U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany greets supporters after speaking at a campaign event Oct. 26 in New Glarus. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
On Monday evening, dozens of Republican voters, clad in a mix of GOP red and Brewer navy blue, crowded into Whiskey Run Distillery in New Glarus to hear from U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate for governor.
At the event, part of the campaign’s 55 city “common sense” bus tour of the state in the last week of the election, Tiffany’s final argument to the electorate largely reiterated the case he’s made for himself over the past year — that, if elected, Democratic candidate David Crowley will raise taxes and fees, make Wisconsin less safe and let transgender youth play sports, while Tiffany in contrast will protect Wisconsinites’ values.
“My commitment to all of you is that I’m going to make sure your children and your grandchildren are going to be able to achieve their dreams right here in Wisconsin,” Tiffany said. “It’s gonna be Wisconsin’s nightmare, though, if we get David Crowley, isn’t it? … He’s gonna raise your property taxes. He’s going to raise your sales taxes, and he’s going to bring us a new one. He is going to have tolling come to Wisconsin. You want toll booths in Wisconsin? Every paycheck, every purchase, every time you drive, he wants to take more money out of your pockets.”
The Milwaukee Brewers play in Game 3 of the World Series in the background of U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany’s campaign event in New Glarus Oct. 26. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
Two years ago, Vice President Kamala Harris won the village of New Glarus with 67% of the vote and Green County with 50.1% of the vote. Now, Democrats across the country are optimistic that a blue wave generated by opposition to the historically unpopular President Donald Trump will help them win state and federal races even in red areas. At the event on Monday, Tiffany said his campaign was going to compete in blue areas such as New Glarus and nearby Dane County, a Democratic stronghold in which Republicans have often argued they need to pick off about 30% of the vote in order to compete statewide.
“When we announced a year ago, I said we are going to compete in Dane County and all the counties surrounding, including right here in Green County,” Tiffany said. “We are competing. We’re going to win on Nov. 3.”
Across the state and country, voters have cited concerns about the economy — largely due to rising prices caused by Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran — as their top issue in this year’s midterm elections. As he has throughout his campaign, including when he accepted the Republican nomination for governor at the GOP convention in May, Tiffany said his opposition to transgender rights would be a key part of his agenda.
“This is the common sense tour, right? So we should probably do a little bit of that,” he said. “We’ll do a little bit of that. Girls and only girls are going to play girls’ sports. Yes, we’re going to make sure that that happens. If you hadn’t heard in the last budget, they wanted to call mothers ‘inseminated persons.’ I don’t know who in the world thought that up. We’re going to call mothers mothers in the state budget. And I don’t care what flags you fly above your business, your home, above your boat, my brother flies a Tiffany for governor flag above his combine. I don’t care what flags you fly above all those things, but above the state Capitol, we’re going to fly the two flags that tie this state and country together: the flag, the seal of the great state of Wisconsin and Old Glory are going to be the two flags that we fly.”
Last year, Republicans in Wisconsin and across the country complained when Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal used the term “inseminated persons” in provisions related to in vitro fertilization, which he argued made clear that the law applied to same-sex couples. Evers has also flown an LGBTQ pride flag over the Capitol in each year of his administration, which Republicans have often criticized.
As early voting kicked off last week, Tiffany proposed instituting a bill of rights for parents and teachers, which includes requiring parental permission for students who want to change their names and pronouns at school and banning transgender students from bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
At the event Monday was New Glarus resident Dave Staats, who moved to Wisconsin from Nashville eight years ago and is hoping to live in the state for the first time under a Republican governor. Staats said he doesn’t trust the polls, which have shown Crowley in the lead, but believes it’s going to be a close election.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany speaks at a campaign event in New Glarus on Oct. 26. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
Staats said that he “would’ve voted for [Tiffany] no matter what” in this election.
“I know who Tom Tiffany is,” he said.
He added that his vote isn’t driven by any specific issues, but that he’s frustrated with the state of the country’s politics and the polarization that makes it difficult to talk with people on the other side.
“There’s never any big issues, it’s all about the general principles,” he said. “It used to be easy to talk to someone on the other side, now you’re not going to the same place.”
Robin Stroebel, another New Glarus resident, said she attended Monday’s event because she hadn’t seen Tiffany in person yet and likes to do that before an election. Stroebel said her main issues in the election are the repeal of Evers’ veto allowing schools to raise revenue limits by $325 per pupil per year for the next 400 years, continuing to support charter schools, public safety and election security.
“I think [Tiffany] is logical, honest and calm,” she said. “He’s getting everywhere, talking to everyone he can.”
Stroebel added that she believes Tiffany’s campaign is speaking to his grassroots supporters while being competitive where it needs to be. She said she was optimistic that appearing so close to Dane County is a sign he can win enough support there.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate for Wisconsin governor in the Nov. 3 election, voted last November for the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Epstein killed himself while awaiting trial on charges of serial sex trafficking of women and girls.
Some 3.5 million pages were released in January. Efforts are underway to force the release of more.
Tiffany’s Democratic opponent, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, claimed in an Oct. 20 ad that Tiffany “voted to block the release of the Epstein files.”
That July 2025 vote was not up or down on releasing the files.
Tiffany votedno on a procedural measure related to a Democratic attempt to attach an amendment to an unrelated cryptocurrency bill. Voting yes could have led to a vote on requiring the files’ release.
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During her speech, former Vice President Kamala Harris spoke about rising costs, criticized Tom Tiffany and told voters that they had the power to change the direction of the state and the country. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Democratic candidate David Crowley often asks his supporters to volunteer the “Three T’s”: “time,” “talent” and “treasure” — or money. But with about a week until the election, he put a new spin on the phrase at a rally with former Vice President Kamala Harris Monday evening.
“I usually say the last piece is treasure, but we’ll make an executive decision and turn that third T into turnout,” Crowley said. “We may not have billionaires, but we got something better. We’ve got you.”
Harris reinforced that message as she addressed attendees at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee. Harris said she came through Milwaukee to say “thank you” for the work people are doing to help elect Crowley, and she emphasized that the work needs to continue through Election Day.
“People have been feeling like ‘I can’t do anything about this,’ and I know how much pain people are in,” Harris said, commenting on the “brutality” of the Trump administration and the feeling of powerlessness it engenders. But, she added, “That phase is over. We are now in a moment to turn anger into action.”
Crowley faces Republican candidate U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany in the state’s first open race for governor since 2010.
Harris told attendees that their voices and votes matter.
“You don’t have to put up with this,” Harris said. “They’re putting a whole lot of money to try and convince people either that their vote doesn’t count or to lead them astray, but we have the power of the people on our side, so for the next eight days, let’s get out there and do everything we possibly can in a way that we show people who we are, what we want from leadership, and what we deserve.”
Harris is the latest surrogate to speak on Crowley’s behalf. Other Democrats who have visited the state or plan to include Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Georgia U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
During her speech, Harris spoke about rising costs, criticized Tiffany and told voters that they had the power to change the direction of the state and the country.
Ahead of Harris’ visit, Tiffany criticized the Crowley campaign, saying that he wants to bring California policies to Wisconsin.
“Wisconsin rejected Kamala Harris once, and now it’s time to reject David Crowley and his tax-hiking, spending spree and toll road agenda,” Tiffany said in a statement.
President Donald Trump won against Harris in Wisconsin in the 2024 election by fewer than 30,000 votes. During his second term, Trump’s popularity in Wisconsin has fallen to record lows with 60% disapproval in the latest Marquette Law School poll.
“Let’s talk about the fact that David’s opponent denied the election of 2020,” Harris said. Tiffany voted against certifying voters’ choice of Biden in two states in the 2020 election, and said he would have voted against certifying Wisconsin’s vote.
“By the way, we won. We won that election,” Harris said.
Democratic candidate David Crowley takes a selfie with his wife and Harris. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The rally was targeted at mobilizing women to vote and the economic pressure women are facing was a common theme among the speakers as well as one of the issues at the top of mind of women who attended.
While waiting for Harris and Crowley, Sarah Bielejeski, a 38-year-old Milwaukee resident, told the Examiner that she was asked to attend by her friend. She said she wasn’t comfortable speaking in detail about the candidate’s positions, but she knew “enough to know that Tom Tiffany is not right.”
During the interview, Bielejeski reached for another attendee standing beside her to join in the conversation.
Megan Czarnyszka, a single mom from the Milwaukee suburbs, said she had decided to attend the rally so her daughter could witness the civic engagement and was looking forward to learning more. She said that while she supported a different candidate in the primary, she was now backing Crowley.
Both Bielejeski and Czarnyszka said they were glad to be in a room with like-minded people.
Czarnyszka, a small business owner, said she wants Democrats to win control of the Legislature as well as the governor’s office because Affordable Care Act insurance has become too expensive for her and she also wants to see schools fully funded.
“It’s like tripled right now,” Czarnyszka said about her health insurance premiums. “The deductible will be another $1,500. We’re talking $5,000 before my insurance ever kicks in. We’re talking the difference between me thriving, having my medications, and going all the way back to like poverty levels.”
Harris described cost of living as a women’s issue, as did, Crowley and his wife.
Ericka Crowley gave a speech emphasizing costs before her husband and Harris took the stage.
“I’m a mother of three, y’all. I got a child in college and I’m still trying to figure out how to pay this tuition. I was at the grocery store the other day and I was like, ‘Oh I’m so exhausted of these prices. I’m tired of it, and I know y’all are exhausted,” she said. “We deserve better.”
Crowley highlighted the same issue when he took the stage.
“We feel these prices, too, and so when I say I get it, I get it. You know who doesn’t get it though? Congressman Tom Tiffany. He went to Washington, DC, and sold Wisconsin out,” he said.
Harris said she was used to reporters asking her to speak about women’s issues. “I’d look at them and say, ‘I’m so glad you wanna talk about the economy,’” Harris, the first female vice president and the second Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate, said. Then she pivoted to making a plug for Crowley.
“David had everything to say about what is important to all people, including women. He stands for affordable childcare — only 7% of your income should go to childcare,” she said, referring to one of Crowley’s policy proposals. “He stands for affordable healthcare. We all know his opponent voted for that big bad bill that cut Medicaid by a trillion dollars to help millionaires and billionaires to cut their tax bills.”
Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify Sarah Bielejeski’s comments.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, the Democratic nominee for Wisconsin governor, has not stated support for unauthorized immigrants convicted of violent crimes.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate in the Nov. 3 election, stated that Crowley “said he will be … an accomplice for illegal aliens that commit violent crimes.”
Crowley had been asked how he would make Wisconsin “more immigrant friendly.” He said he opposes police assisting federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) because it discourages unauthorized immigrants from reporting crimes, then said: “And when it comes down to the immigrants, I’m not an ally, I’m an accomplice.”
Crowley has said he would not change Milwaukee County sheriff policy of not assisting immigration officials in the jail. He has criticized ICEarrests at the county courthouse. The county has lobbied to provide state funding of immigrant legal services. He said he supports deportation for criminal convictions.
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Since launching their campaigns for Wisconsin governor, both Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Democratic Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley have touted the concept of local control.
Each argues that communities deserve “a seat at the table” in matters of commercial and industrial land use, but their records as public servants illustrate contrasts about when competing local and state interests should carry the day.
