1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:25,080 Big money pours into Wisconsin for the midterms with a big financial edge for conservatives. 2 00:00:25,080 --> 00:00:29,800 Who's behind the push and what are the candidates saying about issues ranging from gas prices 3 00:00:29,800 --> 00:00:36,800 to corruption? 4 00:00:59,800 --> 00:01:05,680 You covered this group, they are pretty much brand new and already they're a huge spender. 5 00:01:05,680 --> 00:01:10,680 Tell us about who they are and what they're doing here. 6 00:01:10,680 --> 00:01:14,720 By my math they're the biggest spender so far in 2026. 7 00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:19,040 So who they are, they're called First Amendment LLC. 8 00:01:19,040 --> 00:01:26,520 It is an express advocacy group so it's not affiliated with any specific candidate, etc. 9 00:01:26,520 --> 00:01:32,120 or a campaign but it is obviously a conservative group because all the money they're putting 10 00:01:32,120 --> 00:01:37,880 into Wisconsin is going against Democrats and it's a lot of money too. 11 00:01:37,880 --> 00:01:43,040 We're talking about this group was created last week and on the same day it reported 12 00:01:43,040 --> 00:01:52,400 spending around $13 million and that's divided up by $9 million going against David Crowley 13 00:01:52,400 --> 00:01:58,880 in the race for governor and the remaining $3.4 million or so going into key assembly 14 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:06,160 and senate races as Republicans and Democrats for control of the state legislature and this 15 00:02:06,160 --> 00:02:11,440 money we don't know much about what it's going to be used for but in the filing it said it 16 00:02:11,440 --> 00:02:19,240 will be for direct mail, campaign literature, phone calls, digital ads, that sort of thing. 17 00:02:19,240 --> 00:02:24,760 It's hard to tell where the money's coming from, who this group is, it appears to be 18 00:02:24,760 --> 00:02:31,440 affiliated with a different Virginia based PAC called Make Liberty Win and Fox News did 19 00:02:31,440 --> 00:02:39,400 an article not long ago about a tech investor essentially putting $40 million into Make Liberty 20 00:02:39,400 --> 00:02:40,400 Win. 21 00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:45,680 I wasn't able to see in the federal campaign finance reports whether that money was transferred 22 00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:50,080 over but it appears that this new group is flush with cash. 23 00:02:50,080 --> 00:02:54,320 Okay and so this comes into an environment where we already knew who some of the big 24 00:02:54,320 --> 00:02:59,960 donors were in Wisconsin because they do report their contributions and Republicans had a 25 00:02:59,960 --> 00:03:04,640 pretty big advantage there too did they not? 26 00:03:04,640 --> 00:03:11,560 They did yeah and just the top spanners this year I mean it is the first amendment LLC 27 00:03:11,560 --> 00:03:16,160 group and then it's the Republican Party of Wisconsin those are the two top spenders 28 00:03:16,160 --> 00:03:23,040 and if you look back to 2022 the last race for governor it was Tony Evers was the number 29 00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:29,880 one spender in state politics and the second place runner up was the Democratic Party of 30 00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:35,240 Wisconsin so we're seeing a little bit of a flip of those two parties in terms of the 31 00:03:35,240 --> 00:03:39,640 money that they're bringing in and spending and when it comes to who's giving to the parties 32 00:03:39,720 --> 00:03:46,440 you have big contributions from billionaires Diane Hendricks and the U-lines Richard U-line 33 00:03:46,440 --> 00:03:52,960 also has his own group that's running ads to help Tom Tiffany this is a bit of a flip 34 00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:58,080 as we Rich mentioned there in terms of what we've gotten used to in Wisconsin where Democrats 35 00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:02,320 seem to know how to use this state law that lets unlimited money flow around from parties 36 00:04:02,320 --> 00:04:03,320 to candidates. 