Wisconsin’s race for governor is tight with Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Crowley up in the most recent Marquette poll over Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany, but down in fundraising.

“Why on Earth would anyone contribute that amount of money?” Crowley said, addressing supporters at an event on the north side of Madison Wednesday evening, the deadline for campaign finance filings. “Because they know that Congressman Tom Tiffany is willing to sell the state of Wisconsin, our precious state, to the highest bidder.”

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany’s September campaign finance report showed that he raised over $26 million between July 1 and Sept. 23, bringing his fundraising total for the year to over $39 million.

Of the money raised since July, over $24 million — or 93% — came from the Republican Party of Wisconsin. The party, which under state law is allowed to transfer an unlimited amount of money to candidates, reported raising $29 million during the period. Billionaire donors Diane Hendricks and Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein contributed $27.6 million of that amount.

State Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison), a former opponent of Crowley, joined the event with Madison’s Northside Action volunteers to tell supporters that Crowley “needs your money.” 

One attendee brought up a recent ad from Texas Senate candidate James Talarico in which Talarico calls his Republican opponent Ken Paxton to propose a debate. Like Paxton, Tiffany has declined a few debate offers — although unlike Paxton, Tiffany has agreed to one debate, to be hosted by WISN-12 on Oct. 21.

“Talarico’s got a lot more money than me,” Crowley said in response. 

While talking to another supporter, Crowley threw up  his hands and shrugged his shoulders, declaring  Tiffany “doesn’t have to fundraise because billionaires.”

Tiffany also reported spending nearly $19 million, leaving him with $12 million on hand. 

Dane County Executive Melissa Agard told the Examiner that she doesn’t think Tiffany’s fundraising dominance will carry him to victory, noting that Elon Musk’s attempts to “buy” a state Supreme Court seat in 2024 did not work. 

“We’ve seen in Wisconsin billionaires try to come in and buy election results, and folks in Wisconsin have woken up to that. It’s not going to work. We take care of each other,” Agard said.

Crowley told the Examiner that he is trying to focus on growing “people power” instead of focusing on “money power.”

“We didn’t get anywhere near $26 million dollars,” Crowley said of his fundraising.

Crowley’s campaign reported raising $10.2 million during the period. He spent $7.8 million and ended with $2.8 cash-on-hand. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin contributed $2.7 million of that total. The state party received two $1 million donations during the fundraising period, one from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and one from Lynde Uihlein.

He added that Tiffany’s $24 million “coming directly from three billionaires means that the rest of this state and those that he reached out to only donated $2 million, which lets me know that folks don’t believe in his leadership,” Crowley said. “They don’t believe that he’s going to do right by this state, and so we’re going to focus on people power, because that’s what trumps money power any day.”

A Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday showed Crowley leading Tiffany among likely voters 49% to 46%, with 5% of voters undecided. 

“There’s been very little movement. These are, I think, obviously, inside the margin of error,” poll director Charles Franklin said. He noted that Crowley’s lead was slightly smaller than it was a month ago, especially among people who said they were likely to vote. Crowley’s support has dropped among independents, more of whom have developed a negative impression of him as the campaign, and a negative advertising blitz, have continued. But, Franklin noted, independents have also not moved to Tiffany. “It’s not yet boosting Tiffany a lot.” 

Among registered voters Crowley led Tiffany by only one point — 46% to 45%.

The number of voters who said they thought favorably of Crowley dropped dramatically, with 13% more respondents seeing him unfavorably than favorably, compared to 4% more favorable than unfavorable in the previous poll. Franklin said much of the change came from Republican voters.

“People have gotten to know him some over this last month, though a quarter say they still haven’t heard enough, but of those people who’ve learned something about him, many more have formed an unfavorable opinion in this month than a favorable opinion,” Franklin said, adding that Tiffany’s favorability fell from -4 to -6. “He’s become just slightly more unfavorable, but very little change relative for him. A lot of change for David Crowley.”

