>> Democrats running for governor have less than two
months to stand out in a crowded field. How'd they
do that at the state party convention? And we run
through developments and lawsuits involving voter
rolls, legislative maps, and false electors. This is
inside Wisconsin politics.
I'm Shawn Johnson here with Anya van Wagtendonk and
Rich Kremer in Eau Claire. Hey, gang.
>> Hey, Shawn. >> So I think it's fair to
say that this primary campaign is not going to be
won or lost based on what happened in the room at the
state party convention over the weekend. But you did
have all seven candidates there. They were under the
same set of rules. Speaking to the same group of
Democratic activists. What was it like?
>> Yeah. You know, I say this with all due respect.
Normal people do not attend state party conventions,
right? These are like the most die hard Democrats,
the most die hard Republicans who go to that
convention. And so these are the people who are like
the most energized about their party and are going
to be the ones to hopefully, you know, bring in their
fellow, but like less excited Democrats. And so I
think that was kind of the vibe of the speeches that
you were getting from the gubernatorial candidates,
which is that they were trying to appeal to this
base, right? The most kind of committed Democrats
possible, and also make the case not only that they
should stand out in this seven person primary going
into August, but that they are also most sort of best
positioned to beat Tom Tiffany in November. And so
those are kind of two different arguments that
you need to be making, the one that makes you most
appealing to Democrats, and then the one that makes you
most appealing to kind of your average wisconsinite.
lot of kind of threading of that needle while also
trying to get excitement. So it was, it was
definitely a little bit of a dance going on. But that
I think was kind of the overarching theme.
>> What common threads stood out to you? I mean,
like, what was a theme that stood out in all the
speeches, or at least most of them?
the Tom Tiffany theme and also by extension, Donald
Trump, right? A lot of trying to tie the two of
those together. But then affordability was kind of
the the word of the day. The theme of the convention
was Reclaiming the American dream. And, and each of the
candidates talked in either broader or more specific
terms, sort of depending on the candidate about what
they would do to basically put more money in people's
pockets, lower prices, make things more affordable in
Wisconsin. and I were not at this
convention, although we had a chance to listen to these
speeches later. What stood out to you?
>> Well, Ana already mentioned it. There was a
lot of talk about Donald Trump and the chaos in
Washington from his administration. That's
according to these Democratic candidates. And
it's pretty obvious why they would focus on the
president and his, you know, popularity rating is pretty
low in polling. So it seems like there's they're hoping
that Trump will be a liability for Tom Tiffany
as they as they move forward in this campaign.
And also there, there there's only one Republican
in the race. So they're able to focus their attacks
on one person. Meanwhile, you know, Tom Tiffany
doesn't have to worry about trying to stand out among
Republican competitors in his primary or in a primary.
So that's what stuck out. But there was some other
things that stood out in terms of like the closest
thing to criticizing other Democrats seemed to come
from state Senator Kelda Roys, and she just
basically said the party cannot afford to to pick a
nominee that would put a Democratic trifecta. That
is the state Senate, state Assembly and the governor's
office in jeopardy. So no names were named, but
people might be able to infer who or how many, you
know, people she might have been talking about. And of
course, there was a number of like, pretty bold
promises from some of these candidates as well.
>> Yeah. That did that criticism did jump out to
me. There was another one, I think you could argue
from Francesca Hong saying that when you go out on the
campaign trail, people can detect BS. We're not going
to say the word because family show here, guys. But
she was essentially, without naming names,
saying the other candidates aren't as authentic as me
as the way that I heard it. I'll tell you one other
thing that kind of stood out to me, at least upon
first review of the speeches, I want to think
in these felt like general election speeches a little
bit. I mean, this is a primary where they're
almost going to have to some of them are going to
have to get negative if they want to climb the
ladder and be the party's candidate. And, you know,
even the the, you know, criticisms we just
mentioned, Rich weren't exactly super negative. And
the messages I could absolutely imagine them in
a in a general election campaign against Tom
Tiffany. But they are Ana. They're trying to win this
Democratic primary among a smaller group of voters
right now. >> Right. But it is this
balancing act where, as Rich said, right, they are
going for a trifecta. And that was another big theme
of the weekend, is this idea that Democrats really
think that they could take over all three chambers of
government. And so they need to try to distinguish
themselves. And most of them don't have that kind
of, you know, statewide visibility. So they are
still trying to get just like baseline name
recognition, which is important for a primary,
but then also not do anything to harm other
Democrats because, you know, if you have sort of a 1 in
7 chance, and I know that's not exactly how statistics
work, but something like that. And so you don't move
forward, you don't want to have weakened your party.
You don't want to be giving Tom Tiffany sort of free
fodder for your opponent opponents. And so I think
that we will see a little bit more maybe of those
veiled attacks, but in a way that's more aimed at
sort of holding themselves up rather than necessarily
going negative at this point. Because Tom Tiffany
as, as Rich mentioned, is sort of in a field by
himself. He technically has an opponent, but more or
less he's the presumptive nominee. And so he's not
going to get weakened in a primary. So they need to be
very careful themselves. >> It can work against you
in a primary, particularly a Democratic primary, to go
negative, where you have voters who have kind of
that same idea that like, look, the goal is November.
