>> Days before the Democratic primary for
governor, it seems like two camps have finally emerged.
Why is the establishment more united now and is it
too little, too late? This is inside Wisconsin
politics.
I'm Shawn Johnson here with my colleagues
Anya van Wagtendonk Zac Schultz and Rich Kremer in
Eau Claire. Hey, everyone. >> Hello.
>> Hey. >> So it seems like just a
few weeks ago on this show, we were all kind of
wondering where all these candidates in this big
primary fit, what were their political lanes? It
seems like the mainstream frontrunner at that point
was less clear. Zac, why is it sort of coming into
focus now and is there enough time?
>> Well, I think you have to look at this primary in
the context of the national political mood for primary
voters, which are Democrats that are mainly angry at
Donald Trump and his administration there. If
you look at it in that frame, the establishment's
the bad guy. The establishment is national
Democrats who haven't done enough to stand up to Trump.
So tapping into those voters meant you couldn't
be the establishment because then you were on
the side of inertia. So Francesca Hong clearly
moved to the left. She was going to fight, fight,
fight. And a lot of the other Democrats in this
race were trying to outflank her, and they just
could not. Even as late as a few weeks ago, David
Crowley was not happy to be called the establishment.
Mandela Barnes denied that there was any lane that he
could be put into before he dropped out of the race. No
one wanted to be pinned as establishment, because that
to the voters that were upset and wanted change
that looked like more of the same. And so it is a
little too late in the sense that if there's a lot
of votes that have already been cast, but it is now
clearly going that there has to be a centralized
candidate of establishment power if they want to
challenge the lane that Francesca Hong has already
solidified for herself. >> And Ana. You've covered
David Crowley. I mean, it seems like he still doesn't
want that establishment label for a variety of
reasons. Why is that? >> Yeah, I mean, part of it
is what Zac just described is that there's really a
lot of anger towards the establishment for, I think
what Democrats feel or some Democrats feel has been
inertia and sort of not enough of a of a fight and
not wanting the status quo. But also David Crowley has
a particularly kind of interesting personal
backstory. He comes from a really sort of impoverished,
challenged background in Milwaukee. And so up until,
you know, he dropped out the first time in this race,
he was kind of described as potentially not electable
because statewide, there's there's sometimes, you know,
negative feelings about Milwaukee. There is, you
know, always the racial element of the fact that
there's never been a Black man elected to statewide
office in Wisconsin. So there were all these
questions about him. Then he comes back with the
endorsement of Tony Evers, and all of a sudden he's
described as the establishment. One thing
I've heard from a lot of his supporters is like,
well, which one is it? Is it that he's two Milwaukee
or is he two establishment? He can't be both. Why is he
being held to the standard? And I think he's also
trying to say, you know, I've really kind of had to
fight to get everything that I've ever had. I was
not handed things. I am not on this kind of gilded
establishment path. That this backing and the
resources that will allow me to win. So again, it's a
little bit threading the needle of I'm a viable
candidate, but I will also stand up to the things that
you're angry about. when we start putting
candidates into camps like this, whether this is just
sort of a media narrative that we've created or if
there's something real to it. But I feel like the
fundraising numbers that came out this week, which
do put some substance behind the idea that there
are these camps emerging between Francesca Hong and
David Crowley. What did they show?
>> Well, they showed a couple of things that were
pretty notable. First of all, Crowley raised more
than twice as much money during the month of July,
the most of the month, most raised $776,000 thereabout,
and Huang brought in around $339,000. So that is a big
sign that, at least in terms of money, Crowley's
campaign is getting some backing. And the other sign
that caught my attention was Governor Tony Evers,
you know, who endorsed Crowley's campaign, which
is definitely being framed as an alternative to
Francesca Hong. He also gave $20,000 from his from
Evers campaign account to Crowley's campaign account.
That's not a lot of money, but I was talking with
Anthony Chergosky, the political science professor
over at UW La Crosse, and he said, you know, it's not
a lot of money. $20,000 doesn't buy you a whole lot.
But it could be a signal to Evers donors, Evers
supporters that I'm not just saying I support this,
I'm putting my money behind it. So Chergosky was saying
it's potentially possible that it'll open up some
more of that money from the more moderate, quote
unquote, establishment wing of the party.