Scot Ross, a longtime Democratic strategist, said he would rather be Crowley than Tiffany in the race, given the friendlier atmosphere for Democrats in the midterms, but he warned that the Marquette poll is a sign that the Republican candidate’s messaging is landing. 

Ross said Tiffany and Republicans have been “lambasting” Crowley with ads that are “98%” negative, while Crowley and Democrats aren’t effectively showcasing Tiffany’s support for President Donald Trump. 

“Tom Tiffany is 100% tied to the most unpopular elected official in American history, and I don’t think Democrats and their allies want to let this get away from them by not properly prosecuting the case against Donald Trump and Tom Tiffany,” Ross said. “And I do think that there has been a lack of advertising on the larger Democratic side attacking and tying Trump and Tiffany together.”

Trump’s approval among Wisconsinites fell to its lowest level in the poll at 38% and 60% said they didn’t approve of the job he was doing. Tiffany was viewed unfavorably by 45% of people. 

Ross said the expected Democratic wave that is being shown in polling doesn’t “exist because of the good things necessarily that the Democrats are doing.”

“It is because, in every possible way, the corruption, the incompetence, the self-dealing of the Republicans under Donald Trump has turned off the American people,” Ross said, adding that Crowley needs to be on television and doing more media that ties Tiffany to the president.

California fundraising

Crowley recently returned from a trip to California for a fundraiser with former Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in Wisconsin in 2024, and actor Sean Penn. People who attended the event gave contributions of between $500 and $20,000. Crowley’s fundraising in California follows a trend as Democrats travel to the West Coast to seek money, illustrated by a recent analysis by the L.A. Times of congressional campaigns.  

After the trip, Crowley told reporters that he would be open to campaigning with Harris and “anyone who is willing to focus on lowering costs for working families.” 

Asked about the shift in his favorability in the recent Marquette poll, Crowley said, “Well, when you have $15 million being spent on you.” 

“The Republican paybook is to lie, distract, and to defy, and we’re going to bring more people to the table, and that’s what this campaign is focused on,” Crowley said. “Making sure that we can lower costs for our working families, that we can provide and expand childcare and healthcare.” 

Crowley also said his campaign has been working to tie Tiffany to Trump, but that he is more focused on issues closer to home.

“I think that when people see the wave that happens across this entire country, it only has a ripple effect here in the state of Wisconsin, national politics has not really moved voters here in the state of Wisconsin,” Crowley said. “What’s going to move folks in this state is focusing on Wisconsin values.”

But for one Wisconsin resident at the Crowley event, national issues are part of why he is leaning toward Crowley. 

Soham Bhatnagar, a 22-year-old who lives in Verona, said he learned about the Madison event online and decided to hurry over when he got off work early. He identifies as an independent and said he appreciates hearing from political candidates “no matter their persuasion.” 

“At the beginning of the race, it was honestly a true toss-up for me,” Bhatnagar said. 

“As the war has drawn on and the prices have gone on … when you have the congressman who’s not seeming to in a meaningful way break with anything, I believe that in itself injects a national element into this.” 

Erica Bartsch, a mother from the northeast part of the state who posts on social media, supported state Rep. Francesca Hong in the primary, then turned her attention to trying to get people to vote for Crowley. Her advocacy turned to pleading in some of her recent videos as she asked where Crowley has been and urged him to get in front of voters more often.

“We need him to be accessible to the people. How can the people see where he’s at if it’s not even on his website?” Barsch said in one video, noting that she and many Wisconsinites would not be able to pay $20,000 to attend an event like his recent fundraiser in California. 

Hong, who narrowly lost to Crowley in the primary, has been travelling the state to persuade people who voted for her to support Crowley in the general election.

Crowley’s campaign website does not currently include a “Meet David” page, which previously included a list of events where people could meet the candidate. His campaign says the website is being updated. 