37 00:04:03,320 --> 00:04:07,200 Right so you mentioned those mega donors who have essentially put tons of money into 38 00:04:07,200 --> 00:04:11,360 the Republican Party of Wisconsin and that's using a kind of loophole in campaign finance 39 00:04:11,360 --> 00:04:15,760 law that says that there's a cap on how much individuals can donate to campaigns there 40 00:04:15,760 --> 00:04:20,120 is not a cap on what you can give to parties and then what parties can spend and so this 41 00:04:20,120 --> 00:04:24,560 was a law that was passed by Republicans but then Democrats ended up using to kind of great 42 00:04:24,560 --> 00:04:29,120 effect over many years but so I think there's a couple of different reasons for that potentially 43 00:04:29,120 --> 00:04:32,960 so one reason is just like a very kind of local reason which is that the former chair 44 00:04:32,960 --> 00:04:37,240 of the Democratic Party Ben Wickler is just known for his kind of fundraising prowess 45 00:04:37,240 --> 00:04:42,160 and he has a sort of national profile among national Democrats he's very well respected 46 00:04:42,160 --> 00:04:46,960 among sort of DC Democratic circles so he was really the person it wasn't like the Democratic 47 00:04:46,960 --> 00:04:50,960 Party immediately took advantage of the law it was when he came into leadership in the 48 00:04:50,960 --> 00:04:55,320 Democratic Party the Democrats really kind of took this and ran with it so it's possible 49 00:04:55,320 --> 00:04:59,760 now that he's no longer in leadership but that has had some effect on the state party's 50 00:04:59,760 --> 00:05:03,840 ability to fundraise I think another thing also that's going on here though is that even 51 00:05:03,840 --> 00:05:08,800 though the governor's race is going to be very tight and is very important and even 52 00:05:08,800 --> 00:05:14,320 you know sort of national politico's recognize that the Wisconsin governor's race is important 53 00:05:14,320 --> 00:05:18,400 Democrats are also trying to flip Congress and so you know I went and looked at a number 54 00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:22,800 of the kind of big Democratic mega donors who often try to put money in Wisconsin state 55 00:05:22,800 --> 00:05:27,480 elections and they're still spending money this year but they are spending it on congressional 56 00:05:27,560 --> 00:05:31,480 races in other states so we're seeing much less of their money come through the Democratic 57 00:05:31,480 --> 00:05:36,120 Party and that's why I think you know the combination of huge funding from Republicans 58 00:05:36,120 --> 00:05:39,800 and then some amount of kind of taking their foot off the gas from Democrats shows that 59 00:05:39,800 --> 00:05:47,080 big split. Zach you know I kind of got a theory in politics that when you see these big donors 60 00:05:47,080 --> 00:05:51,520 put a lot of money into a race like ours like the race for governor they feel like they have 61 00:05:51,520 --> 00:05:54,960 a chance at getting something that they want right that they they feel like they have a 62 00:05:54,960 --> 00:06:00,960 chance of winning. I mean is it fair to say that Republicans are looking at Wisconsin as maybe 63 00:06:02,080 --> 00:06:06,080 friendly ground in an unfriendly environment? It's interesting because you have to look 64 00:06:06,080 --> 00:06:09,840 at both the national environment and the state environment to realize there is a difference in 65 00:06:09,840 --> 00:06:15,840 what we're seeing out of the Midwest and Northern American races in Minnesota tightening up 66 00:06:15,840 --> 00:06:21,280 Wisconsin's always tight. Michigan Senate they're the polling out of Maine Senate being a lot tighter 67 00:06:21,280 --> 00:06:26,160 which is the opposite of what we're hearing out of the South which is you know Texas Democrats 68 00:06:26,160 --> 00:06:31,280 doing well in Kansas Senate race being competitive and these things that we really hadn't heard of 69 00:06:31,280 --> 00:06:36,080 in kind of expending of what Ani was talking about the map is so large that these Democratic 70 00:06:36,080 --> 00:06:40,400 national donors are being pulled in a lot of different directions whereas in the past Ben 71 00:06:40,400 --> 00:06:46,640 Wickler could say hey support Tony Evers to protect Wisconsin's electoral votes in the presidential 72 00:06:47,440 --> 