>> The following program is a PBS Wisconsin Original
production. >> Keep your TVs up going
all night long. >> A nail biter election
night leads to the closest race of its kind in 80
years, as David Crowley pulls off a comeback for
the ages to become the Democratic nominee for
governor. Good evening. I'm Zac
Schultz filling in for Frederica Freyberg tonight
on here. And now we'll take you through another action
packed election night in Wisconsin and talk with our
political experts about what it means for November.
A closer look at why vote tallies were delayed again
from Milwaukee Central count. And Reverend Al
Sharpton points a national spotlight on the funeral of
Cory Ruiz. It's "Here& Now" for August 14th.
>> Funding for Here and Now is provided by the Focus
Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.
>> The race that once looked like a runaway
turned into a photo finish, as David Crowley narrowly
defeated Francesca Hong to win the Democratic
nomination. Now that Wisconsin's gubernatorial
election is set, the candidates are already
turning the page from the primary to the general.
Here and now, reporter Steven Potter has the story.
>> You know, we're not going to win this race
focusing on ideology alone. It's about focusing on
Wisconsin values. about the very soul of the
state of Wisconsin. >> After more than a few
twists for the Democrats in the primary, Wisconsin
voters now know which two candidates they'll choose
from in the election for governor this fall. On the
Democratic side, it will be Milwaukee County Executive
David Crowley. And on the Republican side, it will be
U.S. Congressman Tom Tiffany.
>> You are the reason our common sense message is
being delivered in every corner of the state of
Wisconsin. Yes. And you are the reason why we are going
to turn the governorship red in November, aren't you?
Yeah. Yes. >> From the moment he
entered the race, Tom Tiffany, who hails from
northern Wisconsin, has been the Republican
frontrunner with only nominal opposition from a
relatively unknown Republican in the primary.
Tiffany pulled in more than 95% of the Republican vote
on Tuesday at his election night party. He thanked
supporters and pinpointed his stance on issues he
thinks will help him win in November.
>> Taxes keep rising. An opportunity becomes harder
to find because at the heart of this election is a
fundamental difference in how we see Wisconsin's
future. >> It was far more
difficult for David Crowley to secure his win in the
Democratic primary. His path to victory was not
only a stunning upset but also an unexpected comeback.
Crowley dropped out of the race in early July, but
jumped back in after the campaign of Sara Rodriguez
imploded and Mandela Barnes made a sudden exit. When he
got back into the race, he did so with an endorsement
from the state's top Democrat.
>> That we kind of had a secret weapon, particularly
when it came down to our great governor here,
>> In every poll, Crowley was trailing Democratic
Socialists and state Representative Francesca
Hong by double digits. But as Hong tried to weather
negative press in the final days of the election, it
seemed more possible that Crowley could be a true
contender. As election results rolled in late
Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, Crowley gradually
took the lead and won just barely. In all, Crowley
earned 39.8% of the Democratic vote, beating
Hong by half of a percentage point. At a
press conference, Crowley thanked his supporters and
spoke about what sets him apart from his new
Republican opponent. >> But we all want safe
communities, strong schools, affordable health care,
good paying jobs and a brighter future for all of
our children. And every one of us has something much
bigger to unite around. And that is keeping Maga
extremism from bringing the chaos we see in Washington
into our neighborhoods right here in the state of
Wisconsin. >> Both candidates now turn
their attention toward attracting the undecided
voter. >> Whatever your political
label, Republican, independent, politically
homeless, or a Democrat, there's a place for you in
the common sense movement. >> We deserve better than
politicians who who divide us for their own political
gain. We deserve leaders who wake up every single
morning asking one simple question how can I make
life better for the people we serve?
>> Now, with the table finally set for the
November 3rd general election, Crowley and
Tiffany have less than 90 days to make their case and
prove to voters why they should serve as governor
the next four years. Reporting from Middleton.
I'm Steven Potter for Here and Now.