Stop fighting and show us how you're different. Rich,
anything that jump out at you there. And what Annie
was just mentioning. >> Well, I wanted to, to
kind of go back to when, when she mentioned the, you
know, the slights and the, the, the electability and
all that stuff. One of the candidates, you know, early
on, even before he announced Mandela Barnes,
former lieutenant governor, former state representative,
he during his speech, he I let me go back before he
got on the race, some Democrats were publicly
saying, well, he lost in 2022. You know, we don't
need that again. But during his speech, I he brought
that up and he said, well, that's why I'm more
experienced. I've been through this came within
one point percentage point of Ron Johnson in 2022.
That's why I have the experience. That and the
other resume stuff that he's got. So I just wanted
to mention. lot of conversation about
electability, which again, I think speaks to trying to
signal that they could beat Tom Tiffany in the fall.
And so you had, for example, Fran Hong pointed to the
fact that she's, if not the most far left candidate,
certainly among them. And the fact that some people
have have brought that up as a liability against her,
as passionate as her supporters are, her
opponents are sort of equally passionate. And she
talked about, well, legacy of Wisconsin
progressives who were elected. So rather than
that being a liability for me, that actually makes me
more electable because people are excited about
someone who doesn't bring BS. And David Crowley as
well. He pointed to the fact that there has never
been a Black candidate who has won statewide office,
and he says that everywhere he goes, people ask him,
can a Black man become governor in Wisconsin? And
he said, well, I can for the following reasons. And
so he named that sort of elephant in the room as a
way of also drawing attention to his record.
And so, again, just kind of the way that the candidates
are trying to distinguish themselves, not just on
their own terms, but also for what they can deliver
in November. >> And there was a straw
poll at this convention. Ana. And I feel like, you
know, it's it's kind of fun to talk about, but we
should say a thousand grains of salt here for
this poll, because this is not a scientific poll. The
margin of error would be, look, I'm not qualified to
calculate it very high. >> Charles Franklin would
have a lot to say about this one.
attention to straw polls would be my guess. But you
had all these Democrats in the room, and if they
wanted to, they could go to the booth run by
WisPolitics, which does these at all the
conventions. And and you could vote for your
candidate of choice among the primary field. And how
did that resolve? >> Yeah. Really interesting.
Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez came out first.
And again, if Fran Hong is sort of further to the left,
she's a little bit further to the center. But then
Fran Hong was number two. And so you kind of have a
little bit of the polls of what the party is
presenting right now, one who might be doing better
in a in a primary race. Again, given just sort of
the excitement that's around her, that's Fran
Hong, and then one who perhaps could appeal to a
broader audience that is Sara Rodriguez, who comes
from a more of a business background. She was a
health care executive and a nurse. She won. She flipped
a Republican seat when she ran for the assembly in the
Waukesha in the Waukesha suburbs. And so you have
these two different models, and it kind of looked like
Democrats a little bit split among them.
>> So I want to throw some caution at the poll here
that the straw poll, I was just looking back at the
2018 straw poll, when you had even more candidates
running for governor, kind of depending on when you
mentioned them. You probably have are aware of
this by now or have heard it or seen it recently. But
that year, Kelda Roys won the straw poll. She went on
to finish third in the primary, a distant third,
but she won it overwhelmingly at
convention. Do you do you happen to know where Tony
Evers placed in that straw poll? This is the beginning
of our quiz section here, guys. So Tony Evers placed
third. He had he had 91 votes compared to Kelda
Roys 184. That year right behind him were Andy and
Dana Wachs. They have something in common. They
both dropped out of the race by the end of June
that year. So the convention was in June 2nd,
I think, and they were dropped out by the 21st and
22nd. So. >> Right. So again,
appealing to quote unquote normal people versus
appealing to the most kind of revved up Democrats who
follow every kind of twist and turn about that. So it
doesn't necessarily translate to what a general
voter or general audience is interested in.
>> Sure. And there's also a certain amount of
campaigning you can do in the room at these things.
You can say, hey, get over to that desk that's run by
WisPolitics, and I think you should really vote for
us. >> Bring your people.
Absolutely. And I'm sure some of that went on at
this convention. So, okay, I did want to play a little
game with with you two since we have you here,
would that be okay? >> All right. Sure. Ready?
>> You have no choice, right? We're recording a
live show here. So I was just looking back through
these speeches and through the benefit of being able
to look at the transcript and the number of times
that certain words were mentioned in these things,
you can see kind of who hit themes really hard. So the
first one I looked for was Trump, who said Trump the
most. Anybody want to hazard a guess? Rich, you
go first. >> I'm gonna say Rodriguez.
>> I think it might have been Joel Brennan.
>> All right, all right, Rich, you win buddy. You
got Sara Rodriguez and Mandela Barnes were right
Mentioned him six times. Joel Brennan after them.