00:06:52,400 election. Protect the assembly so that Tony Evers veto still matters when it comes to drawing these 73 00:06:52,400 --> 00:06:57,440 maps. Invest in our our Supreme Court races so we can redraw these maps and declare what 74 00:06:57,440 --> 00:07:02,240 gerrymandering is. That argument has already been won and so every investor needs a new 75 00:07:02,240 --> 00:07:06,320 argument of why they need to invest and it may be that some of them are just looking in different 76 00:07:06,320 --> 00:07:11,440 directions and getting maybe greedy from a Democratic point of view of hey where Cal squing win 77 00:07:11,440 --> 00:07:16,000 forgetting that Wisconsin's still competitive. This race will be closer than some of those other 78 00:07:16,080 --> 00:07:21,760 races where they are investing millions and neglecting the the Democrats here and I think 79 00:07:21,760 --> 00:07:28,240 you also have to look at what does it matter for the assembly because if we're talking about the 80 00:07:28,240 --> 00:07:32,800 state Senate being more likely to flip to Democrats because you only need to win a couple seats and 81 00:07:32,800 --> 00:07:36,960 one of them looks pretty solid and they've got a couple good battleground options and if they 82 00:07:36,960 --> 00:07:41,760 think they're going to lose the Democratic race for governor because they have this national 83 00:07:41,840 --> 00:07:46,720 wave overtaking Tom Tiffany's ability to compete their backstop is the assembly where they're 84 00:07:46,720 --> 00:07:52,480 very localized races they only have to win a handful of these seats to stop the Democrats 85 00:07:52,480 --> 00:07:56,960 from doing anything they want in the next session if they hold the assembly so that's worth pouring 86 00:07:56,960 --> 00:08:01,120 all these millions into and that's originally where these billionaires were dumping their money 87 00:08:01,120 --> 00:08:07,360 was into the Republican assembly packs and all their money so it's they're also expanding their 88 00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:12,400 own map as they're saying hey maybe Tom Tiffany does have a legitimate chance to win even in this 89 00:08:12,400 --> 00:08:18,080 environment. You know when I look at this big financial push for conservatives here I can't help 90 00:08:18,080 --> 00:08:23,840 but think about the 2010 election cycle a little bit because I remember that year there's a lot of 91 00:08:23,840 --> 00:08:29,200 talk in the closing days of the election that unions were the big spenders in that year's elections 92 00:08:29,200 --> 00:08:36,080 they were the big dogs in in that year's fight and we kind of remember how that turned out it was 93 00:08:36,080 --> 00:08:41,280 pretty much the worst year for Democrats ever basically but at least since we've been covering 94 00:08:41,280 --> 00:08:46,320 politics Zach one of the most consequential wave elections that we have covered and so it doesn't 95 00:08:46,320 --> 00:08:51,680 always work when you pour money into a race on the other hand David Crowley is not a well-known 96 00:08:51,680 --> 00:08:59,120 household name in Wisconsin and so when Tom Tiffany can go out and kind of define him there's a 97 00:08:59,120 --> 00:09:04,160 argument to be made that that money gets more bang for the buck you've talked to both of the 98 00:09:04,160 --> 00:09:11,440 candidates very recently David Crowley and Tom Tiffany and you get a sense that an issue gas 99 00:09:11,440 --> 00:09:17,600 prices specifically could become front and center in this race for governor how are they talking 100 00:09:17,600 --> 00:09:23,120 about it and why now why now is because they keep skyrocketing anyone who has directly drive 101 00:09:23,120 --> 00:09:28,160 anywhere knows that gas prices are only going up it's becoming a bigger issue at diesel specifically 102 00:09:28,160 --> 00:09:33,440 because that's rising at even faster rates so if you have a diesel truck or you have any connection 103 00:09:33,440 --> 00:09:38,880 to truckers that need to bring supplies to your business or farmers having to worry about 104 00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:43,840 harvesting crops or paying for fertilizer which also deals with diesel and other fuel and oil 105 00:09:43,840 --> 00:09:49,520 related