“I want to get Madison out of the way where it makes sense,” Tiffany told attendees of the annual Wisconsin Counties Association conference in September. “Local officials understand their communities, and state government should be working with them rather than creating additional obstacles.”
Yet Tiffany is an architect of some of the most consequential environmental regulatory rewriting of the past 15 years, stripping municipalities of several powers to regulate shoreland development and mining in their own backyards.
Crowley has worked with the state to address Milwaukee County’s budget issues. Just a few years ago, Milwaukee County was heading for a “fiscal cliff,” the culmination of a decades-long pension scandal.
Without state intervention and the “tools to raise additional revenue and fund local priorities,” the county would face “tough decisions,” Crowley wrote in 2022. The following year, the Legislature authorized Milwaukee County to increase its local sales tax rate by almost half a percentage point.
Neither candidate has offered many specifics in their campaign pitches, and neither campaign responded to requests for comment.
But their policymaking records offer some clues.
During Tiffany’s time in the Wisconsin Legislature and Congress, he has conveyed a general desire to get the state and federal government “out of the way” of local decision-making. Crowley’s time as a county executive and state Assembly member highlights his support for public spending on property development and the creation of minimum environmental standards to protect public health.
Local control and mining operations
Crowley has argued for “a case-by-case” treatment of mining projects without staking a claim over the industry’s merits.
Still, he continues to push for amassing consensus and would not rule out allowing new mining permits before consulting with local communities.
In January, when a PBS reporter asked him to explain how he would respond to new mining permit requests, Crowley said he would convene a work group of experts to obtain the best information possible.
“It’s about working with the local municipalities, working with the groups and the stakeholders that are on the ground,” he said.
Comparatively, Tiffany’s time in the Wisconsin Senate from 2013 through 2020 saw him take up the mantle of getting the miner, emblazoned on the Great Seal of the State of Wisconsin, back to work. He ushered in several bills intended to loosen restrictions that businesses said stymied economic growth.
The first of several successful proposals started with the 2013 reworking of the state’s iron mining law, which instructed regulators to start the mining permitting process on the presumption that some environmental damage to wetlands is a necessary operating condition of the industry.
Supporters maintained the reforms assured developers they could expect regulatory certainty and expeditious review of new projects.
A few years later, prompted by a bill Tiffany co-authored, the Legislature lifted the state’s moratorium on sulfide mining, which can release toxins, and stopped requiring companies to prove they could successfully operate and close sulfide mines elsewhere in the United States or Canada without polluting the environment.
Tiffany also sought to curb local authority too when regulations posed risks to obstructing economic development.
Two 2013 bills proposed restricting local governments’ ability to regulate nonmetallic mining, including frac sand operations, and would have prohibited them from creating water quality and air quality standards, permits, restrictions and monitoring requirements.
Tiffany told Wisconsin Watch at the time that some local units of government are “trying to establish mini-DNRs,” by conducting their own air and water testing. “That’s the purview of the state,” he said.
The contentious proposal didn’t make it to the chamber floor for a vote.
Local control and land acquisition
In 2015, Tiffany co-sponsored legislation that took the opposite view on local control in the context of land acquisition.
Republicans and Democrats have long clashed on how to finance the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program. The fund enables the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to purchase private land and easements for habitat preservation and recreation or issue grants to organizations or municipalities to do the same.
Both Tiffany and Crowley say they support allocating money for the program, but Tiffany has long expressed reservations about its focus on purchasing new property.
In 2015, Tiffany sought to curb state authority by requiring the Wisconsin DNR to obtain approval from every municipality and the county in which the property is located before acquiring new properties. The bill didn’t advance to a vote. Tiffany now says he would fund the program so long as the dollars maintain existing public lands.
Crowley has said repeatedly he supports strengthening the program, drawing parallels to his support for county lands.
In the last five Milwaukee County budget cycles, he recommended county leaders spend tens of millions of dollars on parks and trails, drainage infrastructure and waterfront protection.
In other environmental areas, Crowley also has reined in local control by creating baseline standards. As a state legislator, he backed bills that would have imposed statewide requirements for mandatory lead testing and inspections and restricted the ability of municipalities to privatize their public water or sewer utilities.
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U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany released his proposal as in-person early voting kicked off last week and with a little over a week to go before Election Day. Tiffany at a press conference with Sen. John Jagler and Rep. Amanda Nedweski in October 2025. (Photo by Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner)
Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany is proposing a bill of rights for parents and teachers, which includes requiring parental permission for students who want to change their names and pronouns at school and banning transgender students from bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
Tiffany released his proposal as in-person early voting kicked off last week and with a little over a week to go before Election Day. Tiffany has sought to leverage divisions over cultural policies in schools since he launched his campaign last year.
Under his proposal, transgender girls would be prohibited from participating on girls’ sports teams and using girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms in schools, schools would be prohibited from placing tampons in boys’ bathrooms and “gender transition procedures” would be prohibited for those under 18.
“Every child deserves a safe classroom, every teacher deserves the authority to maintain order, and every parent deserves to know what is happening in their child’s school,” Tiffany said in a statement.
Last month, Tiffany appeared at a town hall hosted by Moms For Liberty, a right-wing organizing group for parents well known for supporting book bans and targeting schools over policies related to transgender children. Keeping transgender girls out of girls’ sports was one of the first priorities Tiffany mentioned at the Moms For Liberty town hall.
Tina Descovich, one of the founders of Moms for Liberty, who traveled to Wisconsin from Florida for the event, said that the organization is targeting women who don’t ordinarily vote in get out the vote efforts in Wisconsin. She said the election presents voters with a choice that could take the state in two very different directions.
“You can continue with someone who believes that boys should be playing with girls in sports. You can continue with someone that thinks mothers should be called inseminated persons,” Desovich said, using terminology that Tiffany’s opponent, David Crowley, has in fact not endorsed. (Gov. Tony Evers was criticized for the use of the term in budget language referring to artificial insemination.)
Noting Tiffany’s plane crash, Descovich said she thought God saved Tiffany for the state of Wisconsin.
Tiffany’s proposal would also require that parents be able to review instructional materials, that schools notify parents and obtain consent before letting a student go by a different name or use different pronouns in school, require schools notify parents about violence, threats and crimes that occur on school grounds, implement school report cards, require schools to give parents information about their child’s academic proficiency and classroom behavior twice a year.
His proposal would allow teachers to remove violent or disruptive students; require behavior intervention plans before a student could be returned to a classroom; prohibit retaliation against teachers for enforcing classroom rules, reporting unsafe conditions, requesting assistance or taking appropriate action to protect students; and establish school safety and parental notification requirements.
In contrast, Democratic candidate and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley has focused his education platform on increasing funding for public schools, including for special education, and providing universal early childhood education for Wisconsinites.
Tiffany’s campaign pointed to the New Richmond school district, which has been the target of an investigation by the Trump administration over its bathroom policies, and a report in the conservative Heartland Post, an online outlet run by talk radio host O’Donnell, about Winneconne High School, where a superintendent retired after controversy over the school district allowing an 18-year-old student to use a preferred name, instead of a legal name, used in the school’s graduation ceremony without the parents’ permission.
Wisconsin Republicans have repeatedly introduced bills that would implement a parents’ bill of rights and require permission before students could go by different names. In the past, lawmakers received help with drafting these measures from the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
Gov. Tony Evers has vetoed those bills. In one veto message, he said the bill was “neither aimed at supporting our parents, our kids, and our schools, nor improving student outcomes, nor fostering collaboration and communication to do what is best for our kids,” but was rather “another attempt to divide our schools and communities and inject political ideology in the very last place it belongs — in our classrooms and our schools.”
Transitional jobs in Milwaukee include construction positions that pay $12.53 per hour (Photo courtesy Milwaukee Department of Public Works)
A coalition of community and faith groups are calling on both the Republican and Democratic candidates for governor to expand a transitional jobs program. In an open letter the groups state that the program provides short-term jobs “aimed at getting people who are isolated from economic opportunity into the productive workforce.”
The letter, from WISDOM, MICAH, Guest House of Milwaukee, the Wisconsin Council of Churches and UMOS among other groups — asks Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley to expand transitional jobs programs support funding for the programs and expand the Earn & Learn summer youth employment program in Milwaukee so that all of its 3,700 applicants can work in 2027.
The letter is signed by Pastor Joseph Ellwanger, a longtime grassroots activist who has been an organizer in Milwaukee since the civil rights movement.
“These programs are very effective in getting participants into regular unsubsidized employment once the period of subsidy ends,” the letter states. “Many participants have significant barriers to employment such as being long term unemployed and having criminal justice system involvement. The Department of Children and Families’ own data analysis of thousands of transitional job participants over a five-year period shows that approximately two thirds of participants go on to secure and maintain long term unsubsidized employment.”
Transitional jobs programs are important because, the letter states, while “the unemployment rate is historically low in Wisconsin at present there are parts of our communities that suffer from high rates of joblessness.” It notes that the DCF’s Transform Milwaukee and transitional jobs programs help people who are “largely not counted in the narrow official definition of the unemployment rate,” including “such groups as the previously incarcerated and people who have historically been only marginally attached to the labor force.”
The letter argues that ensuring that these programs are protected helps the people they serve earn money, pay taxes, receive insurance and live better lives. “They earn money in law abiding ways and are less inclined to seek money in informal or illegal activities,” it states. “They grow the labor force which is an important social and economic objective in a time of tight labor markets. They participate in the dignity of work which provides purpose and contributes to the economic well-being and strength of the community.”
DCF data shows that over 60% of transitional job participants go on to secure long-term, unsubsidized employment.
The program also supports an estimated 16,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 24.
The community organizations that signed on to the letter are asking both Tiffany and Crowley to expand the Transitional Jobs and Transform Milwaukee Jobs programs to serve all 72 Wisconsin counties and commit to providing $5 million annually in state funds, along with another $8.2 million to expand the Earn & Learn summer youth employment program to support all 3,700 applicants in 2027.
We’ve already recapped key takeaways. Here, we use data to examine how the candidates spent their time, which topics drew the most attention and how they criticized each other.
School funding dominated the debate
Each candidate spent over four minutes explaining his take on school funding, including positions on private school vouchers, making it the debate’s most covered topic. Taxes ranked second, with candidates covering several issues: income taxes, state budget surpluses and property taxes.
The two candidates spent roughly the same amount of time on most topics. One notable exception came when Tiffany spent three minutes and 37 seconds — two minutes more than Crowley — explaining why he voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results.
“One of the reasons that I did that is Zuckerbucks,” Tiffany said. “If you remember, Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook billionaire, he put $15 million into Wisconsin, and so he was trying to privatize our elections via electioneering. The people of the state of Wisconsin rejected that a few years later.”
“Zuckerbucks” refers to grants funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, that helped local election officials run elections during the COVID-19 pandemic. Wisconsin voters approved a constitutional amendment banning private funding for election administration in April 2024, after Republicans argued the grants disproportionately benefited Democratic strongholds.
Crowley spent more time attacking Tiffany
Although Tiffany spoke for about 200 seconds longer overall, he spent much of that time explaining and defending his own positions.
Crowley, by contrast, took a more aggressive approach, spending about four minutes more than Tiffany in directly criticizing his opponent.
For this analysis, we classified a statement as an attack when a candidate criticized his opponent or made him the subject of a statement.