And then everybody mentioned Trump at least
once. But Rodriguez and Barnes kind of hitting to
my ear similar themes in those messages too. Like
they sounded like maybe they were running a little
bit of a November campaign or a safer message in their
speeches. Okay, how about Tiffany? And to be clear,
nobody mentioned the the Truman Capote book that was
adapted into a movie and later, you know, celebrated
in a song. Who mentioned Tiffany, Tom, Tiffany the
most? >> Gosh, I'm just stuck on
that dad joke now. >> I was I'm proud of that
one. >> You know.
>> That song, by the way, in my head all the time.
And I hated it when it came out. But the beauty of
nostalgia Roe v. Wade. >> I'm gonna vote Roys well
for this. >> There you go. There you
go. >> We got you. Kelda Roys.
How about you? Who mentioned Tiffany the most?
>> Missy Hughes. >> All right. Good. Good
guesses everybody. Sara Rodriguez was tops and
Tiffany mentions followed by Joel Brennan Mandela
Barnes and Kelda. Roys mentioned. And once David
Crowley, Missy Hughes and Francesca Hong didn't even
mention Tom Tiffany. >> In this thing, was I
there at all? It was kind of interesting.
it's the kind of thing you assume that you heard a
bunch of people say, and then you go back and look
and realize, well, they didn't actually mention
predict whoever wins this primary, though, will
mention him a lot in TV ads between now and November.
Okay, how about this? We've got we've got a Democratic
governor right now, and a lot of these people have
worked with or for this Democratic governor. Who do
you think might have mentioned Evers a few times?
Rich, what do you think? >> I would say it'd
have to be someone that worked within the
administration or alongside him. So that narrows it
down to four people, I would say. Brennan.
>> Yeah. Okay. Anya. >> I think it was also
Brennan. He also made a point of saying fix the
darn roads. And so he seemed to be really tying
himself. Yeah, yeah. Evers. >> It was. Mandela Barnes
Tony Evers, former lieutenant governor,
followed by Joel Brennan, his former secretary,
followed by Sara Rodriguez, his current lieutenant
governor, and Missy Hughes, his former WEAC CEO. No
mention of Tony Evers by Francesca Hong Kelda Roys
or David Crowley. >> So no big surprise.
>> Tony was back there taking notes like, I see
you, I see you. Okay, one more, one more, I promise.
And this is a little different. You got a chance
at this convention to differentiate yourself. One
way is you can just tell these delegates I'm
different. Who said only candidate? As in I'm the
only candidate. >> Oh, I know this one.
>> Okay. the only candidate who
proposes a moratorium on data centers.
>> And free childcare. And you are correct, Anya. She
mentioned it four times. This was interesting to me.
Rich Kelda Roys was there. She mentioned it a couple
times. Her message was, I'm the only candidate who's
been a legislator. I got I got bills, as was basically
what she was saying. And then David Crowley, the
only candidate who has executive experience and
nobody else used that turn of phrase, big grain of
salt for that one too, which is very unscientific,
but I find it fun to run through that stuff
unscientific.
>> But you probably made a spreadsheet.
You're darn right. Yeah, I made it a lot easier for me
to list those things real quick. So we want to move
on real quick to some legal developments this week, a
few small legal developments in big cases.
Rich. First, let's start with there was this
decision by the state Supreme Court to hear an
appeal in a redistricting case, congressional
redistricting case? Is this a big deal or an
incremental step? >> It's pretty incremental.
So these are about the congressional maps. There's
two of them that have been two of these appeals of
these cases challenging the congressional map as
gerrymandered for various reasons, various types of
gerrymandering. And it sounds exciting that it's
made it to the Supreme Court, but all they're
doing in both situations is they will be deciding
whether or not these three judge panels they appointed
were correct in how they dismissed these challenges.
And those panels essentially said they
dismissed them because they don't have the authority to
overturn the maps, which were put in place by the
Supreme Court. And a lower court cannot overrule a
higher court like that. So what I've been told is that
that probably means these will go back through the
court system, back to the lower courts and work their
way up. But the Supreme Court justices will have to
decide whether or not these gerrymandering claims can
even move forward. So that's a big question. But
in short, it doesn't mean there's likely doesn't mean
that there's going to be any new map before the 2026
election. There's just not enough time.
>> Okay. And lightning round here, you had a case
you covered on voter rolls. What happened there?
>> So the federal government, the Department
of Justice, wants to get unredacted voter
registration information from Wisconsin. And that
includes, you know, driver's license numbers
and Social Security numbers, the last four digits. The
Elections Commission hasn't provided that they've given
a different list that's publicly available. But
essentially, the case was dismissed last month in
federal court. It's being appealed. The DOJ is
appealing it to the Seventh Circuit. But again, it will
take a while. And there's been other examples of this
around the nation where the DOJ has been losing these
cases. >> One of those will have
to keep an eye on and then Ana the false electors case
in Wisconsin. What happened there?
>> They pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of felony
forgery, including Wisconsin's own Jim Troupis.
Well, he's also trying to get the case moved out of
Dane County Circuit Court. And so that case continues
to unfold. >> All right. Thank you
both for keeping an eye on those. That's all the time
we have for today. Thanks for joining us. Our
colleague Zac Schultz will be back in a few weeks.
This has been inside Wisconsin politics. Be sure
to follow us on PBS, wisconsin.org, WPR.org,
YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.