>> This week's Inside Wisconsin Politics dug
further into the governor's primary, including the
heightened national attention on Francesca Hong
and the democratic socialist movement.
>> I know a lot of political observers
nationally were looking to Wisconsin. As for a lesson
in terms of whether democratic socialism that
has played well in other states can play in a
Midwest swing state. What lesson can they take away
from our race? >> The obvious takeaway is
it didn't. It didn't work this time. But all the
caveats being the coordinated effort by
establishment Democrats, moderate Democrats to make
it make sure that it doesn't happen. So I would
say at face value, yeah, I guess it didn't work out.
And it came pretty close in the effort to stop the far
left progressive candidate in the Senate race in
Michigan. The closeness of that, plus this, maybe it
changed the conversation. I've seen some pundits
online talking about well, hangs campaign collapsed at
the very final moments because of the way she
handled those media interviews at the national
level. all the polling said she
had along the way. The difference is, the people
that hadn't made up their minds chose elsewhere. I
think those were about electability concerns. I
think there are legitimate questions about how she
answered those questions when the national spotlight
was on her, and whether the people in Wisconsin that
had been paying attention were starting to think more
about electability than about policy. But I don't
know if collapse is the right word when she's still
got 40% of the vote or thereabouts. And that's a
really strong showing from any candidate, especially
someone from her background who doesn't have a long
track record of politics in Wisconsin and hasn't spent
a long time developing those relations around the
state. So she had a very impressive showing from
that context. We talked on this podcast about
Francesca Hong Thanksgiving tweets and some of the
things that were coming up out of her past. Give me
your impression of Crowley's ascent with
everyone rallying behind him, including the money
and then the wave Francesca Hong handled the amount of
national attention she was getting.
>> Well, I mean, the national window for our
race was just so brief. There were. National media
was paying attention to Michigan before us, and
then all of a sudden we were the next big thing. I
think it's fair to argue about whether or not people
should focus on a tweet from 2020, but they did. I
was visiting my dad the weekend before the election.
He lives in Illinois. He watches all the Sunday
shows religiously, and every one of them talked
about that Thanksgiving tweet. My dad doesn't know
who Francesca Hong is or David Crowley or much about
the governor's race in Wisconsin, but he got an
earful about that tweet that weekend. And if he'd
been watching those shows in Wisconsin, he would have
been seeing ads in between saying to vote for David
Crowley. So that stuff matters and the timing
matters. But it's how elections are won and lost.
And so in a race that was won in this case by David
Crowley by 4000 votes, a little less stuff like that
can matter. >> In other closely watched
races. Michael Alfonso won the Republican primary in
the seventh Congressional District in northern
Wisconsin. He's the Trump endorsed son in law of
Transportation Secretary Shawn Duffy. The seventh
has a strong Republican lean, and if elected, the
26 year old Alfonso will become the youngest member
of Congress. He faces former state legislator
Fred Clark, who won the Democratic primary in the
third Congressional District in western
Wisconsin. Rebecca Cooke won the Democratic primary
with more than 60% of the vote, setting up a rematch
with Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden. Plenty
to talk about with our political panelists,
Republican Bill McCoshen and Democrat Scot Ross.
Thanks to both of you for being here.
>> First, we have to talk about Crowley's win on
Tuesday. Scott, how improbable was it to see a
candidate drop out and then come back in less than a
month and win the nomination?
haven't seen before. But, you know, David Crowley has
a long record of of delivering for the people
of Wisconsin as the county executive of the largest
county. He's cut property taxes. He's invested in
small businesses, he's invested in community
health, and he's invested in the things that really
drive the economy and move things forward. So he's a
formidable candidate against a very flawed
candidate in Tom Tiffany, who has a ten year record
in the state legislature of making it harder for
Wisconsinites. And he decided to go after to to
Congress on the next thing. And he spent five years
making it harder for everybody else.