Crowley spent the longest time criticizing Tiffany’s positions on taxation, school funding and border control.
“We’re talking about somebody who actually supported the elimination of the United States Department of Education. We’re talking about someone who, when he served as a senator, voted for one of the largest cuts to our UW systems as well as K-12 through education,” Crowley said. “I went to Milwaukee Public Schools. My daughters go to public schools, and I know that they need an increase in funding from the state of Wisconsin because of the fact that we have been dealing with decades of cuts ever since he was in the Legislature.”
Tiffany spent the most time criticizing Crowley when discussing how Crowley would appeal to those who voted for democratic socialist Francesca Hong in the Democratic primary.
“What he said about a week or two before the primaries, he said there was very little difference between he and Francesca Hong,” Tiffany said. “In fact, one of the only things he could think of is that he was supportive of data centers.”
The candidates spent similar amounts of time criticizing one another’s records on data centers — less than a minute each.The candidates spent roughly 50 seconds apiece criticizing their opponents’ record on data centers.
Crowley accused Tiffany of supporting tax breaks for data center operators. (Tiffany voted for President Donald Trump’s tax and spending package that included broad tax breaks benefiting data center developers along with many other businesses, but lawmakers did not specifically vote on a data center tax break.)
Tiffany countered by criticizing Crowley’s past support for subsidies and calling Crowley’s proposal to power data centers with wind and solar energy unrealistic.
Word clouds show how the candidates framed their attacks
A word cloud shows words candidates used most in the Oct. 21, 2026 gubernatorial debate when they speaking with an aggressive tone. (Hongyu Liu / Wisconsin Watch)
After we removed verbal fillers and words used to address the other candidate, the word cloud of attacks shows that Tiffany used the word “taxes” the most often when criticizing Crowley. This reflected Tiffany’s argument that Crowley’s policies would increase tax burdens on Wisconsinites.
“Taxes have went up every single year that David Crowley has been county executive,” Tiffany said. “You know what he’s going to do as governor.”
Crowley most often used the word “work” when attacking Tiffany, repeatedly questioning Tiffany’s track record in following Trump’s decisions and whether Tiffany would represent Wisconsinites if elected.
A word cloud shows words candidates used most in the Oct. 21, 2026 gubernatorial debate when they speaking with a defensive tone. (Hongyu Liu / Wisconsin Watch)
“Congressman Tom Tiffany, it doesn’t sound like you want to work for the small guys,” Crowley said after Tiffany said he was open to raising income limits on private school vouchers. “It sounds like you want to work for those who have the money and have the means to continue to pay their way. This is what this election is about.”
The pattern was less pronounced in the word cloud analyzing defensive statements. Tiffany most often said the word “Wisconsin” while Crowley’s most frequently used word was again “work.”
How we analyzed the debate
Wisconsin Watch transcribed the gubernatorial debate audio through Parakeet MLX, an automatic speech recognition model, then used the artificial intelligence tool Pyannote to assign each line in the transcript to a speaker. Automated transcription and speaker recognition can produce errors, which may affect the results.
We manually reviewed the transcript to correct as many speaker-identification errors as possible. We also tagged each line spoken by the candidates by topic and tone. We categorized a line as “aggressive” if a candidate referred to his opponent as the subject of a sentence or otherwise clearly criticized him. We categorized all other statements as “defensive.”
We calculated speech duration using the transcript’s start and end time stamps.
The SpaCy tokenization algorithm we used to generate the word cloud misidentified “taxes” as “taxis,” so we manually corrected that error.
Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein (Screenshot from the New York Times YouTube video
"Meet the Billionaire Couple Trying to Reshape the Republican Party")
For years, billionaire Republican donors Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein have given a lot of money to right-wing causes and Republican politicians. The Washington Post recently reported they rank second only to Elon Musk among the biggest donors in the current election cycle. While they live across the border in Lake Forest, Illinois, they take a special interest in Wisconsin. Yet the millions of dollars in donations they’ve given to the Wisconsin Republican Party look like chump change compared to the massive amount of money they’ve showered on the state since Tom Tiffany announced his run for governor.
The Uihliens upped their contributions to the state party from $20,000 in 2014 to $500,000 in 2017 and more than $1 million in 2018, according to campaign finance data published on the Wisconsin Ethics Commission’s Sunshine website. Altogether, they gave about $3.6 million to the party between 2016 and 2024. But in 2025 and 2026, as Tiffany launched his campaign for governor, the Uihleins gave exponentially more — about $34.8 million.
Thanks to a loophole created under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, donors can sidestep limits on their contributions to particular candidates by giving unlimited money to political parties, which can then pass the money directly to the candidates. And the Republican Party of Wisconsin has funneled the Uihleins’ money directly to Tiffany. Almost all of the money Tiffany raised in the most recent reporting period came from the Uihleins and one other billionaire, Diane Hendricks.
The Uihleins support a lot of Republican candidates and causes, and would likely have supported the Republican no matter who was running for governor this year. But they have a special relationship with Tiffany.
Back when he was serving in the Wisconsin state Senate, Tiffany’s district included Manitowish Waters, the small town where the Uihleins opened a resort, restaurant, spa, condominium complex and other businesses, turning the sleepy, lakeside community into a fancy tourist destination.
Tiffany, who lived 30 miles away in Hazelhurst, was very helpful to the Uihleins when some local residents and environmentalists asked the DNR to study the damage caused by a dam on Rest Lake in Manitowish Waters. The dam kept water levels low in the fall so lakeshore property owners didn’t have to take in their piers and high in the spring, just in time for them to take out their boats. According to the River Alliance of Wisconsin, partially closing the dam’s gates in the spring, “to raise the levels back up in time for boating season” meant ”starving the Manitowish River of water at a time when fish spawn. Downstream river property owners would find mud flats where water had been the day before.”
A 2015 article, “Requiem for a River,” posted by the River Alliance, describes how Tiffany slipped a few sentences into the 2015-17 state budget undercutting regulation of the dam and pronouncing a “death sentence” for the Manitowish River, essentially turning Rest Lake, where the Uihliens owned a condominium complex, into a private lake.
The tiny provision Tiffany added to the budget (#49 in a long list of last-minute budget tweaks), is titled “Dam Water Level Orders” and specifies that the Legislature must approve changes to a dam in Vilas County. With that deft maneuver, Tiffany killed a years-long effort by citizens to save the Manitowish River and rendered moot an environmental study by the DNR.
“What happened to the Manitowish River is a case study of how far we have fallen in resource conservation,” the River Alliance article concludes. “The Manitowish River now has upstream winners – well-connected and wealthy people who know how to use their influence to get what they want – and downstream losers without the same clout. Tiffany’s bill practically makes the Rest Lake chain a private waterway, in a state that prides itself on managing water in the public interest.”
“My constituents elected me to get results,” Tiffany said by way of explanation, in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report on his budget maneuver.
Tiffany’s constituents, of course, included the Uihleins.
His intervention in the matter of the Rest Lake dam was no small favor to the most well-connected and wealthy of all the constituents in his northern Wisconsin district. For the Uihleins, the transformation of Manitowish Waters was a special, personal cause.
Elizabeth Uihlein’s intense focus on funding improvements and reshaping even tiny aesthetic details of Manitowish Waters to her liking divided residents, according to a 2015 article in the Journal Sentinel. Some people appreciated the big investment in the community. Others did not like being left out of decisions about public spaces and objected to how their community was forced to conform to one wealthy woman’s tastes.
Elizabeth Uihlein herself told the Journal Sentinel, “It’s like a little Aspen. It’s beautiful, but it’s dying.” She suggested that local residents should be grateful for her generosity in providing for them, since they would never make it on their own. “The whole thing is dying up there,” she said. “The money had to come from elsewhere.”
The Uilheins, founders of the packing supply company Uline, are among the richest people in the U.S. They were also some of former Gov. Walker’s biggest donors, a fact that was mentioned in news coverage of the sweetheart deal they got on a swath of lakefront property in Manitowish Waters in 2016. Walker’s DNR gave the Uihleins a stretch of Rest Lake shoreline in exchange for a parcel of state forest land the couple owned in a different part of the state. DNR officials came up with the land swap, the AP reported, after critics objected to the state’s proposal to sell the lakeshore property to Elizabeth Uihlein for more than $100,000 less than its appraised value.
Long before the deal went through, the Uihleins started making unauthorized improvements on the public land they planned to buy. Some local officials were shocked to discover the extensive paths along the shoreline. Elizabeth Uihlein waved away their concerns. Later, with Walker’s help, she was able to claim the property as her own.
The section of Rest Lake shoreline the Uihleins received from the state gave lake access to their condominium complex. Tiffany’s deft tweak to the state budget ensured that boating conditions remained perfect in the spring, and in the fall the Uihleins and residents of their condo complex never had to go through the hassle of taking in their docks.
It’s worth asking what kind of return on investment the Uihleins expect to receive from their hyperscale donations to Wisconsin Republicans this year.
“The Uihleins wanted to take over a city. Tom Tiffany gave them their law change,” says Democratic analyst Scot Ross. “A decade later the Uihleins give his campaign $35 million. The dam man wouldn’t have a damn campaign without the Uihleins’ millions.”
In addition to the $34.8 million they funneled to Tiffany through the state party, The Uihleins have also given millions of dollars this cycle to try to elect Republican majorities in the state Legislature. In some cases, they’ve provided almost all of the campaign cash those Republican candidates have raised.
As the progressive group A Better Wisconsin Together put it in a statement on the politicians who received those donations, “it certainly raises questions about who they’re really looking out for.”
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany met Wednesday evening in Milwaukee for the only debate in Wisconsin's race for governor. (Screenshot from WISN)
Democratic Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany met at Marquette University Wednesday evening for the only scheduled debate in Wisconsin’s race for governor.
Throughout the hourlong debate, hosted by WISN and moderated by Matt Smith and Gerron Jordan, Crowley worked to paint Tiffany as a yes-man for his billionaire donors and President Donald Trump, while Tiffany worked to cast Crowley as an extreme liberal focused only on raising taxes and distracted by his dislike of Trump.
As Democrats hope that Trump’s record-low unpopularity can create a wave of support for them in races up and down the ticket across the country, polling has shown that Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race remains close, with Crowley so far maintaining a slight lead.
If Crowley wins, he’d be the first Black man to be elected governor of Wisconsin and will represent an extension of Gov. Tony Evers’ eight years in office — especially if Democrats are able to fulfill their ambition to win majority control of both chambers of the Legislature for the first time in more than 15 years.
A Tiffany victory would represent a return to the Gov. Scott Walker era of politics in the state, focused on deregulation and tax cuts and would mean Republicans gain control of a key swing state ahead of the 2028 presidential election.
Taxes and the economy
The debate opened with an extended discussion about the economy, taxes and the state budget as affordability has become one of the main issues of concern to voters in this year’s midterm elections.
Tiffany has built his campaign on the promise of massive tax cuts. He’s said he’ll cut property and income taxes while maintaining funding for government services. Since the early days of his campaign, Tiffany has argued that he can deliver massive tax cuts without significant cuts.
