Bayfield County. Thanks very much.
>> Thank you. >> Our political reporters
covered Tom Tiffany at the state GOP convention, as he
was officially endorsed as the Republican candidate
for governor. Tiffany was also in the mix during last
week's failed vote at the Capitol over tax relief and
public school funding, purportedly calling
lawmakers to kill the deal. A new report out of the
Legislative Fiscal Bureau says if it had passed, it
could have put the state's budget in a nearly $3
billion deficit in a few years. Let's hear what they
had to say about it on this week's Inside Wisconsin
politics. >> I think when you're
looking at a 2.95 billion projected budget deficit at
the end of the next two year budget, not the one we
are now, but the one after that feels real to me. And
I mean, just looking through those numbers,
right? >> And, you know, the sort
of important caveat is that that number from the
Legislative Fiscal Bureau doesn't take into account
the fact that we are in a period of sort of
remarkable economic so it says that we would
have that deficit, that sort of almost $3 billion
deficit were this to have passed. And that's not
accounting for potential changes to tax revenue, to
the fact that there's like a war going on right now
that is affecting oil and gas prices, all these
different things. And so from all of the Democrats
who voted against it, and then also from the
Republicans who voted concern about the cost of
this thing, which was kind of nebulous. And so even
with those kind of firmer numbers, it, you know,
justifies, I think, what some of those lawmakers
were saying on the floor. But it also kind of points
to this, again, political gamesmanship that we often
see when it comes to appropriations, which is
what is what is our money for? What is our state
surplus for? Is it for things like this? Is it to
have kind of in our back pockets? And so there was
that was really the contours of the fight.
>> We had a state GOP convention over this past
weekend. Tom Tiffany is now the endorsed candidate. He
doesn't have to worry about a primary the way that the
candidates had to in 2022, so he can focus on the
general election now. And yet, Zac, we're talking
about the 2020 election here. What is Tom Tiffany
talking about? >> He cannot get away from
Trump's main grievance, which is the fact that he
lost to Joe Biden in 2020. And because he still has
such a powerful grip over the Republican Party
nationally, which we just saw in Republican primaries
in Kentucky and in Louisiana, Senate races,
that his people have to fall in line on his beliefs
or his incorrect beliefs that the 2020 election was
stolen. So Tom Tiffany is still answering questions
about election fraud investigations and whether
Joe Biden won the election with, you know, kind of
diffusing or deferring and trying to get away from it
because he can't come out and honestly say, no, of
course Trump lost. That's been warranted over and
over. Every Republican group out there, from Vos
to the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has
already said so. And that is something that Democrats
love to hear, because they will continue to hang that
around his neck all the way to November as much as they
possibly can, the closer they tie him to Donald
Trump. And these grievances from four years, six years
ago now that the better off it is for them.
>> And Anya, just real quick, I mean, it seems
like this is an issue where as much as he wants to go
for those handful of voters who are in the middle, this
is a line that he can't cross as far as Republicans
are concerned. >> Yeah. I mean, I think
one of the lessons from this week is that in state
politics, it's not the time if you are a Republican to
be bucking Trump. And so we are seeing him sort of tie
himself again to this issue. himself again to this issue.