrestling with it, man, for days. 288 00:19:05,320 --> 00:19:12,880 Sorry, I had a banger answer and you guys can't use it. 289 00:19:12,880 --> 00:19:13,880 You had other banger. 290 00:19:13,880 --> 00:19:14,240 Did you deliver?