“We are going to have sufficient money in this budget to be able to fund the things that are important to Wisconsinites: education, transportation, and infrastructure, healthcare, we’re going to have money there, and here’s why,” he said. “When you look at the last budget that was passed a year ago, it went up $15 billion, went from $99 billion to $114 billion, a 15% increase, the largest increase ever in a state budget. There is plenty of money in Madison to be able to provide more shared revenue, to give increased aid to our schools, there is enough money in Madison to be able to backfill those things that we need to.”
The most recent state budget, passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Evers, cut $1.3 billion in taxes while increasing funding for the University of Wisconsin system, childcare providers and special education.
During a conversation about transportation funding, Crowley questioned how Tiffany will pay for his tax plans.
“Congressman Tom Tiffany doesn’t have any plans,” Crowley said. “Congressman Tiffany literally just said that he would cut billionaire taxes to 0%. And how we’re going to fund transportation? He has no clue. How are you going to get the revenues when you continuously cut the amount of revenues coming into government? This is the reason why cities, towns, villages, and our school districts all across the state are struggling today, and that’s because he doesn’t work for the people. He’s working for the billionaires. He’s going to do anything and everything that they tell him to do because that’s who he’s been in the pockets of.”
Throughout the campaign, Tiffany has criticized Crowley for rising property taxes in Milwaukee County and the increase in the county sales tax included in a bipartisan 2023 deal to inject more money into local government budgets.
The total property tax levy collected by Milwaukee County each year has increased, but the property tax rate actually paid by individual homeowners has increased less than the rate of inflation. The sales tax increase was included in the shared revenue bill passed by Republicans and has been seen as a policy move that helped stave off massive cuts to county services.
Crowley said his record on taxes has been misrepresented by the Tiffany campaign and added that he wants to increase taxes on the state’s wealthiest people, take a holistic look at the total tax picture to find where people can get relief and better work with local governments.
He also argued that Tiffany’s tax plans will only benefit his wealthy donors. Tiffany’s campaign has been largely funded by three billionaires, Beloit resident Diane Hendricks and Illinois residents Richard and Liz Uihlein.
“He wants to do exactly what they did in Washington D.C.,” Crowley said. “They literally gave $80 billion in tax breaks to billionaires throughout the entire country on the backs of hardworking Wisconsinites who are losing their healthcare — 270,000 folks. Look, we cannot afford Congressman Tiffany as the next governor if we’re literally going to be balancing tax breaks for billionaires on the backs of hardworking Wisconsin family members. What we need to be focusing on is how do we make sure that we can get them access to better-paying jobs? How we can actually make sure that they can actually afford food on the table?.”
Billionaires and Donald Trump
Crowley repeatedly returned to the refrain that Tiffany will only serve the interests of Trump and his billionaire donors.
“So while my opponent, you can see early on in the debate, is consistently focused on being against Donald Trump, I’m for Wisconsin,” Tiffany countered. “And rather than creating a bunch more programs that are going to end up taxing the people of Wisconsin more, I want to put more money in the taxpayers’ pockets.”
Later in the evening, Tiffany said that Crowley is “ranting constantly” about billionaires.
“Have I ever said we’re going to cut taxes to zero? I have not,” he said. “He’s misrepresenting our positions, and he’s over there ranting constantly about billionaires. We need a governor that’s going to be focused on people here in Wisconsin to do what’s best for Wisconsin. Not worrying about others, not announcing what you are against, but telling people what you’re for.”
Education
On education, Tiffany said he wants to provide more funding for public education while raising standards and accountability for struggling districts. He also said he would consider raising income limits on Wisconsin’s statewide private school voucher program through which families receive a tuition subsidy from the state government.
“I just think people should have whatever choice that they make,” Tiffany said. “We made the choice of public schools, regardless of income. And if a child is trapped in a failing school, they should be able to choose the school that they want to go to.”
Crowley responded by arguing that this position is the one held by the wealthy supporters of the voucher program.
“This is a prime example of exactly who the congressman works for,” Crowley said. “I mean, when this program was started, it was to make sure that low-income students all across the state of Wisconsin got access to some type of option. At the end, and what ended up happening, they kept lifting the cap. And what they do next, they lifted the income limits. Those who were actually paying for private education then started utilizing public dollars to pay for their child’s education. I mean, Congressman Tom Tiffany, it doesn’t sound like you want to work for the small guys. Sounds like you want to work for those who have the money and have the means to continue to pay their way.”
Data centers
This year, public opposition to data centers has played a large role in campaigns across the country. In this race, both candidates have sent mixed signals on the issue while trying to cast the other as the pro-data center choice.
Tiffany pointed to comments Crowley has made in which he celebrated the potential financial benefits data centers could have for local government budgets. As he’s said on the campaign trail, he tied his opposition to data centers with his opposition to solar and wind power developments and said he supports local control over development and would get rid of the sales tax exemptions for data centers currently in state law.
“I’ve been against these subsidies,” Tiffany said. “Why would the wealthiest, some of the wealthiest companies in the world need subsidies from the taxpayers of Wisconsin? I’m opposed to them.”
Crowley pointed to the $80 billion in tax breaks for data center developers Tiffany voted for in the One Big Beautiful Bill that was passed by Republicans last summer and said he’s going to do whatever he can to support local decisions around data centers.
“We need to make sure we’re protecting our environment, protecting our land, protecting our farmland, protecting our waterways,” Crowley said. “But communities need to have a seat because if they don’t want a data center, they shouldn’t be forced to have a data center. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about that. I’ve always sided with communities and the people when it comes down to data centers, Congressman Tom Tiffany, he’s done something different. I mean, he provided the tax breaks to the big tech companies who are steamrolling our communities today with these data centers.”
In 2017, when Republicans in the Legislature, then-Gov. Walker and Trump were working to attract Foxconn to Wisconsin to build a manufacturing plant in Mount Pleasant, Tiffany voted in committee and the full Senate in favor of the $3 billion tax break the state gave the company. After Foxconn’s plans failed to fully materialize, Microsoft took over the site, where it is now building a data center campus.
Elections
A chunk of the debate focused on questions about Tiffany’s vote to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, abortion and the tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement — three areas in which Democrats have sought to tie Tiffany as closely as possible with Trump and the right flank of the Republican party.
When asked why, after he voted to overturn the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania and Arizona, he said he would also have voted to overturn Wisconsin’s 2020 election of Biden, potentially nullifying the votes of hundreds of thousands of people, Tiffany said he did so because he had concerns about “Zuckerbucks” — the moniker Republicans gave to grant money given to municipal governments through a charity run by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to help them pay for the increased costs of administering an election during a pandemic.
He also said he had concerns about the Madison city clerk posting online that voters concerned about going to the polls because of COVID-19 could use the state’s indefinitely confined voter provision. That comment was made in March 2020 ahead of the state’s April election that year and the state Supreme Court quickly issued an order blocking that guidance, so it had no bearing on how people voted seven months later.
“Because of what happened there, when there was money coming in privately that should not have been, and the voters said that that should not be that way,” Tiffany said. “I mean, I can give you one other example of what happened there. There was the Dane County Clerk who declared that people who are indefinitely confined, they could just declare themselves to be indefinitely confined during the election. That clerk did not have the authority to do that. That requires an action by the state Senate and the governor to change that law. So there are a couple things like that that I thought should be addressed.”
Tiffany later said he would consider getting rid of the Wisconsin Elections Commission and changing how the state manages its elections. Tiffany and legislative Republicans voted to break up the state’s previous election agency, the Government Accountability Board, after it investigated allegations of campaign finance violations by Walker.
“I think we need to sit down and have that discussion about do we make changes to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. I mean, I’m one of the people that voted for it a decade ago,” he said. “We thought that we hit on the answer to be able to have an effective body, but we need to make sure that there’s accountability by the Wisconsin Elections Commission, and they’re carrying out their job.”
He continued, saying “there should be a simple principle in regards to our elections. It should be easy to vote and hard to cheat. We need to make sure that the Wisconsin Elections Commission is going to carry out that mandate for the voters of Wisconsin, because they’ve proven over the last number of years they want election integrity. Voters have voted consistently for election integrity.”
Crowley said that Tiffany’s election comments show he’ll sell out Wisconsinites for Trump, including in 2028 when the next governor will be responsible for certifying the results of the presidential race.
Abortion
In this race, abortion has not been one of the campaign’s main issues, but Tiffany has a history of anti-abortion actions in the state Legislature and in Congress and has been endorsed by anti-abortion groups. He said that in the Legislature he voted for the state’s current ban on abortions after 20 weeks and that’s where he would continue to draw the line.
“When I talked to my constituents, they said, ‘We want you to find a middle ground on this. We want you to compromise,’ and that’s exactly what we did,” he said. “I stand by that vote of a decade ago, and I will uphold it as the governor of Wisconsin.”
Crowley pointed out that while in Congress, Tiffany supported a bill that would have enacted a total federal abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother.
Tiffany said his position on the issue has “been consistent ever since I announced for governor,” while trying to cast Crowley as a pro-abortion extremist who would allow abortions for the full duration of a pregnancy. Crowley said that abortions after 20 weeks are nearly always serious situations that involve life-threatening medical questions and the decision should be made between a patient and her doctor.
Crowley has argued on the campaign trail for an amendment to the state Constitution enshrining the right to have an abortion and he also said he didn’t believe the Legislature would pass a bill lifting all restrictions on abortion.
In their closing statements, both candidates reiterated the arguments they’d been making all night.
Crowley again argued that Wisconsinites can’t trust Tiffany to choose regular citizens over billionaires and Trump. Tiffany discussed the plane crash he was in while campaigning earlier this summer and the “best of Wisconsin” he saw from first responders — saying he wanted everyone in the state to see that, too.
The Wisconsin Examiner previously reported that the pilot of that plane was a frequent Republican donor and an election denier who associates with some of the state’s most prominent election conspiracy theorists. On Wednesday, MeidasTouch reported that Tiffany’s campaign spent $70,000 on private flights in the past two months.
After the debate, Republicans said that Tiffany “laid out his vision.”
“Tom Tiffany laid out a vision to lower taxes and put Wisconsin families first, while David Crowley could not defend his failed record in Milwaukee County,” Republican Governors Association spokesperson Kollin Crompton said. “Crowley’s higher taxes and soft-on-crime policies are a warning, not a blueprint for Wisconsin. Tiffany knows Wisconsin, understands its people, and is running to put them first.”
Democrats and Crowley claimed a debate victory.
“There was only one governor on stage tonight, and it wasn’t the guy who went to Washington to vote with Donald Trump 100% of the time,” Crowley campaign manager Garren Randolph said. “Congressman Tom Tiffany spent an hour offering Wisconsinites excuse after excuse for the role he played in jacking up costs on families across the state. Gas prices, healthcare premiums, and utility bills are all up because of Congressman Tom Tiffany’s loyalty to Donald Trump over the people of Wisconsin. On the other side of the stage, David Crowley showed Wisconsinites a leader who will actually work for them if elected governor. David laid out how he’ll lower taxes for working families instead of billionaires and lower the cost of gas, groceries, housing, and healthcare.”
With less than two weeks until Election Day and early voting already underway, Wisconsin’s gubernatorial candidates met for the only televised debate. Both attacked their opponent’s biggest weaknesses and provided further insight into how they would govern.
Democrat David Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, and Republican Tom Tiffany, who represents the 7th Congressional District in northern Wisconsin, are competing in the first open race for governor since 2010 after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers did not seek a third term.