subsidies there's all sorts of issues that are really making this the highest profile 106 00:09:49,520 --> 00:09:54,560 but I think the true answer to that is you have to go beyond maybe the people that watch us program 107 00:09:54,560 --> 00:09:59,760 and it's the non politically invested people when do they tune into elections when it affects them 108 00:09:59,760 --> 00:10:04,560 personally and they can feel it I've spoken to so many people some of my own family who 109 00:10:04,560 --> 00:10:08,320 absolutely hate politics they don't want anything to do with it they don't want to talk about it 110 00:10:08,320 --> 00:10:13,440 but when gas goes up when eggs go up when beef goes up when they can feel it and see it everywhere 111 00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:20,160 they say why is this happening and who can I blame which is why in 2022 when we saw gas prices surge 112 00:10:20,160 --> 00:10:24,800 they blamed Biden Biden can have all the answers in the world about why it was international it wasn't 113 00:10:24,800 --> 00:10:30,160 his fault same things happening now it's whoever is in charge is going to get blamed when prices 114 00:10:30,160 --> 00:10:34,160 surge no matter what the nuance and an answer is and these are these are voters that don't look 115 00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:38,640 at political nuance they don't want to spend 30 minutes hearing about global supply chains 116 00:10:38,640 --> 00:10:42,880 or foreign conflicts they want to know why is it so expensive for me to fill up my truck 117 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:50,320 and I mean in this particular election we do have I think democrats have a decent cause effect 118 00:10:50,320 --> 00:10:56,480 case to be made here is the straight line the president Donald Trump decided to go to war in 119 00:10:56,480 --> 00:11:05,200 Iran and that has been a huge factor affecting fuel prices rich one of our candidates for governor 120 00:11:05,200 --> 00:11:10,880 is in congress and I'm this has come up in congress of course with war powers resolutions you name it 121 00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:19,360 how is Tom Tiffany voting on those and what's he saying about it well he voted against the 122 00:11:19,840 --> 00:11:24,640 the democrats war powers resolution that would have essentially forced an end to the conflict 123 00:11:25,680 --> 00:11:32,160 several times so there's that but but now he's essentially saying well the governor 124 00:11:32,160 --> 00:11:37,280 governor evers could do something now you know there's various things that the governor could do to 125 00:11:37,280 --> 00:11:43,600 ease taxes or etc to bring the price down a little bit so that is that's a bit of a tight 126 00:11:43,600 --> 00:11:51,120 rope answer there where he doesn't want to cross the president but also Tiffany did recently say 127 00:11:51,120 --> 00:11:57,840 it's time to wrap up the war so there's that I also want to mention that in the third congressional 128 00:11:57,840 --> 00:12:04,880 district race which is my home turf here Derek van Orden a republican congressman incumbent 129 00:12:05,760 --> 00:12:12,320 he was on twitter and essentially blaming oil companies for price gouging and that I've seen 130 00:12:12,320 --> 00:12:19,440 from some other republicans who you wouldn't expect that sort of um rhetoric focused on 131 00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:26,800 industry or or you know a big industry like oil and gas you wouldn't expect that so it was 132 00:12:26,800 --> 00:12:31,520 kind of notable and I felt I had to mention kind of normally the proudly capitalist 133 00:12:32,320 --> 00:12:38,080 captains of industry but their backs are against the wall here in this moment in in 2026 so the 134 00:12:38,080 --> 00:12:43,920 candidates Crowley and Tiffany have been talking about other issues with a pretty good link to 135 00:12:43,920 --> 00:12:49,280 that the national debate uh they've come out with their own versions of this anti-corruption 136 00:12:49,280 --> 00:12:53,360 agenda I think they they framed it a little bit differently but they they both talked about 137 00:12:53,360 --> 00:12:59,200 gonna fight corruption on you know you covered the David Crowley version