Highlands, North Carolina.
It's right near Asheville.
It's beautiful.
It's in the mountains.
Right on.
I mean, I understand the sort of odd geology.
Can you guys tell me what I'm coming up with?
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With Democratic governor Tony Evers announcement that he will not run for a third term, the November
2026 election for governor is wide open.
And already candidates are lining up on the Republican side, Whitefish Bay businessman
Bill Baryon and Washington County executive Josh Showman have entered the race.
Democratic lieutenant governor Sarah Rodriguez is also formally declared.
There are a whole lot more names potentially throwing their hat in the ring.
For more on this, we turn to our political panelists, Republican Bill McCation and Democrats
Scott Ross.
And nice to see you both again.
Great to be with you.
Great to be with you.
Good to be here.
Bill, what kind of opportunity is this for Republicans?
It's pretty rare.
It's the second time in my 60 years on this earth where we've had an open gubernatorial
seat.
2010 was the last time Scott Walker beat Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett.
So the fact that it's an open seat is an opportunity for Republicans to actually win
here.
Both of the national prognosticators, whether it's the Cook Political Report or Larry Sabato's
Crystal Ball, move this race from lean Democrat as soon as Tony Evers made his announcement
to toss up.
So it's an opportunity for the Republicans to potentially take back the governorship
in 2026 here in the state of Wisconsin.
So Scott, as to that toss up kind of status, how would policymaking change, if in fact
a Republican were to win?
Well, I mean, obviously for the Republican party, which is wholly controlled by Donald
Trump were to win the gubernatorial election and Democrats not pick up either of the chambers,
it would be the most radical extreme partisan handout to special interests and corporate
and the wealthy that we've ever seen in the history of Wisconsin.
But I think that you have to look beyond the sort of toss up numbers when it comes to the
cook.
Yeah, if you look at it on face, Wisconsin goes back and forth.
But if you look at the real numbers and where the Republican party is right now, you know,
if you're not Donald Trump, the party has, Wisconsin voters have rejected you in statewide
elections election after election after election.
And we, I think we've only had two of any consequence that have gone Republican in the last
like 15 years.
Ron Johnson, of course, who got in there because, you know, the DCCC abandoned Mandela Barnes
and he was outspent by $26 million in racist third party ads and the Supreme Court race
where they just, you know, they were Democrat, quite, didn't quite, hadn't quite figured
out how to lock up those races yet.
Now it's a completely different universe.
And the Republican party with Donald Trump in full control, the government, isn't getting
more open for, isn't getting more accommodating for swing voters.
It's getting even more, you know, barbaric, more, you know, the cuts that are coming,
the cuts that are already here, you know, the stormtroopers on our streets pulling people
off in masks and disappearing them.
And that's not the American way.
Bill, as to the Washington influence set of the Congressional District, Republican Tom
Tiffany has been talking about running for a long time.
Yeah.
What's he waiting for?
He says he's going to make a decision sometime around Labor Day.
I hope he does it sooner than that.
There are several Congress people in the House now that are running for governor in different
states, Byron Donald's being at the top of the list in Florida.
I think the president's a little concerned about that because the margin, the House,
the GOP majority in the House is so slim to begin with.
So I don't know if Tom Tiffany's going to get in.
If there's, he's got a lot of strong suits for sure, but probably his weakest area is
fundraising.
He's got $125,000 cash on hand, which today, and Scott would agree, that's a good assembly
race.
That's not a gubernatorial race.
So fundraising is his biggest shortcoming.
We'll see if he gets in.
At the end of the day, where Scott and I actually do agree, Donald Trump's going to pick the
winner of this primary.
Whoever he endorses in this primary will win the race, for sure, on our side.
So who else?
Yeah.
Go ahead, Scott.
I'm sorry.
I'd say $125,000 is a good start for an assembly race.
And here's how narrow that House majority is and is in the Congress, that they have all
fled so that they don't have to keep taking votes to release the Jeffrey Epstein files
about how Trump was fully engaged in what was going on with the sex trafficker and
predator who hung himself.
Who else are Republicans looking at, Bill?
I mean, there is a long list of people out there.
Well, other names that are being bandied about are State Senator Mary Felskowski, who comes
from roughly the same geography as Tom Tiffany.
She represents the 12th Senate District up north.
If she won't get in, if Tiffany does get in, but if Tiffany doesn't get in, I would expect
to see her join the race.
You might remember she voted against the state budget.
She's the first Senate president to ever vote against the state budget.
Mayor Covety's name still gets talked about and I think there's a player to be named
later.
Again, because it's an open seat, it's a real opportunity.
So I think there's probably somebody on our side that people aren't talking about yet
who could get in this race.
Remember, we got 375 days between now and the August 11th, 2026 primary.
It was interesting to see that Scott Walker kind of was toying with it and then said no,
he's not in.
Yeah.
Well, he got some attention for himself and for Young America's Foundation.
I think he'll be involved in the race in some way, just like my former boss, Tommy Thompson
will.