In a midterm year when the national environment favors Democrats, Marquette University Law School polling has shown a close contest between Crowley and Tiffany. The most recent poll in late September showed Crowley leading within the margin of error 49% to 46% among likely voters with about 5% still undecided. The next Marquette poll is scheduled for release Oct. 28.
The debate, held at the law school Wednesday with only news media in attendance, arrived on Wisconsin’s second day of in-person early voting. More than 55,000 people cast their ballots on the first day, up from more than 33,000 at the same time ahead of the last gubernatorial race in 2022, according to data from the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Here are some key takeaways from Wednesday night’s debate.
Crowley was on the attack
Crowley used any opening in the debate to criticize Tiffany for his votes in Congress in support of President Donald Trump and the millions in campaign funding Tiffany received from GOP megadonors.
Early in the debate, Crowley pointed to Tiffany’s votes against ending U.S. military involvement in the Iran war and blocking the president’s tariffs to suggest the congressman doesn’t care about lowering costs for Wisconsinites.
“We don’t need what is happening in Washington, D.C., coming into the state of Wisconsin,” Crowley said. “It is very clear that he is working for Donald Trump and the billionaires who are funding his campaign.”
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley addresses the moderators during a gubernatorial debate at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Oct. 21, 2026. (Andy Manis for Wisconsin Watch)
Campaign finance reports from July through September show Tiffany’s largest donor was the Republican Party of Wisconsin, which received nearly 95% of its $29 million in donations from billionaires Diane Hendricks, the founder of ABC Supply Co., and Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, who founded the Uline shipping supplies company. The next campaign finance report deadline, which will show the candidates’ financial position ahead of Election Day, is Monday.
Tiffany, who was endorsed by Trump earlier this year, attempted to separate himself from the president, who is unpopular in Wisconsin ahead of Election Day. The September Marquette poll found just 38% of registered voters approve of Trump’s job in his second term.
“While my opponent, you can see early on in the debate, is consistently focused on being against Donald Trump, I’m for Wisconsin,” Tiffany said.
More insight on how Crowley, Tiffany would govern
The moderators from WISN-TV in Milwaukee pressed Crowley and Tiffany for more details on the campaign promises they’ve made while traveling the state over the last year.
Tiffany has called for returning Wisconsin’s $3 billion surplus to taxpayers. During the debate, Tiffany explained that he would do that through “long-term” reductions in property and income taxes. In remarks after the debate, Tiffany added he would not support one-time rebates, which were part of the failed bipartisan surplus deal Evers and Republican legislative leaders negotiated earlier this year. Tiffany opposed that plan.
“The one thing that I don’t want to do is just one-time rebates,” Tiffany said after the debate. “I want it to be long-term, lasting tax relief, so people in Wisconsin can plan, so they can plan their futures.”
Tiffany said he opposes raising transportation user fees, instituting tolls or indexing the gas tax to inflation. Crowley said he would be open to new user fees and that the state should be open to tolling to fund transportation projects, but he also opposed indexing the gas tax, which was discontinued in 2006.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, addresses the moderators during a gubernatorial debate at Marquette University Oct. 21, 2026. (Andy Manis for Wisconsin Watch)
Crowley reiterated his position from the primary that he would not eliminate the Milwaukee school voucher program and said he would keep the statewide program in place.
“I will work with the Legislature,” Crowley said. “But as of this moment, we are not in a position to push all of these children towards any of our public schools.”
Asked if he would sign a bill to eliminate income limits on school vouchers, Tiffany said he would have to take a look at it if elected.
“I would be willing to raise those income limits,” Tiffany said. “But I would sit down and take a look at where we should move them at this time.”
Crowley noted the voucher program was originally intended to help low-income Milwaukee students, but the statewide program has allowed families who could already afford to send their children to private school to receive a taxpayer subsidy.
Crowley explains data center policy shifts
On data centers, Tiffany pointed out that Crowley in the past week changed his position on the state’s sales tax exemption for data centers, which is worth some $2 billion.
“Why would some of the wealthiest companies in the world need subsidies from the taxpayers of Wisconsin?” said Tiffany, who has campaigned on repealing data center tax breaks.
Crowley now says he would sign legislation, proposed by Republicans, to repeal the sales tax exemption. Previously he said he would review the exemption.
Candidates stick to their positions on abortion
Tiffany said he would not sign a “fetal heartbeat bill,” which would ban abortions once a heartbeat is detected, if it reaches his desk. Tiffany voted for Wisconsin’s current abortion ban after 20 weeks when he was in the Legislature and he said he would maintain that “middle ground” in the abortion debate.
Crowley did not directly answer whether he would sign a bill that legalized abortion with no gestational limits and said he did not believe such a bill would reach his desk if he is elected. He has proposed a constitutional amendment, which would need the support of the Legislature, that would protect the right to an abortion.
“These are discussions that need to be made between a doctor and a patient,” Crowley said. “When you think about any type of abortion past the 20 week, it’s usually dealing with extreme circumstances.”
Fact-checking the debate
Both candidates repeated claims that Wisconsin Watch has found to be inaccurate.
Tiffany claimed during the debate that Crowley “wants to remove half of the prison inmates here in Wisconsin.” Crowley has voiced support for cutting Wisconsin’s prison population in half over time using a variety of means, such as legalizing marijuana and funding jail diversion programs.
Crowley claimed Tiffany “provided the tax breaks to the big tech companies who are steamrolling our communities today with these data centers.” The tax cuts were part of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill and applied to a multitude of companies across sectors. They were not specifically for tech companies or data centers, as Crowley had previously claimed.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, right, R-Hazelhurst, addresses the moderator during a gubernatorial debate at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Oct. 21, 2026. (Andy Manis for Wisconsin Watch)
Clashing closing statements
Each candidate had a minute to give a closing statement. Crowley highlighted the contrast between himself and Tiffany, while Tiffany recounted his recent emergency plane landing experience. Here’s each candidate’s entire statement:
Crowley: “I’m running to be your governor because Wisconsin families are working harder than ever and still falling behind. And I get it. I grew up in a working-class family, and I’m raising three amazing daughters. Congressman Tom Tiffany, he doesn’t get it. He went to Washington and he sold Wisconsin out. He went to go work for Donald Trump and the billionaires bankrolling him. They got tax breaks. You got higher bills. They got tariffs. You got higher prices. They got their endless war. You got record high gas prices. This election is about who your governor works for. If Congressman Tom Tiffany becomes our governor, he’s going to work for them, not for you, just like he did in Washington, voting with Donald Trump 100% of the time. But me, I’ll work for you. I’ll lower your costs. I’ll expand health care. I’ll make sure we can improve our schools and bring people together to get it done. That’s why I’m asking for your vote. Thank you, and go Brewers.”
Tiffany: “It was a month ago that a plane that I was in had to make an emergency landing on Lake Wausau and run up to the airport. And as the pilot and I exited that plane, he dialed 911. From the time that call hit dispatch in downtown Wausau to the boat picking us up in the middle of Lake Wausau was 16 minutes. Only 16 minutes. I remember hearing after we made the call that you could hear the sirens and then you could see the lights, but it only took them 16 minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, I saw the best of Wisconsin that night. As your next governor, I’m going to make sure you see the best of Wisconsin. I hope to earn your vote to lead this state.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
While a Wisconsin state senator, Tom Tiffany voted for state budgets that funded the state Department of Corrections — not for computer tablets the department made available to prison inmates.
Tiffany’s votes were raised by Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, the Democratic nominee in the Nov. 3 election for governor.
Crowley has been criticized for approving tablets for county jail inmates.
In response, Crowley claimed that Tiffany, now the Republican gubernatorial nominee and congressman, “voted for these types of iPads.”
Tiffany voted for the 2017-19 and 2019-21 state budgets. They contained thousands of provisions across numerous departments.
In2018, Corrections made tablets available to inmates to purchase.
The Legislature did not take votes on the tablet program.
This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
On Wednesday night, the candidates for Wisconsin governor will face off in their only debate ahead of the Nov. 3 election — and based on how the campaign has gone so far, a lot of claims and accusations will fly.
To help voters sort through the noise, Wisconsin Watch and our partners at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have been fact-checking claims about the candidates.
Do you know whether Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, the Democratic nominee, supports releasing half of Wisconsin’s prison population, or whether homicides have increased 57% under his watch?
How about U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican nominee? Do you know whether he voted to defund the police or for a $68 billion tax break for data centers?
Before you watch the debate at 7 p.m. Wednesday on WISN.com, read on to know the facts.
And before you vote, check out our other Fact Briefs and our comprehensive voter guide too.
No. Tiffany cited Crowley’s 2019 support for Gov. Tony Evers’ goal as support for his claim that Crowley “wants to let half the prison population out in Wisconsin.” Evers’ goal was aimed at gradually achieving the 50% reduction.
No. The number of juvenile homicide victims in Milwaukee County has ranged between 19 and 27 annually, with no clear trend upward or downward, since Crowley took office. Plus, most law enforcement in the county is done by city and village police departments; they are not under the control of the county executive.
Yes. Milwaukee County sales and property taxes have increased while Crowley has been county executive, though property taxes have increased less than the statewide average.
Yes. Crowley gave final approval to a 2022 contract requested by the Sheriff’s Office and approved by the Board of Supervisors that provides communication tablets to inmates and approved a three-year extension in 2025.
No. Congress did not vote up-or-down on giving data center operators a $68 billion tax break. An attack ad cited Tiffany’s vote for the Big Beautiful Bill Act. It contains business tax breaks, including 100% depreciation, but they are available broadly, including for data centers, to deduct the cost of many investments.
Yes. Both have emphasized how they would regulate artificial intelligence data centers, but they also have spoken favorably of them. Crowley: Wisconsin can “become an AI and a data hub not only for the entire country, but for the entire globe.” Tiffany: Data centers are “exciting new technology.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Voting rights activists and others gathering at the Midtown Center in Milwaukee on the first day of early voting in July, 2022. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)
If Tom Tiffany loses in November, it’s not irrational to think he might try to overturn the election results. On Nov. 4, the day after the election, Tiffany might repeat the same, old, tiredargument he made when he tried to overturn the 2020 election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania and said that, if he’d had the chance, he would have voted against certifying the results in Wisconsin. Tiffany might again accuse Dane County election officials as being“unscrupulous.” He might say that Milwaukee County allowed“hundreds of thousands of illegal votes to be cast and counted.”
Tiffany only recently admitted that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, and has said he supports an FBI probe into the 2020 election results in our state.
Mayor Cavalier Johnsonhas offered Tiffany an open-ended invitation to observe Milwaukee’s elections procedures himself. “I invite you to see our election operation, to talk to officials who conduct our elections and scrutinize, first hand the extensive security and accuracy in place.” Unsurprisingly, Tiffany has not accepted this offer.
When Tiffanywelcomed FBI agents this spring to investigate Milwaukee election officials, it wasn’t just to sow doubts in the 2020 election or to ensure election integrity. The real goal was to set the stage in case he loses in November. Then, he might ask Donald Trump to help overturn Wisconsin’s election.
When facing this very real impending emergency to November’s election, what are Wisconsinites to do? Noted decent human being Mr. Fred Rogers has thisadvice.