His website does include a link to volunteer opportunities, including knocking doors and phone banking, but not a list of events where people can meet Crowley.

Crowley is also traveling across the state, including attending Oktoberfest Parade in La Crosse, the Jackson County Fall Rally in Black River Falls and a community pig roast in Kenosha. Some of  his appearances are not  advertised ahead of time on his website or through social media. The Madison event was advertised not on Crowley’s website, but on the Northside Action Team’s Facebook page. Crowley also has scheduled appearances this week at the Public Market in Milwaukee and in Mauston.

The campaign and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin report attempting to contact more than 500,000 voters since the end of the primary. Crowley’s field campaign is coordinated with the state party.

Bartsch said Hong’s campaign helped bring out people who aren’t always engaged in politics and Crowley could do more to reach those voters and bring Democrats together.

“David Crowley has the plans and policies that can make people’s lives better,” Barsch said. “He just needs to get out and connect with the people on the ground to show that — to show how much he cares about Wisconsinites,” Bartsch said.

The poll found that Crowley is the choice of 98% of Democrats who favor socialist candidates, while 92% of those who do not favor socialists also support him. It also found that 44% of independents favor Crowley, while 18% support Tiffany. Another 38% of independents are undecided. While Crowley is ahead of Tiffany with independents, his support among independents recently fell by 11 points.

Agard said time is running out before the election. 

“Everyone wants to have more face time with the candidate,” Agard said. “At this point, the countdown is on. We’re literally talking days now until our election and some people have already cast their vote, but there are only so many hours in a day. I look forward to more opportunities like this, where David is coming into town and is able to mix and mingle with ordinary people, but also, I encourage people to be curious and do their homework.”

The Republican candidate for governor of Wisconsin, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, has been a reliable ally of President Donald Trump in Congress. He objected to the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election, voted repeatedly against reining in Trump’s war in Iran, supported the massive healthcare cuts that are hitting rural Wisconsin particularly hard, and cast the deciding vote in the House for a measure that, had it not stalled in the Senate, would have banned all AI regulation by the states for the next 10 years.

But recently Tiffany has softened his tone, distancing himself from some of Trump’s most unpopular positions. Just this month he conceded that Biden won the 2020 presidential election and said it’s time to wind down the war in Iran. He also claims he wants to “preserve Medicaid for our most vulnerable” and is campaigning on preventing AI data centers from eating up Wisconsin’s farmland.

A recent text to voters from the Tiffany campaign strikes a friendly, moderate tone, declaring “it’s time to fix problems.”

“When I’m governor, we’ll raise academic standards. We’ll make health care more transparent, stop Wall Street from buying our homes, and lower property taxes. Kids who can read, prices you can see, and a home you can own. That’s a Wisconsin that works for everyone, and that’s the commonsense governor I’ll be.”

But this week, the mask slipped. 

On Thursday, Tiffany’s campaign blocked two reporters from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel from covering a campaign event. Taking a page from Trump, who yanked White House press credentials from CNN, POLITICO and MS NOW this week because he doesn’t like their reporting, Tiffany and his campaign staff called the Journal-Sentinel’s coverage “slanted” and said only journalists who produce what the campaign deems “balanced” coverage will be allowed to report on his candidacy. 

Tiffany’s effort to keep out journalists whose reporting he doesn’t like violates the same constitutional principle protecting the free press that a federal judge cited when he ordered the White House to restore press passes to the three news outlets Trump banned.

When he was asked about Trump’s White House press ban earlier this week, Tiffany claimed to be a believer in an “open, free press” and said he was not planning to restrict journalists’ access. But, as Henry Redman reports, his campaign not only blocked Journal-Sentinel  reporters Mary Spicuzza and David Clarey from covering Tiffany’s event Thursday, it followed up with a personal attack on Spicuzza from the campaign’s official  social media account, calling her a “liberal activist” and doubling down on the Trump-like threat to ban journalists whose stories Tiffany doesn’t consider “balanced.”

