tutorial candidate for Mancheska Hong with us tonight, she's a representative, and I thank you.
We'll get representative Hong, how nice they are to you.
Thank you for coming.
You want me to stand up here?
Okay, great.
Well then, can we give it up for Deb Dasso, please?
You set yourself up for a little bit, but we truly do love and appreciate everything that you've done, and I have to say, I like the new digs.
I'm the big Democrat sign right at the side of the building.
Good evening, everyone. I'm state representative Francesca Hong, and it's an absolute honor to be running to be your next governor.
I'm a very proud daughter of immigrants. My parents came here from South Korea in the late 80s, and they came here in pursuit of education.
My dad still works as a sociologist and researcher at UW Madison today, and my mom was a public school music teacher for over 16 years.
I broke her heart when I stopped taking piano lessons to play competitive soccer and actually came out for Washington, and I went and played in Menominee Falls, and we played against Brookfield, and I learned a lot about our towns outside of Milwaukee,
Milwaukee County and Ozaki County area.
So I think right now, we are truly in a movement moment, and movements powered by ordinary, everyday working class books are the ones that will be lasting, that we need to be lasting.
I'm proud to be a single mom and a renter. I've worked in the state legislature now for the last six years, and in my time in a legislature, while sometimes I felt like an outsider coming in being elected in 2020, but coming from the restaurant industry.
I've learned that it's truly the work that happens on the ground in the communities where relational organizing and people taking care of one another and fighting for one another is important to the work that's happening inside of those marble walls.
And you all have been doing that in deep red counties for, I know many of you for a while, and I just wanted to honor and recognize that.
I think when folks ask why I ran for office, and I ran for the assembly in 2020, I tell folks that it was a time of chaos and crisis.
There's an opportunity for change, and in a time where we saw Republican leadership once again, failed communities put them in danger during a public health emergency.
I think a lot of working class people in the communities that I represented in the service industry were ready for a new type of leadership.
Maybe someone who was swearing at Robin Boss on Twitter, but also the person who responded by leaning into community co-founding a cook it forward, a meal delivery program, making sure that folks who were some of the most vulnerable, people who couldn't be safer at home,
people who worked in the service industry, folks who weren't able to get the unemployment benefits or transitional social insurance programs that they needed.
These were the people that I wanted to make sure had a larger voice in government.
I served in the state legislature as a champion of public education.
I've been the ranking Democrat now for the last year and a half, and what I've found and what I've learned that the public schools that I came through in Madison are the same schools that my son is going to.
Georgia school right now, the building doesn't have air conditioning, and his teachers are having to pay for a lot of their own school supplies and bringing their own snacks.
This is reality for too many of our communities across the state, and if we are to have a strong democracy, we must invest in public education.
And the reason why the radical right and I think so many extremists have been hell bent on privatizing public education is because it is one of the last remaining cornerstones of our democracy.
We're fighting right now for fair cheaper healthcare for everyone, and while I'm the representative from Madison, when I got elected, one of the first things I did was get the hell out of Dane County.
And I started campaigning with other state assembly candidates who were running in blue districts, purple districts, red districts.
I wanted not only for them to know that they had a partner in Madison and someone who wanted them to join in the legislature, but that I was realizing our communities regardless of zip code.
We share so many of the same Wisconsin values of hard work, of looking out for our neighbors, of how you win our kids.
And we've been forced to be divided by a state legislature where Republicans hell bent on making government dysfunctional as opposed to a force of good.
I've made it so more and more communities are made to be divided, distracted, and we aren't focusing on the policies that will actually solve the very big problems we face today, rooted in a system that is deeply rigged against us.
Government as a force of good is what is a driving factor of our campaign, but our campaign is one that is building a movement where now over 6,000 people have signed up to volunteer.
Because our neighbors, the people we are meeting in communities across the state, whether they be a Trump voter that I talk to in Montello or the folks in Wisconsin Rapids who are fighting against data centers to people in Marinette and River Falls,
young folks who are concerned about job opportunities and a future where is there going to be a healthy planet ever in their lifetime.
Public education, fair, cheaper healthcare, ensuring that we are lowering costs for utilities and building on paid, leave, and free childcare.
These are economic policies that are wildly popular across different communities across the state.
And when we say we are building a movement, it is that our campaign is one that is engaging people who have not engaged in politics before.
Folks who haven't knocked the door before, because we're facing the disillusionment and apathy too in our challenges in building a stronger democracy.
There are a lot of folks who want nothing to do with politics and certainly don't want anything to do with politicians, and I don't blame them.