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
So who are our helpers? Let’s start with the people you already know. Once you begin to ask around, you will discover that you know several helpers who volunteer at the polls in every election. Personally, I attend weekly church services at First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee. A high percentage of our congregants volunteer at the polls. If you ask more than one of them, you hear a consistent story.
Election volunteers care deeply about ensuring free and fair elections and they do it year after year. They receive extensive training to carefully follow transparent procedures. They are given advice such as, “It is better to go slow, ask questions and get it right.” Additionally, there are so many people involved at the polls and so much transparency that, once you are a part of it, you have full faith in the integrity of Milwaukee elections. So ask around. Share these helpers’ stories before our city’s integrity is questioned this November. Want to join their ranks?They will gladly put you to work.
But what are we to do on Nov. 4? Luckily, you will always find people who are helping. This winter, our city faced a real threat from federal ICE immigration agents. Before the victories of everyday helpers in Minneapolis, it was reasonable to believe that level of federal overreach would spread to our city. We know this because of the treatment of our neighborYessenia Ruano and the detainment ofElvira Benitez-Suarez andSalah Sarsour. Masked ICE agents detained at least 39 of our neighbors in July. The ICE Out MKE coalition stood up on those dark days and those Milwaukee helpers are still here. I trust the League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County,Souls to the Polls,Milwaukee Turners, andVoces de la Frontera. Wisconsin has plenty of non-partician, non-for-profit helpers and these are just a few.
Your relationship with the nonpartisan not-for-profits that are working to defend our democracy will need to be deeper than digital. Go to a meeting and find out now which local helpers will be your trusted voice. Empowered with this connection, on the day after the election, your plan should be to listen to follow the guidance from these groups and join the organized, active citizens who are standing up.
Most importantly, don’t relax into believing that Tiffany and Trump are interested in anything but autocracy. The dance of democracy is not choreographed by a single caller. It is not a solo act. It depends on all of us moving together.
This article is part of the Cap Times series Deadly Divide, investigating Wisconsin’s ongoing Black infant mortality crisis. Erin McGroarty reported this story as a USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism 2026 National Fellow and a participant in the Center’s engagement initiative.
David Crowley leads the largest county in Wisconsin, which regularly ranks among the worst states in the nation for its Black infant mortality rate.
A majority of those deaths typically are concentrated in Crowley’s county, in central Milwaukee ZIP codes.
This crisis isn’t just a policy priority, the Democratic candidate for governor told the Cap Times. It’s a measure of whether Wisconsin can consider itself a success.
Crowley provided those insights in response to a questionnaire from the Cap Times, where health reporter Erin McGroarty is investigating the state’s long-standing status as one of the deadliest states for Black newborns.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican nominee for governor, did not complete the questionnaire or respond to multiple emails and phone calls over a seven-week period requesting responses.
The Cap Times has been unable to locate any public statements by Tiffany’s campaign about Black infant health in Wisconsin.
Crowley’s responses to the questionnaire can be found below.
Some responses have been edited for brevity.
Do you consider Black infant mortality a public health priority in Wisconsin?
Black infant mortality is not only a public health priority — it is one of the clearest measures of whether our systems work for every family.
Changing that requires looking beyond hospitals and clinics to include access to maternal health care, doulas, community health workers, stable housing, paid family and medical leave and economic security.
Wisconsin has long known about this disparity. We need sustained commitment to change it.
Would you support policies to improve access to early and consistent prenatal care for Black mothers and others who struggle to access these services?
I would expand access to early and consistent prenatal care through Medicaid. I also support greater access to care through paid family and medical leave, transportation, telehealth, group prenatal care and postpartum home visits.
In 2026, the Wisconsin Legislature passed a bill later signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers to extend the period of time Medicaid covers postpartum care for mothers. Do you support expanding or further modifying Wisconsin’s Medicaid program to improve maternal and infant health?
Yes. However, maternal health begins long before pregnancy. Chronic conditions like hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and mental health needs often go untreated for years, driving poor birth outcomes and maternal mortality. Expanding health care coverage through a public option is foundational for improving outcomes.
Wisconsin must strengthen maternal health benefits throughout pregnancy and the postpartum year. I support coverage for doulas, community health workers, dental health, nutrition, postpartum home visits and mental health and substance use screening and treatment. Coverage must translate into actual care, requiring stronger reimbursement and provider participation — especially in rural and underserved communities.
Would you support or propose policy to improve access to maternal mental health services, including screening and treatment for postpartum depression and other complications?
Maternal mental health must be treated as a core part of prenatal and postpartum care. I would expand access to routine screening, timely referral and treatment for postpartum depression, anxiety, substance use disorders, and other complications. Medicaid and private insurance should cover these services, including telehealth, home-based support and care delivered through doulas and community health workers. Wisconsin should also expand successful community-based efforts such as the First Breath perinatal care pilot and improve coordination, so families are not left to navigate complex systems on their own.
Do you support initiatives to recruit, train and retain a more diverse maternal and infant health workforce?
A maternal and infant health workforce that reflects the communities it serves can strengthen trust, communication and continuity of care. I would build on the Governor’s Task Force on the Healthcare Workforce recommendations by expanding education and apprenticeship pathways, scholarships and loan repayment, clinical placements in underserved communities, and support for community-based doula and community health worker careers. Recruitment must be paired with fair compensation, supportive workplaces and clear advancement opportunities so Wisconsin can retain the people it trains.
What role should hospitals and health systems play in reducing racial disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes? Would you support statewide quality improvement initiatives or reporting requirements?
Hospitals and health systems should be accountable partners in eliminating racial disparities. They can leverage existing health assessment and improvement-planning processes to identify needs and improve population health. Wisconsin should strengthen this infrastructure so inequities are not hidden within statewide averages.
This requires consistent public reporting of maternal and infant health outcomes by race and geography, strong alignment between local and state efforts, and measurable goals. In addition, hospitals should partner directly with communities to set priorities and design solutions.
Ultimately, quality improvement must be measured by change. When assessments reveal racial disparities, institutions must shift resources to improve outcomes.
Should state government address non-medical factors such as housing stability, nutrition, transportation, environmental exposures and economic opportunity that affect infant and maternal health?
Housing, income, transportation, environmental conditions, food security, paid leave, and child care are maternal and infant health issues because they shape the conditions in which people experience pregnancy, recover from childbirth and raise their children.
I support coordinated investments in affordable housing, nutrition, transportation, environmental protections, paid family and medical leave, affordable child care, and economic security. If we are serious about improving maternal and infant health, we have to invest not only in health care, but in the conditions that make health possible.
Wisconsin does not have an infant death review board as it does for maternal deaths. Do you support creating such a board?
Wisconsin should establish an infant death review system that complements the existing maternal mortality review process. Many states establish a local process, which is a national best practice. Regardless, the process should examine medical and non-medical contributing factors, identify preventable patterns, protect family privacy and issue regular public recommendations. The goal should be learning and prevention — not blame — and the board should include clinicians, public health professionals, community representatives, and people with lived experience.
If elected, would you support specific funding priorities in a state budget to reduce Black infant mortality?
My budget priorities include expanding health coverage, doula and community health worker reimbursement, nurse home visiting, maternal mental health services, prenatal care access, telehealth, paid family leave, and grants for community-led birth equity programs.
Reducing Black infant mortality requires us to be intentional about racial disparities, but these investments also improve outcomes for all Wisconsin families.
Would you support state funding for services such as community health workers or access to doulas care?
Community health workers and doulas provide trusted, culturally responsive support before, during and after birth. I would fund these services through Medicaid reimbursement and sustainable state grants that reflect the true cost of providing these services. Funding should include family-supporting compensation, benefits and training for these workers — not require workers or community organizations to subsidize essential health care through underpaid or uncompensated labor.
Families should be able to choose CHW and doula support without cost or geography becoming a barrier, and the people providing support should be able to build sustainable careers doing this work.
Would you be willing to set measurable goals during your term to reduce Black infant mortality and improve birth outcomes? How would the public know whether your policies are working?
I would establish clear statewide goals to improve maternal and infant health outcomes for all Wisconsin families, with specific goals for reducing Black infant mortality and narrowing persistent racial disparities in birth outcomes.
Those goals should include interim benchmarks developed in partnership with DHS, local health departments, health systems, tribal nations, community organizations, and families. The state should publish an annual dashboard reporting infant mortality, preterm birth, low birth weight, prenatal care access, postpartum follow-up, and other key measures by race and geography.
The public should see where outcomes are improving, where disparities persist and how state investments are performing.
Are there any other state policies or additional funding you believe would improve access to maternal care and decrease infant mortality disparities?
Improving maternal care also requires investments in the conditions that shape health before and after birth. I would support policies that strengthen housing stability, food security, transportation, environmental health, paid leave, child care, and early education. I would also expand access to telehealth and community-based care so rural families and families facing transportation or provider shortages can receive consistent support.
Ultimately, reducing infant mortality requires both a strong health care system and policies that give families the resources and stability necessary to be healthy.
Describe an issue on which you would be willing to work across party lines to improve maternal and infant health.
I would work across party lines to create a statewide infant death review system and expand evidence-based home visiting, doula care and rural maternal health services. These are practical steps that can improve care, identify preventable causes of infant death and give policymakers better information about where resources are needed. Maternal and infant health should be an area where legislators can set politics aside and focus on results for families.
Explain your overall vision for ensuring that every baby born in Wisconsin has an equal opportunity for a healthy start in life, regardless of race or ZIP code.
Every baby born in Wisconsin should have an equal opportunity for a healthy start — but that work begins long before a baby is born.
Healthy pregnancies are shaped across the life course: by whether people can access health care before pregnancy, whether families have stable housing and economic security, whether parents can take paid time to recover and care for a newborn, and whether communities have trusted providers and resources close to home.
My vision is a Wisconsin that improves maternal and infant health for everyone while being intentional about eliminating the racial and geographic disparities that have persisted for far too long. Those goals are not in competition. Many of the investments that can help close the Black infant mortality gap … can strengthen families across our state, including rural communities facing significant health care shortages.
Families and communities should help shape these solutions and government should be accountable for results. We should publicly measure whether outcomes are improving, whether disparities are closing and whether our investments are reaching the people who need them most.
A healthy start should not depend on a family’s race, income, employer or ZIP code. Wisconsin has both the responsibility and the ability to build the conditions in which every family can thrive.
Crowley at a press conference in Madison in August 2026. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Democratic gubernatorial candidate and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said he would sign a bill to repeal tax incentives for data centers if he’s elected, marking a change in his position on the issue.
Gov. Tony Evers and Wisconsin Republicans approved a provision during the 2023 state budget that exempts data center developers from paying sales and use taxes for the “sale of property and equipment to construct, renovate or operate data centers.” The policy is estimated to have already saved data center developers $1.5 billion.
However, as data centers have become increasingly unpopular, Democrats and Republicans alike have changed their minds on providing these subsidies.
A group of Republican lawmakers, some of whom voted for the budget that created the tax subsidies in 2023, introduced a bill earlier this month that would repeal the tax breaks, though the bill won’t go anywhere as the Legislature is out of session.
Crowley said he would “absolutely” sign that bill to repeal the tax subsidies if it were sent to him as governor during an event at the Overture Center on Wednesday evening.