Those stories likely include Spicuzza’s report this week on campaign finance records showing that three billionaires are responsible for about two-thirds of the campaign cash Tiffany has raised so far. 

Spicuzza’s serious, factual journalism raises real questions about whose interests Tiffany would represent as governor — the millions of ordinary Wisconsinites whose problems he says he wants to solve, or his three ultra-rich donors, Diane Hendricks and Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein — two of whom live in Illinois —who have given him close to $10 million. Richard Uihlein’s Restoration of America PAC has separately spent another $11.3 million to boost Tiffany, Spicuzza and her colleague Eva Wen report. All that money has given Tiffany a massive financial advantage in the governor’s race, they point out.

By banning journalists and ducking multiple debates, Tiffany reinforces the impression that he prefers to remain in a bubble with like-minded Republicans and high-dollar donors, instead of making himself available to the public and the reporters whose job it is to shine a light on public officials and keep voters informed. That does not bode well for a potential Tiffany administration.

In addition to Tiffany’s Trump-like aversion to criticism and his attacks on a widely respected reporter, his coziness with the conspiracy-minded fringe elements of the Republican party are cause for concern. 

This week, Examiner reporters Redman and Baylor Spears published an investigative report on Tiffany supporter Leonard Boltz, the pilot who crashed while flying Tiffany in a private plane earlier this month. Boltz, the chair of the Langlade County Republican Party and a retired major in the U.S. Air Force, has spent a lot of time flying Tiffany around the state in his small, private plane during the current campaign season. He is also deeply involved in promulgating election-related conspiracy theories and, Spears and Redman report, has said that if Tiffany loses in November it will be because of “cheating” by Democrats. 

Unlike Tiffany, Boltz does not present as a friendly, folksy rural Wisconsinite. Nor has he backed away from the more paranoid edges of MAGA world. In a video of a speech he gave to the Langlade Republican Party in June, linked in Redman and Spears’ story,  he paces and rants, spewing dark warnings about cheating Democrats whom he says are engaged in rampant voter fraud. He gave that speech in front of a poster proclaiming the heroism of Harry Wait, the Racine County election conspiracy theorist who was convicted of breaking the law by impersonating Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Racine Mayor Cory Mason to request absentee ballots in their names. Boltz, like Wait, wanted to drive Vos out of office for not doing enough to overturn the 2020 election results. 

It’s sobering to contemplate the possibility of a governor of Wisconsin who is close to the most out-there conspiracy theorists in the state party and who has championed their preposterous claims. 

It’s even more concerning if that governor considers himself above scrutiny by the press. When Spears and Redman traveled to a Tiffany campaign event this week to try to get a comment from Tiffany for their story about Boltz, a campaign staffer intervened physically to block the question and adopted an aggressive posture that appeared to be designed to intimidate them. 

That’s not an atmosphere consistent with press freedom, democracy, or a healthy Wisconsin.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate for governor of Wisconsin, is skipping multiple debates with his Democratic rival, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. 

Asked why he decided to break the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association’s 36-year streak of hosting gubernatorial candidate debates, Tiffany said, “We agreed to do one debate. In my experience in Congress as well as the state Legislature, doing one debate is sufficient.”

That’s absurd. In this high-stakes election, as Wisconsinites confront skyrocketing costs, healthcare cuts, struggling public schools, questions about election integrity, the threats posed by artificial intelligence and data centers, among many other issues, a single one-hour forum hosted by WISN on Oct. 21 cannot possibly cover their concerns in depth.

Another planned debate, hosted by the Milwaukee County Intergovernmental Cooperation Council, featuring questions gathered from mayors and community leaders around the state, was also called off this week after Tiffany indicated he would not participate.

The jilted hosts expressed their dismay in a joint statement, saying they are “deeply disappointed” and hope that the next governor will take seriously the local government issues the candidates will not be discussing on the debate stage Oct. 8.