>> Yeah, I mean, I think anecdotally, I do see the
message being received as some of these other
candidates campaign signs in my neighborhood anyway
in Madison that we're supporting people like Sara
Rodriguez, for example, have have changed to David
Crowley. I guess my question, though, Zac, is,
can Governor Tony Evers, popular governor, popular
within the party, but a lame duck governor this
late in a primary campaign kind of steer the ship like
this? Can he tell everybody at once at the last minute,
hey, vote for this guy. >> He can try. But the
evidence throughout history shows that endorsements
don't do a lot, especially late. Early endorsements
show that a candidate has viability, early
endorsements from unions or from old political people
can really surge momentum early in the game when it's
necessary for someone like David Crowley to have
boosted his name in a crowded field late in the
game, it has less impact because people have made up
their own minds, and they're less likely to be
swayed by one political figure. They can say, oh,
that's nice, you like him, but I've already had time
to make up my mind, and we've seen it with the
Michigan governor and her endorsement in the Michigan
Senate race and her candidate losing. We've
seen it in other places where endorsements don't
have the same power that maybe they did 20, 30, 40,
50 years ago when bestowing the next person as an
establishment figure meant a lot more than in today's
politics. to frame it as sort of a
binary choice, a two candidate race. It's not
that there are still other candidates in the race.
Senator Kelda Roys, former Department of
Administration Secretary Joel Brennan Ana, how do
they fit into this? And, you know, what could they
play? What role could they play in this primary?
>> Yeah, I mean, we do end up kind of talking. And we
have, for the last couple of weeks about it as almost
a Crowley Hong race. And so they do end up kind of
getting some some perhaps shafting in the
conversation from the media, because I think there's a
sense that this is Hong's race to lose is the phrase
that you've used before. And so it's kind of hung
against everyone else. And so Crowley has been sort of
the anointed one. But then Roys and Brennan are just
kind of in the mix there. And so I think it really is,
again, when we talk about establishment versus
progressive, the other three candidates just kind
of get lumped together. They're obviously trying to
distinguish themselves. Again, when we talk about
endorsements, Kelda Roys got this really important
teachers union endorsement that didn't seem to really
shift anything early on. Whereas, you know, ten, 15
years ago, that would have been a much more meaningful
thing. So again, I think it just kind of speaks to
Francesca Hong is running a really unique, strange race.
She has not raised as much money, but it doesn't seem
to matter. She's making sort of headlines on her
own, sort of organically rather than through these
paid ways. And then all these other candidates are
just trying to kind of trying to to catch up.
>> And she's not putting herself on TV, but other
people are. You've had these Republican groups
consistently putting her in TV ads, calling her liberal
ahead of this primary. >> She has spent $0 on
television, which is just unheard of in any type of
serious race. And she's not running just a serious race.
She's running the leading race. She's doing some, you
know, digital media and things like this. But a lot
of her campaign is very grassroots, very kind of
door to door. And so you're right, when we see if you
see her face on your TV or on your your YouTube, it is
because these Republican groups are paying for ads
trying to get her over the finish line because they
think she's beatable. But meanwhile, she kind of says,
you know, thanks for for calling attention to my
policies. happening in a vacuum.
There is kind of this wave of democratic socialists or
democratic socialists backed candidates around
the country who have done exceedingly well in this
year's politics compared to in previous years. This
week in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive
candidate backed by Democratic Socialist allies,
narrowly won a primary there for a U.S. Senate
seat over an establishment backed congresswoman Ana. I
guess everyone is taking the exact same message from
this one, right? Everyone's on the same page about what
it means for here. >> Yeah. You know, in
politics, everyone just reads everything in the
exact same. >> Way, same page.
>> So of course, you know, again, this, this
year is like, what direction are Democrats
going in? Are they going in this more progressive lane
or not? And so I think for people who want to see that
DSA backing and these kind of more progressive
leanings are are viable in a way that they haven't
been before. El-sayed's victory is a signal of that.