“The fact that these tech companies are getting a billion dollars in tax breaks — it’s being delivered on the backs of hard-working families,” Crowley said. “I want to be very clear about my position. We’re going to be aggressive when it comes down to holding data centers to account, making sure that we protect our land, protect our water, have strict environmental standards, but also communities need to have a seat at the table.”
Crowley had previously been noncommittal when it came to repealing the tax benefit for data centers. He told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he did not “believe Wisconsin should automatically roll back all data center tax incentives” but that he believed that the state needed “a more rigorous review of whether taxpayers are receiving sufficient value for the incentives being provided.”
Republican candidate and U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany had previously criticized Crowley’s position on the tax incentives, saying that he wanted to give “a blank check to data centers” and that data centers “do not need to be subsidized by us, the taxpayers.” Tiffany has not always been a champion of tough regulation on data centers, either. He previously voted for legislation in Congress that would have banned state and local governments across the country from being able to enforce laws or regulations on AI models, systems, and related digital infrastructure, including data centers, for 10 years.
Crowley’s changing position comes with less than three weeks left until Election Day and as data centers and AI continue to be unpopular across the political spectrum. A September Marquette Law School poll found that 74% of Wisconsinites say the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits.
This week Crowley laid out an 11-point policy plan for restricting and regulating AI and social media companies. The policies include:
Requiring platforms to set kids’ accounts and new accounts to the highest privacy setting and cut off unsolicited messages. Users over 18 would have the option to turn the restrictions off.
Prohibiting infinite scroll, autoplay and other addictive features for minors’ accounts as well as a ban on push notification for the users overnight and during the school day.
Banning surveillance advertising.
Allowing parents the option to sue platforms over design choices that harm a child including content promoting suicide, eating disorders and drug sales
Regulating AI chatbots by restricting them for users under 13, prohibiting chatbots from posing as doctors and therapists and requiring disclosures on AI chatbots designed to form emotional bonds with individuals
Increasing the penalties for online predators and sextortion and implementing those same penalties for creating or sharing AI-generated sexual images of children
Penalizing companies that knowingly make money from scam ads
Requiring identification verification for advertisers before they can place ads
Requiring platforms to implement a scam reporting tool that’s easy to use and requiring that they confirm the reports and report the action that they took within a set timeframe
Funding the state Department of Justice and the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to support their work to combat online fraud and enforce anti-trust law
Investing in county and tribal adult protective services and aging and disability resource centers, so victims of scams have support to recover
Crowley said during the Wednesday evening event that the state needs to do something in the absence of the Trump administration and Congress taking action.
“It’s unfortunate that the federal government has actually not put in these guardrails to protect our young people, protect our families, but also to protect our seniors,” Crowley said. “Look, I’m a father, I have three daughters and I want to make sure I can protect my girls from these chatbots. You have, you know, social media platforms that allow them to chat about sexuality. That’s not what I want my 9 and 7-year-old to be introduced to. My oldest right now is a freshman at Whitewater. I don’t want her having pictures out there, and all of a sudden, she can’t be protected.”
Crowley said the policies are aimed at putting the burdens on the tech, social media and AI companies, rather than on individuals.
Tiffany also supports some guardrails for these companies. He said in a statement to the Examiner that the state needs “common sense guardrails that protect children and seniors, safeguard personal privacy, and prevent sensitive data from falling into the hands of foreign adversaries, including Communist China.” His campaign noted that in Congress Tiffany cosponsored a law aimed at strengthening law enforcement’s ability to investigate financial fraud targeting seniors. The legislation covered scams involving AI.
“We cannot allow artificial intelligence to become another tool for harvesting Americans’ personal information or exploiting vulnerable individuals. We must hold Big Tech accountable when its platforms enable the creation of sexually explicit AI-generated images of children or expose minors to sexually inappropriate chatbot conversations,” Tiffany said.
Tiffany said he would support imposing age verification requirements for app providers, strengthening parental consent protections and “give parents greater control over their children’s online activity.”
Tom Tiffany throws a signed football into the crowd gathered in Stein's Aircraft Services in Waukesha for the get-out-the-vote rally hosted by Hunter Nation, a national nonprofit for hunters, anglers and outdoor enthusiasts. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre spent the majority of his time on stage in Waukesha on Tuesday night talking about his time playing football. But when the conversation turned to the election, Favre was blunt about what he would say to hunters, Christians, veterans, farmers, factory workers, truck drivers and school teachers who aren’t planning to vote.
“You can’t sit it out. You can’t sit it out,” Favre, a Mississippi native, said. “You can’t bitch if you don’t vote.”
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is running against Democratic Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, came on the stage with Favre, who signed a couple of footballs and handed them to Tiffany. The congressman threw them into the crowd gathered in Stein’s Aircraft Services in Waukesha for the get-out-the-vote rally hosted by Hunter Nation, a national nonprofit for hunters, anglers and outdoor enthusiasts.
The event also featured a presentation on delisting the grey wolf, an auction of a Ted Nugent guitar signed by Favre — claimed by the only person who bid at the starting bid of $5,000 — and a performance by Mark Mackay, a country musician. After talking about the importance of being on the “good side of this battle,” he introduced a song called “I Am Love,” saying that’s what musicians should be talking about instead of politics.
Tiffany told the Examiner there was no “greater icon in Wisconsin” than Favre and he was glad he could be there to speak on voting and hunting issues. He expressed no concern when asked how his campaign’s accountability and anti-fraud agenda matches up with Favre’s entanglement in a fraud scandal in Mississippi. Favre has repaid the state of Mississippi over $1 million for speeches he was paid for but didn’t deliver, and he is still a defendant in a civil case filed by the Mississippi Department of Human Services to recoup millions of dollars in misspent federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families welfare funds, some of which he allegedly used to build a volleyball stadium.
“He’s appeared before Congress and talked about how requirements need to be tightened up for these various programs,” Tiffany said. “I’m going to do that as governor. I mean accountability is a big part of our agenda to make sure that all agencies are audited and make sure that no one is stealing from the taxpayers.”
Tiffany hit on a number of his campaign priorities, including rooting out fraud and auditing state government, during the rally. One of the biggest cheers he received was for saying he’d sign a bill to open a hunting season on sandhill cranes.
“Yeah, baby!” one man yelled out in response.
A number of people in the crowd wore Favre jerseys. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Waukesha County, one of the historically Republican-leaning “WOW counties,” has trended a little less red in recent elections, including in the 2026 April state Supreme Court race.
Rep. Adam Neylon (R-Pewaukee), who is running for reelection to the Assembly and, simultaneously, for Waukesha County executive, said Tiffany has been putting in the work in the county to ensure people turn out and vote for Republicans there.
“He is everywhere. You would think he’s running for a local office in Waukesha County,” Neylon said. “He’s run a very aggressive campaign where he has really committed to the ground game. He’s also really strong at retail politics. He shows up, he listens and he speaks the language of Wisconsin.”
Attorney general candidate Eric Toney told the Examiner that Republicans “can’t take any area for granted.”
“Waukesha County, certainly has been crucial over the years with Republican voters or conservative voters in this area, and we just need people all across the state coming out to vote, and not just talking to folks that might live in their own city or county.”
Rep. Jim Piwowarczyk (R-Hubertus), who is seeking reelection to his Assembly district that represents parts of Washington County, said he thinks the election will come down to turnout. Recent Marquette Law School polling has shown Crowley up slightly ahead of Tiffany.
“We, as Republicans, if Tom Tiffany’s down three points, we actually consider that to be a good thing for our side. We think our candidates usually pull a little bit or actually end up doing a little bit better. I think it’s neck and neck right now. It’s very close. I think it’s going to come out to turnout,” Piwowarczyk said. “I’ve seen the polling myself and it’s very close.”
Piwowarczyk said the rally and other events are helping people get excited. He said he has been knocking doors in his district and has also been up to the other areas of the state, including the Green Bay area, a purple region that contains multiple competitive state legislative races.
“We have a lot of people excited to get out there. I think that they have been very frustrated by Tony Evers and the ever-increasing taxes, and they’re excited for Tiffany,” Piwowarczyk said.
U.S. Reps. Bryan Steil and Scott Fitzgerald also attended the event and warned that Democrats want to pursue a radical agenda most voters don’t agree with.
“When we see how radicalized the Democratic party has become, where they are going after all aspects of our culture from putting boys in girls sports to higher taxes… Their attacks on core aspects of our culture are real and substantive, and they will want to come after our hunting rights.”
Steil told the crowd not to underestimate turnout in Milwaukee and Madison, the state’s largest cities. His own seat, long considered safe, is a target for Democrats this year and Democrat Mitchell Berman is giving him a competitive race.
“Run on the assumption that the Democrats are going to vote in full strength here in the liberal core cities in Wisconsin,” Steil said. “Every single person in the state of Wisconsin, who has a world view like those of us in this room, who stays home in three weeks from today, is effectively voting for a Democrat, and we need to get that message out to our friends, our family, our neighbors, our co-workers, folks at church.”
A number of people in the crowd wore Favre jerseys, and his presence was part of what brought out Michael Harrell, a 74-year-old New Berlin resident. He told the Examiner with a smile that he attended the rally because he “wanted to see Brett Favre.”
“I don’t know Tom Tiffany’s voting record or any of that stuff, but I vote Republican regardless,” Harrell said. He said he’s voted for the party since former President Richard Nixon was elected.
“We’ve got God in our platform. We got common sense, and even though there are the RINOs, we got a lot of good people out there,” Harrell said. “We love America like the president does.”
President Donald Trump isn’t running this year, but in recent weeks, he has been on the campaign trail telling people to pretend he is on the ballot.
Neylon said Trump’s absence from the ballot has been a concern for some, but he’s seen enthusiasm growing for the midterms.
“Republicans are going to turn out,” Neylon said. “Republicans are over performing in Wisconsin compared nationally, and I think part of that is because we have really good candidates, and I think Wisconsin is going to be another example of why candidates really matter.”
Tiffany shakes hands with attendees at the October rally. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Trump has been a motivator for Republicans to get out to vote in recent elections but he has also fallen in popularity in Wisconsin. Tiffany has recently distanced himself from the second-term president, despite reliably voting for the president’s agenda in Congress and receiving Trump’s strong endorsement. This week he would not say in an interview with WMTJ whether he approves of the job Trump is doing.
“The president is doing what he believes is best for the United States of America,” Tiffany said.
Neylon said Tiffany has been able to insulate himself from Trump’s unpopularity by keeping on message and talking about lowering taxes, reducing regulations and protecting Act 10, the law passed under Gov. Scott Walker that restricted collective bargaining for public employees.
“He’s been really consistent and focused on a message that’s different than some of the national messages you hear from federal candidates, so I don’t think people are necessarily tying them together,” Neylon said. “When you look at how each person is spending their time, there’s differences, and people see that.”
The Wisconsin state Senate and Assembly are also up for grabs this year. The Republican Assembly members said the quality of the candidates running in competitive seats will be the thing that helps Republicans hold their majorities.
Neylon said people shouldn’t judge Wisconsin races by “national headwinds.”
“I’m more concerned that we lose majorities at the federal level than I am at the state level,” Neylon said.
Harrell said he thought Trump could help Tiffany get over the finish line. He said he thinks Trump has been doing a good job and that he isn’t too worried about high gas prices, which recently reached record highs.