But when we are willing, when we are bold and unapologetic in our stances, whether it be an ensuring that we fight for moratorium on data centers,
or we are fighting private equity that are shutting down our nursing homes and buying up homes and making it unaffordable to live in so many communities across the state,
we have to be willing to take on and hold accountable a lot of the megacorporations and the hospitals too that are using their corporate profits to harm our communities in our way of life.
I think that in a movement moment, it's imperative that we have that we are fighting for the policies that will actually be radically welcoming of all working class people.
The folks across the state are feeling deeply left behind, and I think we have a responsibility as Democrats to continue to not shame those who may be thinking differently or identifying differently than us,
but actually showing folks now that this is not so much about the left and the right, but it is about top and down.
It's about income disparities and wealth inequalities that are making it harder and harder for everyday working class Wisconsinites to be able to live a good life.
And we can have a government that actually makes lives easier, but we have to push for the universal policy to actually meet the scale and scope of the struggles in which working class people's lives are getting harder.
I may not be the most polished candidate.
I know that there are questions about executive experience and leadership.
And I can tell you right now that as someone who has come into every arena of work with putting community first and knowing that we need more public servants and not just politicians,
that we need people who are going to be able to go to a community, talk to folks, and come back with the thing that I would say one of the most powerful messages that I carry with me in knowing that maybe this is time for a leader like me,
is when I folks telling me that they're going to their Republican families, maybe their friends,
and that when they see a single mom or renter, someone who is fighting for working class people and an organizer with deep legislative experience and passing a bipartisan bill,
that I'm still somebody that is like them.
And that's what they're telling.
That's what they're telling their communities to.
Leadership in this moment looks like building the diverse coalition and out organizing the opposition and making sure that we have representation in government that's willing to make sure that we don't come back to these moments by fighting for the policies that actually are the universal ones that we all deserve.
And I know that together we can make better possible.
And I'm running for governor because I know that we can have a Wisconsin that actually belongs to everyone in Wisconsin that is affordable for everyone.
So I want to thank you all again for taking time to be with me today, and I'm happy to take questions.
Before we take questions, I just wanted to say one thing that Representative Hong came to help out Dan Larson in an election here.
Twenty twenty two.
You're in.
I don't enjoy.
And as she was saying, we're a little better than we are now.
We've gotten much more balloons.
But I really appreciate you coming and handing out some help to a brand new candidate.
We appreciate it.
So we will take three questions.
Question.
Fran, if you win the Democratic primary, what is your plan to beat Tom Tiffany?
And if you lose, do you plan on encouraging all of your supporters to help the winner of that election defeat Tom Tiffany?
I will wholeheartedly input.
I will out hustle.
I will out hustle the rest of the field in supporting whoever is the Democratic nominee.
And I will be bringing with us an infrastructure.
And organizing their plans.
Thousands of new folks who are new to engaging in politics will ready to make sure that we defeat Tom Tiffany in November.
I think the person who wins the most votes is the most electable.
And our plan to defeat Tom Tiffany is to do what we are doing now but on a much greater scale with more resources which we are building.
It's to make sure that we are organizing our plan right now is to hit over 500,000 doors before the primary.
And we are going to be on route to get there.
We know that a candidate that is an election denier, a pedophile protector.
One that is willing to sell out Wisconsinites, rip health care for millions of Americans and vote to take food share away from our children is highly unqualified to even run for office.
So I don't know if it's a matter of it.
But we are going to need the ground game and bringing people who may have sat out in 2024 and expanding the electorate and making sure that the issues that had brought bipartisan support are the ones that we are highlighting.
And this is an opportunity to bring working class people together when a lot of folks who have been felt left behind are ready for somebody who is going to fight for policies that could work in class people first.
Turns out taxing the billionaires and holding corporations accountable.
Free childcare and free health care people feeling and knowing that these are things that they deserve.
The internal polling show, but I think the receipts on lights show even more that this is what people, when people are waking up to realizing what they deserve and what they want government to look like.
I think we have to be the campaign and we will be the ones that are helping them know, helping them get what they want.
This isn't about labels, this is about solutions.
I want to say thank you so much for taking the time out of my note of busy campaign schedule to be with us.
I also want to compliment you on a very impressive campaign so far.
I think the energy I've seen from your campaign really stands out on the field.
I've worked on the other side of the aisle before, so I'm going to kind of give you a question that you can probably expect in the candidate debate coming up.
Your platform, free childcare, and other social programs are very popular, but I think the question many people in the state will have, especially people that are maybe more undecided, is how do you plan to raise the necessary revenue for the state in order to support these programs,
especially considering that will be reoccurring costs?
We have to build in new revenue streams, look at existing funds, and then the existing budget, do what we do a comb over of corporate fast.