But David Crowley is saying, actually, the fact that it
was so close gives me hope for my campaign because he
had all of this outside funding. He had all of this
outside attention, and he still didn't run away with
it. And so even though, again, we see all these
polling numbers and things like this that indicate
that Hong is currently running away with the
primary, he's saying, we actually might be really
surprised on primary night. >> Yeah, I mean, Rich, we
haven't reported on this. And, you know, we typically
don't talk about these internal polls. But this
one was interesting from the Crowley campaign where
they said, hear me out. This is actually exactly
what we want to hear for Wisconsin's primary. And it
sort of stepped through, I guess, all of the
qualifications that you'd picture, what is Crowley's
camp saying in terms of why Michigan could mean good
things for us? >> Well, for one, they're
saying this memo was saying that the primary polling
that's been done in Wisconsin also just isn't
the kind of polling you want to do to really know
where candidates are at. They said it was top line
and not looking at people who actually vote in these
sorts of primaries. The other thing was that they
were saying that primary voters, you know, because
of past numbers from governor races before and
Senate races, etc. show that in a primary, it's
generally the oldest group, you know, 65 and up that
that vote the most. And they're saying Crowley is
the only candidate talking to directly to those people
right now. So as you mentioned, there were a lot
of qualifiers to get to the part of the memo from the
Crowley camp that said, this is essentially a toss
up between the two of them. So it will be interesting
because what I've also noticed is some Pollers
pollsters have said there's like this 10 to 13 point
error rate kind of built into primary polling. I
mean, that's what we saw in Michigan. El-Sayed was was
leading by 19 points in one of these polls. And the
race came out to be really close. He won, but not by
those sorts of numbers. So what does that say for the
polling that we've been relying on in Wisconsin to
kind of get a sense of who is in the front and who's,
you know, second place, I don't know.
>> Yeah, Zac, if help me walk through this, you had
like basically four things you had to suppose one was
that the primary electorate is not what the polls show.
It's more like 2018, 2020 that those are older voters
and that they're going to go for David Crowley and
that if you really boil it down to a two candidate
race, which is not, he does even better. And when you
inform them of David Crowley that his numbers
get even better and put him over the top.
>> Yeah, there's a lot of assumptions built into this
best case scenario that even then only puts it as a
toss up for David Crowley, but that is the odds that
he's got against him in this scenario. Given all
that we know about the campaigns as they stand
right now, and things that are different from Michigan
is Michigan didn't have multiple candidates that
had already secured absentee votes and then
dropped out of the race. We don't know how many votes
have already been cast for Sara Rodriguez for Mandela
Barnes, but I know there are some because I've
talked to voters who said I already voted for them.
Those votes aren't coming back. They are gone. They
will not impact the winner. Other than the margin of
difference and questions of, hey, would that have made a
difference if they had dropped out earlier, or if
those voters had waited, or if they could have spoiled
those ballots and recast them? Those are all things
we won't know. A lot of this is in hindsight. It'll
all make a lot more sense. Right now, it's a lot of
projection and it's Crowley saying, hey, don't count me
out. Don't just front runner away to Franco
because she's in the lead right now. I have a
legitimate chance. So if you believe this talk about
establishment and I'm the man, then vote for me.
>> All right? As our election becomes the next
big thing in U.S. politics, we're seeing more national
attention and scrutiny of Francesca Hong. That
social media feed, old tweets, including one where
she talked about Thanksgiving in a since
deleted tweet from 2020, she said, quote, Cancel
Thanksgiving should have done this in 16, 20, 21,
1621. If it takes a worldwide pandemic for us
to realize we should stop celebrating colonialism and
the original super spreader event that killed
indigenous folks and women, so be it. An open question
to the group here. Is this tweet relevant in 2026?
>> It is, and that people are talking about it. It's
we're talking about it here. It's made national news,
national headlines, and you know, who loves to hear
about this? It's the Republicans in Tom Tiffany.
So I think the context that can be added to this tweet
is 2020 is when Francesca Hong was first running for
the assembly, running in a very liberal district in
Madison in an open primary. So everything she was
saying, whether she believes it now or wants to
talk about it now, she was saying to a liberal primary
audience in Madison in 2020, coming out of the George
Floyd protests, coming out of Covid, all the
situations around that, when you put it in context,
her tweets look like a candidate running for that
office at that time, the fact that she is a
different candidate running for a different office
today, we've seen this from lots of politicians who say,
yeah, let's not talk about that. That was my race for
state Senate. That was my race for assembly. Not
every politician will always love the stuff
that's dug up from past votes or past campaigns,
but she does have to deal with it. And so that is
what her campaign is having to handle right now.