“He’s gonna pull something here, I think, on the gas and this stuff. We’re gonna maybe see that before the election,” Harrell said. He added that he thinks Democratic candidate David Crowley has “flubbed up” Milwaukee and doesn’t want him to lead the state.
“There’s so many crazy people nowadays, you just, you don’t know. You don’t know what’s gonna happen,” Harrell said. “I mean you hope God intervenes and has already got it planned out, but all we can do is hope — hope, and pray.”
Tiffany was flying with Boltz from La Crosse to Wausau in September when Boltz’s plane suffered what was subsequently described as a “mechanical failure.” Tiffany speaks to reporters after his launch event in Wausau in September 2025. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
A preliminary National Transportation Safety Board report released on Oct. 13 found that an error by pilot Leonard Boltz was the cause of the plane crash with Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany.
Last month, Tiffany was flying with Boltz from La Crosse to Wausau when Boltz’s plane suffered what was subsequently described as a “mechanical failure.” Boltz crash landed the plane into Lake Wausau and the pair swam to a shallow area where they were rescued. Both sustained minor injuries.
Tiffany, who had taken at least 12 flights with Boltz over the course of his campaign, praised Boltz during a press conference the day after the crash.
“It took some real expertise to be able to land that plane as he did,” Tiffany said.
The investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board remains ongoing, but the preliminary report stated Boltz told his aviation mechanic after the crash that the loss of engine power was due to his delay in switching fuel tanks and not turning on the electric fuel boost pump.
According to the report, Boltz had flown throughout the day, first flying from Langlade County, where he chairs a local Republican party, with a full load of 70 gallons of fuel. While flying from La Crosse to Wausau and preparing to land, the report states that Boltz “observed a higher-than-normal engine exhaust gas temperature.”
According to the report, Boltz did not refuel the airplane at La Crosse before the flight departed for Wausau, and he stated that he had selected the left main fuel tank for both flight legs except for when he briefly selected the auxiliary tanks while in cruise flight before switching back to the left tank.
The report states that all the fuel tank caps were found secure in a postaccident examination. The left main tank had no fuel while the right main tank and both auxiliary tanks were full of fuel.
The report states that the Beech K35 plane was “substantially damaged” in the crash into Lake Wausau.
In a governor’s race that has focused more on data center construction than artificial intelligence technology, Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Crowley on Tuesday announced a plan for state regulations on AI aimed at protecting vulnerable Wisconsinites.
In an 11-point plan shared with Wisconsin Watch, Crowley calls for guardrails on AI offerings for minors and holding technology companies responsible for scams and fraud on their platforms. Some key components of the plan include:
Limiting access to AI chatbot apps for children under 13.
Prohibiting addictive design features, such as infinite scrolling and autoplay, on accounts of minors.
Increasing penalties for circulating AI-generated sexual images of minors.
Allowing families to sue AI platforms if their content harms children, such as by promoting suicide or eating disorders.
Penalizing technology companies that profit from scams or fraudulent ads.
More funding for adult protective services and resource centers that can help victims of scams or fraud.
Crowley, the Milwaukee county executive, is running for governor against Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany in what polling from Marquette University Law School shows could be another close governor’s race in Wisconsin. AI policy debates between the two candidates in the months since the August primary have mostly been focused on the planning and construction of AI data centers, rather than the technology itself.
In a statement, Tiffany also said Wisconsin needs “commonsense guardrails” to protect children and older adults, including holding companies accountable for platforms that allow creation of sexually explicit images or engage minors in inappropriate chatbot conversations. Tiffany said he also wants to prevent personal data from “falling into the hands of foreign adversaries, including Communist China.”
“As governor, I will also support commonsense age-verification requirements for app providers, strengthen parental-consent protections, and give parents greater control over their children’s online activity,” Tiffany said.
Crowley’s proposed state-level AI regulations land as President Donald Trump has dismissed calls for guardrails and warnings from technology company leaders asking for government oversight as their platforms become more advanced.
Trump in May 2025 signed the Take it Down Act, which criminalized the online publication of real and AI-generated intimate images and requires social media platforms to remove them once notified of their existence. Tiffany, and the rest of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation, voted for the bill in 2025.
Other proposed federal legislation has not advanced, including bills requiring public reporting of safety incidents by AI companies and requiring labels on any AI-generated content. Crowley in a statement said he would not “wait around for DC to act” on additional AI regulations if he is elected.
“Like so many parents, Ericka and I are raising our three girls in the age of social media and AI, and we’re navigating things no generation before us has ever had to, worrying about whether a stranger is messaging our kids, or a fake picture of our daughter is going around school, or even scammers trying to drain a grandparent’s life savings,” Crowley said.
The proposals in Crowley’s regulatory plan would require state legislative action. They echo recent bipartisan efforts signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers, including a series of bills that classified sextortion as a crime and provided additional recourse for victims and their families.
Additionally, Attorney General Josh Kaul in August announced Wisconsin could receive up to $313 million in a settlement social media company Meta made with 47 states in a case that alleged addictive components of its platforms threatened teens’ mental health.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
David Crowley, Milwaukee County Executive, speaks to media after he relaunches his campaign to become Wisconsin's next governor. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
For weeks, a stream of ads has attacked Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, the Democratic candidate for governor, for allowing access to tablets in the Milwaukee County Jail. In some high-profile cases, incarcerated people used the tablets to harass people on the outside. The ads, which recycle footage of a disgruntled local judge, have kept Crowley on the defensive while casting his Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, as a protector of crime victims.
The ads focus on individual cases of people using their jail-issued tablets to harass witnesses and victims. Many feature Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge David Borowski, who asked, “Why is the sheriff’s office handing laptops and iPads to defendants?” Borowski was presiding over a hearing involving Thomas Zollicofer, who is accused of killing three people in a spree. Zollicofer used his tablet to tell a witness to “stop lying,” WISN 12 News reported. Some of the ads also mention Ameir Jones, who is also accused of homicide and of attempting to call a victim in his case over 1,500 times, with prosecutors saying 300 of those calls were answered.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
Over a short span of time, the anti-Crowley ads have made tablet access a big issue in the governor’s race. Late last week, Crowley suspended instant messaging on digital tablets at the Community Reintegration Center. The facility, formerly known as the House of Correction, is under more direct oversight by Crowley and the county board than the jail, which is overseen by the sheriff’s office.
On Monday Brian Schimming, chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, issued a press release accusing Crowley of protecting himself from a scandal. “This program should’ve never been allowed in the first place, and Crowley resisted ending it for months after victims were threatened and laws were broken,” said Schimming, going on to call Crowley “a craven politician who only cares about his own political future, not the safety of our state’s citizens.”
Milwaukee-based Black Leaders Organizing Communities (BLOC), which supported Crowley when he re-entered the race for governor and won the primary race, expressed disappointment at the suspension of messaging services. “We have to be careful in giving in to the narrative of Republicans and their methods to make incarcerated people as uncomfortable as possible,” their statement warned. The group added that “this form of communication seems to be the best and safest form that there is currently.”
As the political controversy over tablets grew, the sheriff’s office attempted to clear the air. Joshua Briggs, director of the Milwaukee County Jail, said that the devices are not iPads but a “generic tablet.” Briggs explained that the tablets cannot be used to make calls out of the jail, and are not connected to the internet. The devices use a network maintained by the vendor, ICSolutions, which allows for keyword flagging and other guardrails. Briggs estimated that 98% of the people held in the jail use the tablets responsibly.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany speaks to reporters after his launch event in Wausau in September. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The ads don’t mention that Republican-dominated counties including Waukesha and Ozaukee also give people housed in their jails access to tablets.
The tablets are important, advocates say, because they allow incarcerated people to maintain connections with loved ones and others on the outside.
“I understand what it means to have a connection to home,” Marianne Oleson, co-executive director of Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing, told the Wisconsin Examiner. Oleson, who spent four years in prison before being released in 2017, explained that tablets give incarcerated people access to recovery resources, employment preparation, parenting classes, and other rehabilitative services.
Tablet use has become commonplace in jails and prisons. “This technology is being used on a significant scale,” Oleson said. “Edovo reports that its educational platform was available in 1,483 correctional institutions across 47 states in 2025, with participants completing 46 million hours of learning. Those are the provider’s reported numbers, but they show how much programming can be delivered through these tools.”
Shannon Ross, a founding member of Justice Forward, wrote in August in an op ed for Wisconsin Watch that tablet-type devices are used in 48 state prison systems, the federal prison system and in county jails nationwide. “Correctional officials have credited tablets with reducing violence and disturbances inside correctional facilities,” Ross wrote. “Some jurisdictions have reported declines of up to 40%, and the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons described the agency’s tablet program as reducing administrative burdens and allowing staff to focus more on institutional safety, not as a security risk it was forced to accept.”
The Milwaukee County Jail. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
“Providing tablets is an established practice today,” Oleson told the Examiner. “Wisconsin DOC says that each person residing in an adult facility will be issued an ICS tablet as its transition moves forward. Ozaukee County’s own website says that personal letters, pictures and drawings are delivered digitally through tablets available in all living units. This is happening across jurisdictions, regardless of politics.”
Other criminal justice advocates raised similar points about the use of tablets in jails and prisons. “Allowing tablets inside jail facilities is particularly important because it allows more in-depth communication with family and friends,” BLOC said in a statement to the Examiner. “Inmates can see messages and pictures from their families and loved ones. It enables them to maintain a closer connection than that of regular phone use. Sometimes, persons in custody need their families to advocate for them for their health, treatment and more that the jail staff cannot assist with immediately.”
Oleson was also disappointed by Crowley’s move. “My reaction to Crowley’s decision is concern for the people and families who are losing legitimate communication because of someone else’s misuse,” she wrote. “Victim harassment and witness intimidation are serious, and they must be addressed. We support holding people accountable for that behavior and holding facilities and vendors accountable for enforcing protections.”
Roy Rogers, a minister, board member of the Wisconsin Justice Initiative, and leader of the Onesimus Group of Milwaukee, wrote in a statement to the Examiner that electronic communication is one of the main ways his ministry can keep in touch with incarcerated people. “For us, a message is an opportunity to encourage someone, share our faith, or help them think through their next steps,” wrote Rogers. “For families, it means maintaining a connection with a parent, spouse, or child. We say ‘reentry begins with relationship’ because those connections need to grow before someone comes home.”
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Rogers said that he cares about the safety and security of victims. “No one should have to fear threats or harassment through this technology,” wrote Rogers. “My understanding is that Crowley’s action pauses messaging at the CRC until stronger safeguards are in place, rather than eliminating tablets altogether. My hope is that those protections allow safe communication to continue. These tools have a meaningful place in family connection, ministry, daily facility operations, and preparation for reentry.”
“If a suspension is necessary while those changes are made, there should be a clear timeline and an explanation of what must happen for access to resume,” wrote Oleson. “I am concerned when the needs of incarcerated people and their children become talking points in a political campaign. These decisions affect real families. They should be guided by evidence, safety, and what will help people return home successfully.”
Clarification: An earlier version of this story used the words “cancellation of jail tablets” in the headline to describe Crowley’s decision to disable the use of the messaging feature on jail tablets in Milwaukee. The article makes clear that it was the messaging feature, not the tablets themselves, that was suspended, so the headline has been updated to clarify that fact.
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