The only mistake that I made is to say, once in a period I said, I'm running for Congress.
I forgot that I'm running for governor.
It was a crazy lunch, but I'm looking to stand up for this dude over here.
He's got this sunshine in here.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Actually, we were at a Mandela Barnes event.
He said he has a friend named Tiffany Tom.
And he said her social media is all messed up with him.
You just stand in here.
All right.
Yeah.
You're good?
All right.
I guess we've got the Democratic primary is kind of going a little nuts right now.
What's your reaction to all of them at the chaos over there?
I mean, when you look at the candidates, it's not surprising, especially with the injection
of the big government's socialism that's really being pushed.
And we know, we've always known that that was going to be the end point for them, but
they wanted to get there gradually.
Well, they're boiling the frog fast is what they're doing at this point.
And they just don't want to admit that that's ultimately where they were heading.
There really isn't a time's worth of difference between the candidates.
I mean, they're very similar and whoever comes out of the primary is going to be advocating
for the same stuff.
It's actually hard to translate to voters if someone other than Francesco Hong wins because
it looks like the party's trying to keep it away from her and find if they call it a
more centrist that the voter might believe, oh, they're more centrist than her.
I mean, is that a concern that because of her being there that makes them all look a
little more centrist?
No, no, I don't think so.
I mean, when you have a candidate that said America's founding was awful, when you have
a candidate who could not keep the health insurance in place for county employees, I
mean, they have serious problems.
But that's not what I'm going to be focused on.
I'm focused on the future of Wisconsin.
We're going to make the state more affordable.
We're going to make state government more accountable to the taxpayers and we are going
to revive Wisconsin and make it one of the great states in America once again.
This is a state that has really, really great potential that's that needs to be unlocked
at this point.
We're going to do that.
Talk to me a little about the advantage you've had of like kind of introducing yourself
to the rest of the state that doesn't know you as a congressmen and the advantage of mostly
having the field to yourself and the money to actually advertise.
Yeah, I mean, it was one of the voles from the start was to make sure that people got
to meet me on my own terms because oftentimes when your opponents get to do it, they do not
really it accurately.
I would just put it that way and we're able to tell it in our own terms.
I mean, people see.
I mean, I grew up on a dairy farm like so many people did in Wisconsin.
We learned the value of hard work.
We raised our family, you know, in a middle class setting.
We worked hard as small business people.
It was never easy, but we were better for it.
I mean, we achieved as I said on the stage here, we achieved the American dream here
in Wisconsin.
I just want young people to also be able to achieve their dreams here in Wisconsin.
So what is this contrast going to be like when we flip the script into August 12th and
beyond where you do have an opponent.
You can actually name and identify, start digging into their record.
What will that look like for voters?
It really will be crazy versus common sense.
I mean, when you see these things like abolishing the Senate, abolishing prisons, and when you
see someone with that unfortunate shooting in Madison come out and say the police may
have executed that person, I mean, that's really wild rhetoric.
People from Wisconsin don't want that.
They want to have a steady hand as their governor, and someone who has a vision for
making Wisconsin a really great state once again, and that's what I'm going to bring
is that steady hand.
You were talking about the ads and defining yourself versus letting your opponents, and
I guess the contrast of four years ago or even how do you use race where those primaries
really took the ability away from the candidate to define themselves first, and they got slammed
to so many ads versus the atmosphere you're running in where people are learning about
you from you.
It's completely different, right?
Yeah, well, I mean, we planned our campaign out this way, and we thought we could, I mean,
we've been fortunate, there's no doubt, but this is how we envisioned it in being able
to deliver the message to the people of state of Wisconsin, because we knew this was going
to be a really big election in 2026.
I mean, I could have stayed home and had a safe seat in Congress for probably as long
as I wanted to, but that's not why I got into politics.
I got into politics to make Wisconsin a better state, and we did that back when I was first
elected to the legislature in 2010, when we fixed that enormous budget deficit of $3
billion.
I meant it to fix problems, and that's what we're going to do when I become a governor.
A few months ago, a lot of Republicans were saying, well, it's an off year, it's not
a good year, the presidential is going to weigh down the party, are you seeing more optimism
as people look at your campaign and say, wait a minute, there's a real chance here?
There's really good optimism out there.
I mean, we see it with this event that we're doing tonight.
I mean, there's well over 100 people that are here.
We've been doing these cavern talks all over Wisconsin, and people are really optimistic,
and they are really motivated.
They know what's at stake here in 2026.
They don't want to go the route of big government socialism.
They want to save Wisconsin, and that's exactly what we're going to do.
I think that message is going to resonate all the way from here to November, and I believe
we're going to win as a result of it.
I've really tried to be positive in regards to there's problems.
We need to fix them, but after we've fixed them, we're going to lead Wisconsin in the
right direction.
Thanks for your time.
Really appreciate it.
Always good to join you.
Thanks for that.