>> Yeah, I guess. >> I mean, I think about
politics as sort of a the customer is always right
business, the customer being the voter, where even
if you don't think they're right, you're in the
business as a candidate of winning votes. And so if
enough people want to pay attention to a tweet about
Thanksgiving, you got a choice to make rich. Do you
either kind of hope it moves on to the next news
cycle or you say something about it? How is Francesca
Hong been handling it? >> Well, to me, it seems
like she's tried both. She's initially she was
saying things like, well, if Republicans want to
focus on that sort of stuff, you know, we're busy
reaching out to voters and building up our support. ET
cetera. ET cetera. So she was kind of waving it off.
But this week we saw hung kind of backtrack on that
tweet in particular, and a whole other slew of tweets
calling for from the past, calling for abolishing
police, abolishing Ice, abolishing the US Senate.
ET cetera. ET cetera. So but with regard to the
Thanksgiving tweet this week, she said to CNN, she
didn't really say whether or not she still supports,
you know, canceling Thanksgiving. She said it's
a that holiday brings a lot of pain to a lot of
communities. But she stopped short of of giving
a definitive answer. And then on Wednesday, she was
asked by Politico about that tweet and she said, or
they they asked what her favorite holiday is, and
she said, Thanksgiving. She said, I don't want to
cancel it. I love it. So that's obviously kind of
backtracking. Whether that's because she saw this
as a liability or she's trying to put it to rest, I
don't know. But that and also she said, you know, in
the televised debate not long ago and in these media
interviews at the national level, she said, well, I as
governor can't defund the police. And, you know, she
she essentially walked back those as well. So it's been
really interesting to see, not surprising for a person
in that position, but always notable.
>> And, you know, you alluded to the office she's
running for now. You get a different flavor of tweet
from her or I guess a post on X now than you did then.
She's made recent posts about Thanksgiving, this
one from last year where she talked about supporting
the Goodman Center in a fund drive. A crucial note
there she is dressed up in one of those pictures as a
turkey. So seems like fully embracing the Thanksgiving
holiday right now. Anya, we cannot talk about social
media without mentioning Dirt McGirk social media
account. Run by David Crowley circa 2010. Has his
social media past come back to haunt him?
>> I mean, it was kind of the first like, opposition
dump that came out after he reentered the race. And so
these are old tweets, as you mentioned, from about
15 years ago, very reflective of a 24 year old
sort of out in the world with this new technology
where you get to just announce every single
as you're having it. If we all recall what Twitter was
like in the year 2010. So that was a short news cycle.
I don't think it was a fairly significant one. He
certainly said, you know, I was a knucklehead. I don't
stand by some of the more problematic parts of those
tweets. And, and I do kind of, you know, to play
devil's advocate about how voters feel about tweets. I
have this question of whether, you know, voters
sort of see what they want to see in these. If you
want to oppose David Crowley, you can point to
these tweets as a reason why you don't trust him or
like him or approve of his character. And likewise
with Fran Hong, if you do like them, then you can
it's very easy to kind of dismiss it. I saw some of
Fran Hong's supporters pulling out other times
that she has knocked other holidays. She's talked
about how in restaurants she wants to kick out
everyone who shows up in Halloween costumes, that
she hates Valentine's Day, like working those shifts
in restaurants. So making more of a joke about it
that this is just learning more about their
personality and their character. And I think, you
know, we've spent ten, 15 years now having so much
exposure to politicians through social media in a
way that they don't need to be mediated through kind of
traditional media, that I think a lot of voters are
kind of used to these more human sides. I mean, we
also saw with Graham Plattner what I would
describe as like really kind of horrible social
media posts about rape victims and other things
that voters really kind of excused because they wanted
to see the best in this politician that they really
admired and supported his policies. And so I think to
a certain extent, we're going to see how important
these kinds of things are. And I don't really know
that it moves your average voter other than to sort of
put them in the camp that they might have been going
to either way. >> Yeah. In a, in an era
when the president has been known to say some stuff on
social media. >> To govern through.
>> Social media. >> These are sort of tame
by comparison in Wisconsin. That's all the time we have
for today. Thanks for joining us. This has been
inside Wisconsin politics. Be sure to follow us on PBS,
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