The loss of these debates means Wisconsinites won’t have the opportunity to get answers to real people’s questions. Instead, they’ll have to settle for scripted talking points and millions of dollars in depressing negative ads.

The moderator of the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association debate, journalism professor Jill Geisler, has for years helped gather questions that are important to voters in different parts of the state. “We had someone who came from a community that had been using bottled water because of PFAS … we had someone asking about climate change’s effect on the wild rice harvest in Wisconsin,” she says, recalling some recent debate questions.

“I do think that we’re living in a more siloed era where people prefer to speak through the channels that they know are friendliest to them,” says Geisler, a professor at Loyola University Chicago. “I think what I worry about is that people think of truly well researched debates, you know, where people are asking researched questions, evidence-based questions, that that’s some kind of gotcha trap, and it’s not, you know, it is simply not that.”

The WBA team had already been hard at work planning the debate logistics and gathering issues important to local communities across the state when the debate was canceled. Before every debate, a point person does copious research on each topic, its history, legal background and the candidates’ positions and voting records. “Then we lock up for the last two days to workshop the questions,” Geisler says. After the debate, WBA publishes its questions online with links so people can read more about the issues. “We put all that out there because we think that we can’t cover it all in an hour,” Geisler says. “And people might want to do their own research, but they could see what we used.”

The broadcasters and the local government officials who were painstakingly putting together questions were planning to ask the candidates not just what they have to say about hot-button issues, but what specifically each would do as governor to address SNAP cuts, rural hospital closures, the childcare shortage and other urgent matters confronting Wisconsinites.

All of this serious, in-depth discussion has now been lost.

As President Donald Trump’s approval numbers crash and once-safe Republican congressional districts appear to be in play, Tiffany might want to avoid tough questions about his record of supporting Trump between 93% and 100% of the time while in Congress.

He seems to be leaning on an ad campaign to recast himself from MAGA warrior to folksy midwestern moderate, while relying on his supporters to attack his opponent. 

“In Wisconsin and other states, it is more often Republicans than Democrats who avoid debates,” says University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden. “There are sometimes exceptions, as when Mandela Barnes resisted doing more than one debate with Ron Johnson in the 2022 Senate race, but it tends to be GOP candidates who are distrustful of journalists or being they have something to lose by taking part.” 

“The irony is that candidates who lost probably could have helped themselves with additional debates,” Burden adds. “Barnes’ narrow loss to Johnson might have been turned into a victory had there been another debate or two. Tiffany is currently trailing in the polls and might also benefit from more face time and opportunities to question his opponent.”

While Crowley is slightly ahead in the latest polls, Tiffany is outspending his Democratic rival on advertising by a margin of  3-to-1, according to J.R. Ross of WisPolitics. Republicans and the outside groups that support them are outspending Democrats by more than $8 million. 

Even that huge financial advantage might not be enough to help Tiffany overcome his record of voting for and defending Trump’s cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, his support for the U.S. military entanglement in Iran and all the other Trump policies dragging down Republican politicians across the U.S.  

It will be interesting, in the single candidate debate next month, if the candidates are pressed to talk about data centers and Flock cameras — two issues where Tiffany has, interestingly, moved to capture some of the energy that animated supporters of Francesca Hong, the democratic socialist candidate Crowley narrowly defeated at the end of the chaotic Democratic primary. Crowley has not taken as strong a stance as Hong opposing either AI data centers or Flock surveillance. Tiffany’s position sounds more assertive, but his record is complicated, since he voted for Trump’s ban on AI regulation in Congress and seems more concerned with blocking wind and solar development that might fuel data centers than the data centers themselves. On Flock, it would be interesting to hear him square his support for local law enforcement with his proposal that local government be forbidden from using state revenue for Flock contracts. 

None of those nuances are going to get much airtime. Instead we will have the barrage of political advertising by shady groups, featuring grainy images and ominous music, shedding more darkness than light. 