>> So, Bill, Tom, Tiffany, Republicans seemed very
eager to face Francesca Hong. Will it be a shift
for them to pivot to Crowley?
there's any question about that. But to your original
question, I think it's unprecedented what happened
on Tuesday night. I mean, we've never seen a
candidate get out of the race and then get back into
the race, get the sitting governor's endorsement. The
sitting governor travels around the state with him
and literally brings him across the finish line.
It's for your poker players and poker enthusiasts that
are watching this show. This is like a royal flush.
For that to happen, every star had to line up
perfectly. And I give Governor Evers credit. I
mean, he leaned in to David Crowley and and did
everything he could. He put his legacy on the line. And
it worked. That, coupled with $4 million of ads at
the end, that trade unions were very much involved in,
they get credit for that as well. And there was some
finally, some contrast in the race. David Crowley ran
some contrast, and it was on the biggest flaw that
Francesca Hong made the entire campaign, which was
the issue of Thanksgiving. She said she had old tweets
that said cancels Thanksgiving. She went on
both Fox News and CNN and and had some unfortunate
comments that lasted a whole week nationally. It
was a bad it was the worst unforced error I've ever
seen in statewide politics that played into this as
well. But it was it was an unbelievable comeback for
David Crowley. >> Would you ever thought
Thanksgiving was going to be the deciding issue?
>> Well, I always joke that like, you know, Donald
Trump hates Thanksgiving has to spend more time with
Donald RFK, Jr. And, and Eric, I don't know if he
spends any time with the second one from the second
marriage or the, you know, anchor baby from the third.
But that's, you know, I mean, again, this race now
goes goes on to Donald Trump. This is about Donald
Trump and Tom, Tiffany, Tom, Tiffany and Donald Trump
lie about everything. He has a long record of
failing Wisconsin, whether it's cutting $300 billion
from rural health care, whether it's a nationwide
abortion ban, which he supports. When he was in
the state legislature, he cut public education by the
largest in history. This case now will be about
Donald Trump, who's who's you know, rating is in the
toilet. And the fact that Tom Tiffany votes with him
not 80% of the time, not 90% of the time, 100% of
the time. My God, if, you know, we usually see
candidates out there on busses, if Donald Trump
says so, Tom, Tiffany is going to be riding around
in a, you know, in one of those catering carts.
>> Well, Donald, Tom Tiffany was asked, would
you like to see Donald Trump in Wisconsin? And he
hedged. He said, oh, he's very busy.
very clear about this. No one in history has gotten
more votes in the state of Wisconsin than Donald Trump.
If Donald Trump can turn out that 1.7 million voters
for Tom, Tiffany, Tom Tiffany will easily be the
next governor of the state of Wisconsin. So, yes,
there is a role for Donald Trump in this election. And
whether that's town hall meetings like he did for
Michael Alfonso, or it's mail or it's phone banks or
whatever it may be, and maybe it's public
appearances. We'll see. But there's absolutely a role
for Donald Trump. >> The rap on Tom Tiffany a
year ago, when he was first being floated as a
candidate for governor, was can you raise any money?
Well, he's had billionaires that have transferred money
through the party to him. He's funded a lot of ads.
He's already on the air right now. Will he have
enough or do you think maybe the billionaire
they don't view this as as winnable a race with it?
Crowley versus Hong. >> Oh, I think he's going
to raise more money than any candidate in history.
And that includes the self-funders that we've had
in the last couple of cycles on the Republican
side. I don't think money's going to be an issue for
Tom Tiffany. I think they're going to do even
more on the low dollar side that's out there. It's
called low hanging fruit in politics. They can easily
go get that. But Tom Tiffany will not have a
resource issue. >> Well, Democrats have
enough money. Ben Wikler is not there at the Democratic
Party to bring in all that money.