of this what's he talking 138 00:12:59,200 --> 00:13:04,080 about yeah so he kind of came out and he proposed four things that he said would be in his budget 139 00:13:04,160 --> 00:13:09,920 on day one and so that would include banning state office holders from trading stocks from 140 00:13:09,920 --> 00:13:16,480 participating in prediction markets there would be a sort of imposed gap on when energy regulators 141 00:13:16,480 --> 00:13:22,720 could go to work for energy companies two years and then also a change to kind of public record 142 00:13:22,720 --> 00:13:29,200 laws and he framed this very much in the context of Washington DC and sort of saying that there's 143 00:13:29,200 --> 00:13:34,000 all this corruption going on in Washington we don't have the power to address that but what we can do 144 00:13:34,080 --> 00:13:38,960 is kind of fight stuff here and so it was an interesting way I think of trying to frame things 145 00:13:38,960 --> 00:13:44,320 against President Donald Trump without necessarily naming him with the kind of understanding that 146 00:13:44,320 --> 00:13:49,040 Tom Tiffany and President Trump are pretty closely linked uh the other thing that was kind of interesting 147 00:13:49,040 --> 00:13:53,840 is then a couple of days later Tom Tiffany came out with his own platform and so it also kind of 148 00:13:53,840 --> 00:13:58,240 shows this dynamic right now in this race where the candidates really have to answer one another 149 00:13:58,240 --> 00:14:03,280 and so you see kind of how close they are and how close they understand themselves to be 150 00:14:03,280 --> 00:14:07,600 because they can't kind of dismiss when one person comes out with a policy proposal the 151 00:14:07,600 --> 00:14:13,040 other person needs to respond right it was data centers a few weeks ago and and now corruption and 152 00:14:13,040 --> 00:14:21,440 rich you covered the uh Tom Tiffany version of this up by Eau Claire uh what what what is anti-corruption 153 00:14:21,440 --> 00:14:28,000 mean to Tom Tiffany what's his platform look like well he talked a lot about the federal 154 00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:36,960 investigations and findings of uh you know Medicaid fraud etc from the in Wisconsin and elsewhere 155 00:14:36,960 --> 00:14:43,440 they there was talk about Minnesota and the um the fraud that was announced by the federal government 156 00:14:43,440 --> 00:14:49,520 in that state so that's the kind of fraud he was talking about he said there has been success 157 00:14:49,520 --> 00:14:57,200 at the federal level it's time to look in Wisconsin so Tiffany's proposal is to essentially do more 158 00:14:57,200 --> 00:15:03,760 audits of of every state agency and Wisconsin already has a nonpartisan legislative audit bureau 159 00:15:03,760 --> 00:15:08,560 and there is a committee in the legislature that is run by republicans right now that 160 00:15:08,560 --> 00:15:15,920 can tell it to do additional audits um on top of like the annual audit of state government that is 161 00:15:15,920 --> 00:15:22,080 done and they have done that and they've even audited some some groups that have gotten some some flak 162 00:15:22,080 --> 00:15:29,040 from republicans um or some money that went to these groups like there's this new cap organization 163 00:15:29,040 --> 00:15:35,360 in green bay that had some financial troubles and and shut down so he mentioned those audits and 164 00:15:35,360 --> 00:15:41,120 essentially that his own office the department of administration if he were elected governor 165 00:15:41,120 --> 00:15:46,800 would be going through agency budgets as well as the audit bureau so that's a little bit of a 166 00:15:46,880 --> 00:15:52,720 new thing um and he also said we need more transparency essentially online dashboards 167 00:15:52,720 --> 00:15:59,040 where you can go and see where every penny is spent how it's spent and he referenced a site that 168 00:15:59,040 --> 00:16:03,760 i didn't even know existed open book wisconsin which already does this but he said it needs to be 169 00:16:03,760 --> 00:16:09,520 modernized and and just be smoother because it's a bit of a clunky website but interesting 170 00:16:09,520 --> 00:16:15,680 information on there so that's kind of his pitch so uh david growley