“To have something that isn’t about sloganeering … to try to have civil discourse … I think that’s what we’ll have less of,” says Geisler.

For most of us that’s a big loss.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Crowley vowed Monday to pass a slate of measures to cut down on corruption in government with proposals he said would prevent elected and public officials from profiting from their positions. 

Crowley, who is running against Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, said he would include the policy items in the upcoming state budget if elected governor. Election Day is Nov. 3.

“State elected officials… are there to serve the public to do a public service, not to just sit in public office. They are there to use their offices to help people. That could be anything from helping get a pothole filled to securing legislation for a new healthcare facility,” Crowley said during a press conference outside the state Capitol. “It should not be a vehicle to get rich by gaming the system. We see that running rampant in Washington right now, while Wisconsinites are facing higher costs on everything from gas to groceries to their health care.”

Crowley said the proposals would demand transparency and accountability from elected officials in the face of Congress not taking similar steps.

Two of the proposals would seek to bar politicians from being able to make money from knowledge they acquire through their public work. Crowley wants to ban politicians from trading individual stocks and require public officials who already own stocks to place then in a mutual or index fund or blind trust so they don’t have specific knowledge of the individual stocks they own. Another proposal would prohibit elected officials from participating in prediction markets and prohibit public employees from using insider government knowledge to personally profit.

“Prediction markets should be used for things like sports — not profiting off of our politics,” Crowley said. “Our political system is already overrun with dark money from billionaires. We don’t need to give them or others any reason to make more money off of their money by trying to further influence our elections.”

Crowley also said he would seek to prohibit members of the Public Service Commission from working for utility or energy companies for two years after leaving office. PSC commissioners are responsible for regulating public utilities including electricity, natural gas, water and telecommunications. 

Wisconsin law currently only bars former commissioners from testifying before the PSC for a year after leaving office. 

Crowley said he wasn’t worried the restriction would discourage prospective commissioners. The governor is responsible for choosing appointees to the Public Service Commission and appointees are subject to confirmation by the state Senate. 

Crowley did not point to any specific examples, but said the proposal is meant to prevent conflicts of interest. 

The final policy would prohibit the deletion of documents and correspondence by state legislators. 

Lawmakers in Wisconsin have had an exemption since 1961 from a law that requires a broad array of public officials to keep their records of communication and other official documents related to their work. The exemption allows legislators to delete emails and destroy records as long as they have not yet been requested under the public records law. 

Crowley said changing this will ensure that “journalists, the courts and most importantly you, the public, can see how their elected officials are or are not serving them.” 

Outgoing Gov. Tony Evers and Democratic lawmakers have previously sought to close the loophole, though the proposals have gone nowhere in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

“We have seen lawmakers try to hide how they spend taxpayer dollars on things that absolutely in no shape or form serve the public,” Crowley said.

Crowley said the proposals would help restore trust in the government. 

“We need these laws on the books because the system as it is today does not work for working Wisconsin families,” Crowley said. “They see politicians across the state and in Washington doing better than them. They’re doing fine, and in many cases, they’re thriving, and how can that be when diesel right here in the state of Wisconsin is nearly $6 a gallon?… It’s because of legalized corruption.”

Tiffany said in a statement that he has not traded any stocks while serving in Congress. He said he agreed there should be strong policies implemented to “to root out fraud and corruption at every level of government” but said he would go further than Crowley. 

“We should modernize OpenBook Wisconsin so taxpayers can easily search how their money is being spent, set clear response-time standards for open records requests, create agency dashboards that disclose contractors and violations, and strengthen ethics rules to prevent legislators from subcontracting for lobbying entities. As governor, I’ll also audit all of state government to uncover waste, fraud and corruption and make sure taxpayers are getting the results they deserve,” Tiffany said.

The Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Foundation has canceled its gubernatorial candidate debate planned for this month. 

The organization first announced that it planned to host an October debate between the Republican and Democratic nominees in April. It has hosted debates in the Wisconsin gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races since 1990.