>> Yeah, I think he'll be. I think he'll be helping
out, you know? Yeah. The Democratic strategy is to
raise a lot of money, right? I mean, they've done a very
good job using things like the loopholes created by
Robin Vos. the grift.
instance of being hoisted on your own petard. And
they have $5 million left to spend, of course,
because the Republicans, what they wanted to
accomplish was that Fran Hong not be the next
governor of the great state of Wisconsin and with their
$5 billion of spending, have achieved their goal.
So I'm sure they're popping champagne bottles over that
one. It's you know, this is going to be a wide open
race. Clearly, as you pointed out, Tom Tiffany
has raised $10 million in of his money in 2026 from
three billionaires. You know, the two lines and and
Diane Hendricks. And on the day he got his last
transfer, he promised on the radio he was not going
to raise taxes on billionaires. So that was
that was a nice timing for that.
>> This is a loophole that Democrats have used
successfully under Ben Wikler for ten straight
years. Republicans are finally figured it out.
Yeah, we're leveling the playing field.
>> The irony of this is it was less than a year ago
that Tom Tiffany was calling this the
Democrats abused, even though he was part of the
process of creating it. But now he's taking advantage.
>> Of it. Well, why wouldn't you? It's a legal
mechanism for raising money in the state of Wisconsin,
and Republicans have failed to use it in the past.
Tiffany is not going to make that mistake.
>> He can spend all the money he wants, but he
can't erase his record. He did scrub his website after
right before he got in saying, like, you know, all
the really radically again, yesterday he was
photographed with his lit in his back pocket, which
says Maga extremist Tom Tiffany. So, you know,
we'll have to see how he explains that one away.
>> Gubernatorial races are all about the future. What
are you going to do for me? What's in it for me as a
voter if I vote for you? Scot Ross or Brill McCoshen,
or in this case, Tom Tiffany or David Crowley,
Tom Tiffany is already out with positive ads talking
about his agenda for the future of the state of
Wisconsin. And I think it's very, very positive. You're
also going to see sharp contrast between him and
David Crowley, which you did not see until the very
end of the Democratic primary. And I think that
was a mistake for all the other candidates who ran
against Francesca Hong. David Crowley figured it
out at the right time, and it worked.
>> Switching to congressional races, we've
got a rematch in the third with incumbent Republican
Derrick Van Orden against a Rebecca Cooke Scott, does
this race follow the national environment or the
top of the ticket, or does it stand out on its own,
particularly for Democrats third?
>> Well, I would say that because Tom Tiffany, you
know, supports the $2 billion slush fund for
terrorist insurrectionists, that he is the biggest
January 6th terrorist insurrectionist in
have a January 6th terrorist insurrectionist
as the candidate and current congressperson from
the third Congressional District, Derrick Van Orton.
He is unhinged. You know, people criticize me
sometimes about my my speaking online, but this
guy is totally unhinged. And Rebecca Cooke brings a
real experience of what people in the state, what
people in the Third Congressional District have
to deal with affordability, gas prices, you know,
working two jobs. And I think that translates much
better for what this what the public's going to want
in this election, especially given the record
that Trump has in the state, whether it's with Tom
Tiffany or Derrick Van Orden of really hurting
people in Wisconsin. >> Even in midterms, which
are historically bad for the party in power. And in
this case, it's Republicans. 87% of incumbent
congresspeople get reelected. So the advantage
is going to be to Derrick Van Orden. Rebecca Cooke
has already lost that seat twice. I think she's going
to lose the rematch. It's going to be a hat trick of
losses for her, but it will be a competitive race right
down to the end. And that's one where we may see Donald
Trump in La Crosse or Eau Claire.
need to adjust his behavior? Already on Twitter this
week he was saying Democrats stole the primary
election or is he just be who he is?
>> I think he is who he is. I wouldn't have said that.
I don't think that's accurate. I don't think we
should care how your primary played out. At the
end of the day, Francesca Hong didn't care. She had
the ability to ask for a recount. She chose not to
spoke volumes about her character, I think. So we
should focus on the future. That's what voters want us
to talk about, is what's what are you going to do to
help us balance our checkbook every month here?