going after congress where 171 00:16:15,760 --> 00:16:20,240 tom tefney serves tom tefney kind of attacking democratic governor tonyivers david krauley's 172 00:16:20,240 --> 00:16:26,800 endorser in chief zack uh why this message at this moment in time in 2026 i think what we're seeing 173 00:16:26,800 --> 00:16:32,560 from each of these candidates is they are taking the issues that voters say they care about like 174 00:16:32,560 --> 00:16:39,120 affordability pricing and corruption and government transparency and they are kind of gaslighting 175 00:16:39,120 --> 00:16:42,880 it right around their own issues that have been in their pet projects forever because when democrats 176 00:16:42,880 --> 00:16:47,840 talk about affordability it's prices and gouging and when democrats and when republicans talk about 177 00:16:47,840 --> 00:16:52,400 affordability it's your taxes it's the same issues they've been doing all along and this corruption 178 00:16:52,400 --> 00:16:57,760 stuff it's like every single year we hear republicans talk about fraud and social welfare programs 179 00:16:57,760 --> 00:17:02,240 and more audits more audits they've been audits all along as rich said none of these are new they're 180 00:17:02,240 --> 00:17:07,040 not unaudited programs but it kind of says to the voter oh yeah we hear what you're complaining 181 00:17:07,040 --> 00:17:10,960 about and we're ready to do that in fact it's something we've we've been talking about all along 182 00:17:10,960 --> 00:17:15,040 you should vote for me because that's what i want to do too so it's a way of taking these 183 00:17:15,040 --> 00:17:19,440 fears that the voters are really upset about and saying hey you're already ready to vote for me 184 00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:25,040 that's what i'm talking about too so rebranding relabeling these old packages a new package not 185 00:17:25,040 --> 00:17:32,080 necessarily a new platform uh on you before we wrap up here uh there uh was a primary and one side 186 00:17:32,080 --> 00:17:38,320 for governor and essentially not on the other you have been covering a unity tour for democrats 187 00:17:38,400 --> 00:17:43,920 led by francesca hong who came up just short in the primary what is she saying and does 188 00:17:44,480 --> 00:17:48,640 the democratic party need unifying right now i mean this is a really kind of interesting 189 00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:52,880 moment so she's kind of hitting the road to make the case that democrats have to get this trifecta 190 00:17:52,880 --> 00:17:56,720 they need the legislature they need the governor's office because i think there was this question 191 00:17:56,720 --> 00:18:02,720 right after the election would her supporters kind of go away and again with how tight wisconsin 192 00:18:02,720 --> 00:18:07,120 races are uh democrats can't afford to lose any of those voters and so this will be a really 193 00:18:07,120 --> 00:18:12,400 interesting moment to kind of see how gettable or get backable her supporters are for Crowley 194 00:18:12,400 --> 00:18:16,560 because he'll need them to win all right that's all the time we have for today this has been 195 00:18:16,560 --> 00:18:23,760 inside wisconsin politics be sure to follow us on pbswisconsin.org wpr.org youtube or wherever you 196 00:18:23,760 --> 00:18:37,440 get your podcasts 197 00:18:39,760 --> 00:18:41,040 all right nonya 20 seconds 198 00:18:44,720 --> 00:18:48,800 yeah okay that was rich rich coffin too i know it was 199 00:18:49,520 --> 00:18:57,360 it wasn't me it was not on you maybe let the record show 200 00:18:57,520 --> 00:19:04,880 i coughed for the first six programs and here's the heck seriously ill 201 00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:11,760 what do you have to say then my sinus infections were non-transmissile 202 00:19:12,720 --> 00:19:15,120 nice 203 00:19:32,240 --> 00:19:34,800 okay 204 00:19:41,760 --> 00:19:55,760 Big money pours into Wisconsin for the midterms with a big financial edge for conservatives. 205 00:19:55,760 --> 00:19:57,240 Who's behind the push? 206 00:19:57,240 --> 00:20:02,280 And what are the candidates saying about issues ranging from gas prices to corruption? 207 00:20:02,280 --> 00:20:04,560 This is Inside Wisconsin Politics.