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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 your own for governor. We talk about his approach
This is inside Wisconsin politics
I'm Sean Johnson here with my colleagues Zach Schultz. I knew Van Wachtenunk and rich Kramer in Eau Claire. Hey everyone
Hello
And 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
We're here 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 Marquette 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 passed
Independence 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, etc, etc, 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 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 of 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 that they're worried about their gas tank today
So it's not if anything
It's not 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
You know, 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 you know, we've talked about it as a messaging tool as well and there is to Zach's point
There's like the nuanced messaging and the un-nuanced messaging and one of those
Excuse me one of those is more 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 was like money in my pocket. I would like money in my schools having the more complicated messaging
You know, the opponents of the DR 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 dollar hole in the budget
Actually the the market did ask about that rich they they said in so many words
You know that this could create budget issues down the road and you know
Do you really want to 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 a 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 brace for governor was against at Tom Tiffany on the Republican side and on the Democratic side
The only Democrat who came out and said we should be supporting this is former Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation
Director CEO
Missy Hughes and so after the vote failed and especially after this
Poll came out. She said see you know, this is why you know
I want to get things done people want to get 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 living and when you ask them
Would you like a little help might sound like a little in terms of the state budget and 300 bucks?
You know, you can say that's not gonna solve all the all their problems
But the answer is a resounding yes when you ask 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 if there's anyone that would take back their
Opposition, do you think there's one or two candidates that would be better off if they've 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
Independence basically feel the same way about that stuff
I think it's an open question though about whether or not we've talked about this before about whether or not
They'll pay the price for this in November
I we should say
You know voters were asked about that Rich and and whether or not they'll be thinking about this as they voted to remember
How important is it to them?
What 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 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 tax of 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 for a little
Squish year more. 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
More is 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 on you
Yeah, you know one of the sort of
Upsetting truths for those of us who really care about facts and details in the public, you know 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 the things that you know 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 people's 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 they are votes that are not even counted at all because 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 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 on yet 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, you know like needing to thread that needle of but yes, I want to fund schools
Yes, I think that people need you know 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 details
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 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 really 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
You know 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 way to put money in your pockets
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 the budget
So again a lot of sort of talking points not a lot of specifics
Yeah
I would say in terms of the the Madison math versus the family math
It is it is basically like assuming your family is not going to get a raise in the next couple years
And this is what would happen if you didn't you would run out of money
At this forum hosted by WIS 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 haven't I'm asking the administration to give us more as far as how exactly they
expect to
implement this I
think one of the
Just one thought that I have in regards to it is that
You know, 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 is where I differ from the president
Why don't we hear that from him?
You see 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's 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 endorsement
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 and 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 is has been who he is 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 the little higher stakes with the gubernatorial election, but it's not really a change from who he's always been
Rich we've had a the benefit of a few days since that forum
But he was he covered a lot there in this forum by West 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
Research it's research trolling is something else. That's right research
I saw a few
Conservatives Republicans and even one conservative website
Say this was an enforced error. He does he shouldn't be talking about 2020
He needs to talk about the future and what he's going to do and also to the
Surplus bill and his opposition to that they said 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 you 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 you 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 who you know
For whom his sort of Northwoods background is more appealing and and is maybe relying on some 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 on vibes and hope that that'll carry him through November
Maybe at a forum in Madison. He has at luxury. I did check before you recorded today
And he has a couple 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 damn and that's what he's gonna run on is that folksy Northwoods attitude widespread the inside with Johnson 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 PBS Wisconsin.org
WPR.org YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts
I was trying to say the title of the podcast at the end there