>> So in the seventh congressional, Michael
Alfonso used his father in law's money and the Trump
endorsement to cruise to the nomination. Ordinarily,
the seventh isn't in play. Could it be with someone of
his particular reputation and this being an open seat.
>> If ever the source was there to be sampled by by
the by the Democratic voters, it might be there
because this is a guy who has absolutely no
experience. He's a carpetbagger. You know, he
was he got there by, you know, essentially financed
by Shawn Duffy's corruption. So, yes, I think that if if
Fred Clark can get the resources to be able to
articulate that, then I say it's entirely possible
whether or not he'll be able to get it, it's going
to be tough because because, again, Republican failure
Democrats are all over the place in terms of being
able to spend in races they might not otherwise have
been able to get. And very clearly, Democrats will
have the control of the Congress come after this
election. >> This is Tom Tiffany's
home place, and there's a lot of legacy.
>> Before that. Yeah. >> There's legacy. Listen,
Michael Alfonso and his family moved to land O
lakes when he was three years old. I know this
because I coached him in hockey when he was ten
years old for a team out of Managua. He then they moved
to Wausau when he was in middle school, which is
where he met Shawn Duffy's daughter. He's a
wisconsinite through and of having someone Jung on
our side, finally running for a major office, and I
think he's going to do well. He surprised me by how much
he won a highly competitive primary by.
>> That was an impressive win considering the amount
of money that was spent in that district. All right,
that is all the time we have. Bill McCoshen Scot
Ross. Thanks again. >> Thanks. Nice to be here.
>> Issues continue to crop up in Milwaukee's late
night ballot counting process, this time further
delaying the results of the election for a national
audience. How Milwaukee counts its ballots has been
the subject of scrutiny for years. As the largest
county in the state, it has the most absentee ballots
to process before those totals are reported, often
leading to what people call a late night ballot dump
and adding fuel to election conspiracy fires. In a
press release, the Milwaukee Election
Commission reiterated that what caused the delay had
no impact on the results. Alexander Shur, a vote
reporter with Votebeat, watched the scene unfold
and he joins us now. Thanks for your time today.
>> My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
>> So the issue occurred at the central count, but this
wasn't with how they count the ballots. This was at
the end of the night getting the results. So
kind of walk us through what what went wrong and
what you were seeing as it happened.
>> Yeah. So I'd say broadly, what happened on Tuesday
was 15 hours of nearly flawless processing and
counting in a way that actually was more efficient
than past elections, being capped off by a really
simple and regrettable error. So essentially, all
these ballots are counted. I think Milwaukee counted
about 28,000 by the end of the night. And then the
last step before you send results to the counties,
you need to extract those results from the tabulators
that count all the ballots. So on Election Day, there
were nine tabulators. And typically an election
official goes to each tabulator and they follow a
checklist, or at least they had in the past in
Milwaukee. And it takes about ten minutes per
tabulator. It adds a lot of time at the end of the
night, but it also ensures uniformity. And what we saw
on Tuesday was took about ten minutes to download.
Results from the first tabulator took maybe 5 or 6
minutes from the second, and then all of a sudden it
was taking 2 to 3 minutes to download results from a
tabulator. And it wasn't just one election official
doing it, they were dividing up into teams. So
one, from what I had gotten used to as somewhat of a
slow, tedious process, it got really quick. And in
hindsight, it just simply takes more than 2 or 3
minutes to download results from a tabulator. The
reason that it went from 10 minutes to 3 minutes was
they were clicking the wrong button. They were not
downloading election results from from five of
the nine tabulators at the at the city absentee ballot
processing center. >> So just to clarify,
there's no evidence of malfeasance or tampering or
fraud. But that didn't stop the conspiracy theorists
from immediately jumping all over this on the social
media. Right? >> That's exactly right.