There's also oftentimes Republicans have put in very narrow budget items or funding for things that are not comprehensive.
I think with any budget season, you do have to make some cuts, and I believe making some corporate, deleting some corporate subsidies or tax exemptions would help build an additional revenue now.
Existing data centers, there are sales tax exemptions that were passed for them in 2023.
That's total over $2 billion.
New revenue, cutting or briffette, and building in, and seeing the investments that come with making sure that we're able to sustainably fund our local, our public schools, looking at increasing shared revenue.
I think the short-term and long-term funding goals, when we're looking at projected surplus and the investments, every budget has to come with new revenue streams,
and a lot of that is going to come from having an additional tax bracket into our current tax system.
Raising at least the millionth bracket, million dollar bracket, by another 17%, and that's half a millionth and one dollar.
We have to, right now some of our lowest income earners are paying the highest tax rates.
Making those income tax brackets more equitable will help us build in revenue now.
And I think when you have social insurance programs that attract more people to our state, you're increasing your tax base as well to help continue to fund these investments.
Thank you.
I guess I'm reading it.
Okay.
So first, this is for Raisingle Key Online. Representative, thank you for joining us today.
How would you like your supporters to respond to Tom Tiffany's claim that it's here in time to abolish the police, abolish prisons, abolish borders, and raise taxes to pay for government, run grocery stores?
Okay.
Fox News and Tom Tiffany like to give me a lot of re-advertising.
I'm serious about public safety, and I'm not here to govern by slogan.
Public safety requires us to be tough on causes, not to be in order to be tough on crimes.
The investment when it comes to public education out of school programs and making sure that the system we have now lets an Epstein-class world free.
I think reform is responsible and public safety is of utmost importance.
And if we're going to be serious about public safety so that all communities feel safe, we need to be doing things differently.
Hi, my name is Mary Curly, and I'm wondering if you become governor, will you be able to coalesce a staff that will be strong enough to resist all the shenanigans that Trump will throw at you?
I feel very confident.
I think a sign of a good leader is in the people that they surround themselves with.
But taking on a fascist regime like the Trump regime is going to require that.
More than just the statewide knowledge and experience and people.
It's important that democratic governors come together in a coalition to discuss strategies, see what has worked and what hasn't worked.
And work in alignment with other states that we know are more vulnerable to threats because they are blue states with blue governors or purple states with a strong blue governor too.
So it's both yes a staffing and bringing in experts not just in policy making spaces, but I think it's important to see that with Metro surge in Minneapolis.
The response from the community, the very sophisticated community safety systems that the people actually were able to build because oftentimes when systems fails, communities have to show up.
I want us to validate and make space for those who are organizing and have our immigrant justice organizations.
People who have built in these communities built in community safety infrastructure to have a voice at the table as well because they are the ones that have the trusted relationships with some of our most vulnerable communities.
I hope we all will take legal observer trainings and know your rights, but ultimately it's the families when you are scared to go to work or send your kids to schools making yourself exposing yourself potentially risking your safety even more.
I think it's important to recognize some of the, it's important to recognize that these community relationships are ones that the state has to honor and not try to insert itself into.
I think it's important for people to understand the power of mutual aid and where some of these communities safety strategies, how much they've done to really protect a lot of people and help them feel safe.
Thank you.
Hi, I'm Sherry.
Hi, Sherry.
Nice to meet you.
I was going to go on Zoom and I just got in my car.
We're a lot of your hair.
Happy to be here.
I think for me, the elephant in the room is the word socialism and I have people in the police force.
I have many, many people that I know that are Republicans and they'll say to me, well, she's just a socialist.
So, you know, really, how do you talk to ordinary people about what that actually is?
What's the difference between a socialist and a Democrat and a Republican?
Why is it good to be a socialist?
What is a socialist now?
Oh, I heard they've been calling, the Republicans will be locked step and they'll call us whatever in the lie about us and they'll probably call every most Democrats some sort of S word, I think, in this I'm calling the election.
Packers, potholes, public schools.
We have a publicly owned NFL team, our beloved Green Bay Packers that we have deep pride in.
When there's more public, when there's a public stake and we have more of a public input and a owning a public good, it turns out it's a lasting good thing.
When I talk about socialism, it's trash pickup.
It's who's going to come when you have a fire on your bar and what who's paying for the fire services.
It's public good.
It's government that is for the public good and investing in public services.
As a Democratic socialist, the word Democrat and social are in it.
This is about people with a fair Democratic government that values human rights.
Our public schools are publicly funded.
They're available for everyone and everyone shares them.
I think the government that we have, the system and the economy that we have now, is it working for you?