Both Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, the Democratic candidate, and U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate, were invited to participate, but the debate has now been canceled since both candidates did not accept the invitation. Tiffany has said he was only agreeing to one debate because it is “sufficient” for the race.

“Based on legal precedent, for the foundation to air a debate, multiple candidates must participate. Two invitations were sent and both had to be accepted in order to have a debate,” WBA said in a statement. “That did not happen.”

Tiffany told conservative radio host Dan O’Donnell on Tuesday that he would likely only participate in one debate. 

“I had no time. There was lots of negotiations going on behind the scenes,” Tiffany said. “One debate is sufficient to be able to cover the issues that need to be covered.” 

According to WBAY, Crowley was planning to participate in the debate and said in a statement that he looked forward to “continuing the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association’s more than 30-year tradition of putting candidates directly before voters statewide.”

Both candidates have agreed to an Oct. 21 debate hosted by WISN-12. It will be moderated by WISN-12 reporters Matt Smith and Gerron Jordan and will cover topics including cost of living, taxes, immigration enforcement, data centers and election security.

Tiffany said that he watched how the reporters conducted the Democratic primary debate as well as others over his career in politics. 

“I think they are very fair and they set up for what appears to be a good [debate],” Tiffany said. “It’s only going to take one debate to get the information out there for the people of Wisconsin… I just always look for fairness in reporters.”

“We look forward to debating Congressman Tiffany on October 21 and speaking directly with Wisconsinites about why David Crowley is the right choice to deliver for working families and serve as a governor for all Wisconsinites,” the Crowley campaign said.

There’s no bigger issue in the Wisconsin governor’s race than data centers. Republican candidate Tom Tiffany, who was hoping to run on not canceling Thanksgiving, quickly pivoted after democratic socialist candidate Francesca Hong lost the primary, moving to capture the issue that galvanized Hong’s supporters: opposing data center development. Tiffany spent the first week of the general election campaign attacking his Democratic rival by labeling him “Data Center David Crowley,” warning that Crowley’s pro-data-center policies would mean “our lakes run dry, family farms paved over.” 

Crowley, meanwhile, has not come up with a message that satisfies the Hong supporters who embraced her call for a statewide moratorium on data center construction. Neither he nor Tiffany favors a moratorium. In fact, as Baylor Spears reports, despite Tiffany’s attacks, the two candidates don’t appear to be very far apart on data center regulation. Both say they will protect communities’ right to reject new data center construction; both say the state must ensure that ratepayers aren’t stuck with higher utility bills; both promise to protect Wisconsin’s land and water and insist on transparency in data center contracts. Both have also taken money from data center supporters — Crowley from the building trade unions that want to construct the new facilities, and Tiffany from the lobbyist for the Wisconsin Data Center Coalition, which supports nondisclosure agreements and data center tax exemptions.

Crowley, as the county executive of an industrial hub that has suffered from the loss of manufacturing jobs, has a more optimistic view of the job-creation and economic development potential of new technology than many voters in Wisconsin, a majority of whom see proposed hyperscale data centers as eyesores and energy hogs. But Tiffany, as Spears reports, is not that different. He voted for a bill in Congress that would have banned states from regulating AI and has called data centers “exciting new technology.”

What specific policies should Wisconsinites demand from their political leaders on data centers?

“There’s a simple answer,” says Joel Rogers, a University of Wisconsin professor who created a center for the study of “high-road” development based on shared prosperity, environmental sustainability and democracy. “First, inspect everything that has already been approved and make sure it conforms to labor, environmental and design standards,” Rogers says. “Second, no public money for people who are richer than Mammon. We are spending hundreds of millions on tax breaks we can’t afford on these data centers. That should stop immediately.”