And I think they saw it, as, you know, a way for the
city or the state to to rig the gubernatorial primary
against Francesca Hong, no matter that Crowley was on
top, you know, before this so-called ballot dump, no
matter that their, you know, ballot images and audit
logs and a paper trail tracking every single one
of these ballots. You know, I've been saying, for
better or worse, what happened was evidence that
elections are run by humans and sometimes they make
mistakes when you know they're on a lack of sleep,
or there's not the checklist that should be
guiding them in front of them.
>> So many have been calling for a change in
state law that would allow Milwaukee and other central
count operations to start counting those absentee
ballots and processing them on Monday before the
election. So we're not waiting until late in the
night. One of the champions of that has been a
Republican who has pushed to try and get that bill
through. It got killed in the state Senate,
unfortunately. But even he has concerns and wants to
hear testimony. Right. So how will this unfold as
people ask more questions? >> I mean, I think a really
common rebuttal for past legislative efforts to pass
this Monday processing bill, was this talking point
about among Republican legislators that we can't
trust Milwaukee with an extra day if they're only
making errors on, you know, they're all they only have
one day and they're already making errors. Why should
we let them do this on Monday? However, you see
the logic of that talking point every time they make
an error sort of undermines this mission to pass Monday
count. So as you pointed out, you have Scott Krug,
who's a very staunch supporter of this Monday
processing bill. And every time he sees Milwaukee make
a mistake like this past Tuesday, just he knows that
is that makes his case significantly harder
because now you have this state state legislators
looking at the city as a flawed election
jurisdiction. At the same time that the city is
asking for more time to count and process ballots.
>> Yeah, and just a few seconds left. But give me a
sense of what it's going to look like in November,
because I know this is the city of Milwaukee, but
people are going to conflate David Crowley as
the Milwaukee County ballot balloting totals
coming in are going to have even more scrutiny in the
fall, right? >> It's possible. I mean,
every I think no matter what Milwaukee does, even
if they run a flawless operation, they're going to
be scrutinized. If they make a single mistake and
they know this, it's going to just lead to an absolute
blow up in conspiracy theories, especially if
Crowley emerges as the candidate. So I think all
of the pressure is on them to to run this flawlessly
in November. >> All right. Alexander
Shur with Votebeat. Thanks for your time today.
>> Of course. Thanks for having me.
>> The fatal shooting of 38 year old Corey Ruiz by a
Madison police officer also garnered national attention
this week. The Wisconsin Department of Justice
released the name of the officer, Kiel
Baitinger-Peterson, who has more than ten years of
experience, was injured by Ruiz with a knife before
the officer opened fire. The investigation is
ongoing and there was no information on whether the
officer will be referred for charges. He remains on
administrative leave. The funeral for Ruiz was held
at the Fountain of Life Church today and was
attended by his family. Civil rights attorney Ben
Crump and the Reverend Al Sharpton.
>> He touched a lot of people in and out of the
streets of Madison, city of Madison, and every single
one is affected by the loss of my son. I am angered at
the people that took him from me. They had no right
though. I have three beautiful grown children
left to love and cherish. A piece of my heart has been
torn from my chest. I love you, my first born boy.
You're beautiful. You're handsome as you are now
with the angels and not in pain. I leave you in the
hands of God to watch over you.
>> From the time I saw. I don't think that officer
thought if they discharged the gun, that people would
stand up. I don't think the officer thought that people
like Crump would come and help the legal team. I
don't think they thought people like me would come
and do his funeral, but I want them to understand
that we come in the name of someone that tell us, no
matter who they are and what rank they are, we
going to stop and stand up for justice for this young
man? Corey Lewis because he could have been one of our
children. >> For more on this and
other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our
website at PBS wisconsin.org and then
click on the news tab. That is our program for tonight.
I'm Zac Schultz. Have a great weekend.
[MUSIC] >> Funding for Here and now
is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and
friends of PBS Wisconsin.