If we have more public services, the money that goes to fund potholes and fill the potholes, those are things that as a Democratic socialist, I'm prioritizing because I want to fix the roads, but we need people to pay fair taxes to do it.
We go straight to the different economic policies every single time.
If you look at where Democratic socialism is favored and growing, a lot of it is with the younger generation.
We have a responsibility to build a more multi-generational coalition.
If we're going to bring folks in so that we have people who are going to keep fighting to vote for Democrats,
we have to listen to them and they know that right now, the system that is making the wealthiest wealthier, where we have a trillionaire,
where we have small businesses paying higher tax rates than some of our largest corporations, where folks are working two, three jobs and still having to put buildings on hold,
where you've got utility companies that are jacking up your prices and their CEOs are walking away with war and yet we're not seeing any of our costs go down.
When you hit a point like this where it feels very untenable and affordability is something that everyone is talking about,
I think it means that folks are ready for a new system and I'm not here to talk about labels, I want to talk about solutions that make life easier.
David Garcia from Crafton. Reddit Republicans want you to win this primary because they assume there'll be an easy way for Tom to meet at the election.
What are your thoughts on this and why do you think they're believing in that?
Republicans are threatened by our campaign. They seem to be giving us a lot of air time and I think it's because they are not only miscalculating where the voters are at,
but I think they know that we are bringing what no other campaign can, including theirs.
And that's grassroots organizing power. This is the year of the many and not just the money where our last reporting cycle,
we had twice the amount of the, we had more individual donations than the next two candidates combined where if you look at the political moment we are in,
people are sick and tired of the status quo of being told when change is possible and how much change they deserve.
I think the frustration here in seeing that this economic system is deeply rigged and people are feeling like they're getting screwed.
Folks being ready for change in a time of crisis and chaos is brave.
Tom Tiffany is a coward and he's a coward who's unwilling to face me and I think it's because we're building a movement.
Folks wouldn't think that someone like me would be able to run for governor, let alone be leading in a field.
And so the Republicans and say they can do what they want, but the numbers, whether it's internally or whether it's, you know, poll numbers or not,
we're not only ready to defeat Tom Tiffany, but we're ready to defeat him in what Tony Evers calls a landslide.
Hi, my name is Dan Bolle. I have a pet, kind of a pet thing. You speak highly of public education and it has gone down for decades.
My pet thing is public money going to anything to do with Jesus and they are taking over our schools and corrupt governors.
And I would like to know what you're going to do to get that out of our system. We are not funding church.
I'm a Democratic atheist, by the way.
It is untenable for the state to fund two school systems.
I believe that public dollars belong in public schools and one of the most important parts, one of the most important things we will have to do in phasing out the voucher system
in sunsetting it completely. First, to put in measures of accountability and transparency.
And disrupt some of the programs that are, well, I'll go back to a legislation that my colleague representative and draw could introduce,
a really important bill where property tax payers would see on their property tax bill how much of their dollars taxes are going on.
That could be statewide legislation. And we have to, you know, there are accountability and transparency piece and then looking at phasing out the voucher program.
But we know that vouchers are also a symptom of many, many years of the state failing a lot of black and brown kids and underfunding their public schools.
And so it has to be a process that is equitable and transparent.
Disrupt the least amount of disruption to the schools that are trying to act in good faith.
But I agree that we shouldn't be funding, you know, significant amount of dollars to private schools that are teaching teachers that don't have, they may not be licensed teachers.
There are different auditing requirements that they have higher special education reimbursements than public education or public schools do.
I think ending phasing out the voucher program, starting with the statewide, then we're seeing the Milwaukee is the program, the plans that we have last public dollars.
We have to keep them in public schools.
We are very tall.
Actually, you said that was the last question.
I don't know what your agenda is, I'm happy to take questions.
I'll let you do one.
I'm serious.
I hate it.
Two boys.
Last.
My name is Gene Wangman.
I have a specific question.
Governor Evers tried to get the money to surplus money through that would come back to the school district.
Oh, the surplus money that would come back to the school districts, much of that surplus pocket or whatever.
Evers introduced, I think, one side of the state and of the senate approved it, but not the assembly, but it never, it gets rough.
Is that surplus still available?
Yes.
Those projected surplus funds are still, those were not spent.
I feel they're not passed.
And those, that was certain.
With that democratic trifecta, the joining the assembly and the senate.
And so, a little pro-public education.
Sometimes I drop the F-bomb governor to make sure that we're putting that money back into our schools.
Thank you.
It was awesome.
Go right into it.
Yeah, your mic's not working.
You have to go right into it.
Like this?
Yeah.
Like this?
Yes.
Thank you.
Representing Pong.
Thank you.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Have a great day.
Thank you.
Have a great day.
Thank you.