Hopefully they'll agree on the candidate in the primary this time.
They didn't in 2022.
For our side, hopefully we learned some lessons about 2022.
You can't destroy your GOP opponent in the primary and hope that the party can come together
during the general election because it won't happen.
If we want to win this thing and it's a real opportunity to win, we got to hang together
and whoever wins the primary, that's our person.
Scott, let's talk about that.
Yeah, that's what we are.
Yeah.
I just want to say, I think part of the challenge that the Republicans are going to have in
contrast to the Democrats is that their two Republicans have no experience.
God bless Washington County, but it's not even one of the top 10 largest counties in
Wisconsin, whereas on the Democratic side, there is a very long list of people with credentials
who have delivered for the people of Wisconsin starting with the lieutenant governor, continuing
with the attorney general who's gotten $750 million back from opioid settlements, something
that the previous Republican administration and previous Republican attorney general refuse
to allow us to get.
You've got the county executive in the state's largest county, David Crowley.
You've got state Senator Kaldorois, who's on the joint finance committee and who's run
a couple of times before.
There's a long list of people with real credentials about doing the things that Wisconsinites want.
They want people who are going to lower the cost of living, who are going to get affordable
health care and affordable housing, who are going to make sure that education is protected
and strengthened and make sure that everybody's treated with dignity the way that they need
to be treated and stop this dividing that's gone on with the Republicans under this onslaught
of whether it's ICE or it's DEI or whatever prejudice is they're bringing to the table.
The one Scott didn't mention was Ben Wickler, former party chairman.
Nobody has raised more money than Ben Wickler.
He is the best fundraiser on their side or our side.
So if he decides to get in, he'll be formidable.
What do you say to that, Scott?
Oh, absolutely.
Yes.
I mean, and Ben's a great guy who's traveled around the state doing the rubber chicken
circuit for years.
I mean, it's a reason why a lot of us thought in 2022 that Rebecca Clayfish was going to
be the nominee for the Republicans.
But the Republicans have decided they don't want to have a woman at the top of the ticket.
So they went with an out of state businessman who lost.
Scott, as to the toss up status of the governor's race, how much confidence, though, does the
most recent 10 point victory of Justice Susan Crawford give them?
Well, there are two different races, but it also shows that Democrats have been able
to mobilize their voters in a way that Republicans simply have not been able to do for a very,
very long time.
Again, they've won a couple statewide elections, but the margins percentage-wise and number-wise
are so much more narrow than the blowouts that the Democrats have been able to, because
again, they're talking about the things that people want.
They want to make sure that people are protected.
They want to make sure that abortion rights are protected and restored in some cases.
They want to make sure that when you go into court, that you have your day in court, and
it's not balanced towards the rich.
That's completely different to what the agenda of the Republicans are.
Most embodied by the fact that we've got this big, bad bill, which is now going to bankrupt
the country, 270,000 Wisconsinites off of their health care, snatch snap benefits, literally
take the food out of babies and children, that's the agenda of the Republicans.
The Democrats will continue to run on that in contrast to what we're trying to do.
I wanted to just jump to the next Supreme Court election, and have you described the
stakes of that?
Well, we have Rebecca Bradley, who hasn't decided whether she's going to seek reelection
or not.
On our most recent finance report, she hadn't raised any money.
My advice to her is, if you're not going to run, get out and give people time to raise
money.
I think one of the dynamics that there's a relationship between the two races.
I don't think the Supreme Court race is going to be as hotly contested as the last
tour.
I don't think it'll be a $100 million race because it isn't for the majority.
I think the gubernatorial race, now that it's an open seat, will be the political Super Bowl
in Wisconsin in 2026.
Scott, we know that appeals court judge Chris Taylor is running for Supreme Court.
How formidable is she?
I think she's an incredible formidable candidate and has built her career on protecting the
rights of people in Wisconsin, whether it is for living with dignity or abortion rights
or whatever.
That is the profile that she has, the record that she has, especially as a judge.
That contrast, again, with Rebecca Bradley, who's one of the most divisive, one of the
most noxious elected officials that we've had in the history of the state of Wisconsin.
I think for her, the problem is, if she's waiting for a federal judgeship, what's the
incentive to taking out the incumbent from a judicial race when, by and large, over decades
and don't agree with this, the incumbent wins.
Almost used to be unheard of that an incumbent judicial candidate wouldn't win.
Yeah, the last two Supreme Court justices who have lost were appointed.
They did not win those seats.
And so she would be our best shot, for sure.
All right.
We need to leave it there.
But really nice to see you both.
Again, we'll have you on more.
Now that we're heating up into this next election cycle.
Thank you.
Thanks.
And to be with you.
Six minutes over.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There was a lot to cover.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You were both great.
I almost had to defend Donald Trump, though, Scott, because we don't know.
Do we?
We don't know what his involvement was, if any.
We don't know.
Oh, right.
Right, right.
I was looking at the Jeffries who said they knew if Trump said what he said about