Rogers is not against data centers in general. “Water and noise are the big issues,” he says. He wants to see strict regulation that compels companies to design structures that dampen noise pollution. Water use, he says, is not a big concern inside data centers with closed-loop, water recycling systems. Rather, it’s the massive generation of electricity that, without intelligent planning, will tax Wisconsin’s water supply. “If you produce energy in an inefficient way, it creates lots of excess heat,” he explains. “The way to cool it is with water. That’s catastrophic.” Discharging warm water into lakes and streams causes thermal shock, fish kills and algal blooms. 

But creating a more efficient and sustainable electric grid is, in Rogers’ view, a big potential upside of data center development. His hope is that data centers could spur serious investments in renewable energy and reduce the tremendous waste involved in our current electricity-generation system. That could mean more plentiful, cheaper power for ratepayers and a more rational, environmentally friendly energy grid.

“If you increase power production investment, that should be good for ratepayers, not bad,” Rogers says. “A bigger base means lower rates.”

The problems with data center development currently is “intermediate,” in Rogers’ view. “States are trying to attract data centers, there’s inappropriate siting, like in dry areas. It messes up farming and ordinary water usage.” 

“But if we are serious about climate we should be for heat pumps for all … electrify everything,” he adds.

Rogers’ position is similar to that of a candidate who didn’t get a lot of traction in the Democratic gubernatorial primary — state Sen. Kelda Roys. 

Roys’ plan to stop unregulated data center development includes passing a bill that gained 49 cosponsors in the Legislature, laying out sturdy environmental, labor and transparency regulations. In addition, Roys called for repealing tax subsidies and incentives for data center developers (something Crowley has declined to endorse), creating a statewide public negotiation team to help local communities drive a harder bargain with Big Tech firms, and demanding big upfront payments from those firms to fund a clean energy infrastructure bank. 

“Wisconsin has no fossil fuels, so every dollar we spend on hydrocarbons leaves our state,” Roys points out. Investing in clean energy is good for the state economy as well as the climate. Her plan leverages data center development to make a faster transition to a green economy. 

That’s a step further than Crowley has gone, although he is campaigning on a pledge to make data center developers “bring your own clean energy.” Tiffany has been attacking Crowley precisely for his clean energy pledge, warning that it will disfigure the landscape by blanketing Wisconsin with solar panels. A recent Tiffany campaign press release declared that “using solar to generate the equivalent annual electricity needed for just the Mount Pleasant and Port Washington data centers would consume roughly 100,000 acres of Wisconsin land.”

But just saying no to both renewable energy and data centers does not amount to a plan. For one thing, there are already 47 existing data centers in Wisconsin. Local communities are struggling over how to regulate them separately all over the state. Melissa Scanlan, the director of UW-Milwaukee’s Center for Water Policy, told the Examiner’s Henry Redman that Wisconsin’s failure to address data centers comprehensively will soon put a big strain on the state’s utilities.

“Doing it in a piecemeal way, where you’ve got local governments deciding about hosting, but then utilities that are committed to supplying the electricity and water, is going to very quickly bump up against the realities of our ability to generate electricity in a responsible way,” Scanlan told Redman. 

Rogers remains optimistic. “Data centers are coming, whether they are in Wisconsin or nearby it doesn’t matter,” he says. He doesn’t favor a moratorium in one state that drives massive hyperscale data center development over the border, when everyone in the region relies on the same water resources. “I’m not for rivalry and scarcity,” he says.

Instead, he maintains, thoughtful policymakers could address worries about data centers by creating policies that address the larger, existential environmental issues that confront us all. 

Imagine that.

A vote that U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany cast in June 2025 has become a centerpiece of healthcare advocates’ criticism of the Republican candidate for governor.

Tiffany, along with all Republican members of Congress and no Democrats, joined in the passage of the 2025 HR 1 — the legislation that President Donald Trump and U.S. House Republican leaders dubbed “The One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

The measure made cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition benefits over the next 10 years, along with a range of other changes to federal programs. The Medicaid changes alone have been projected to cut $900 billion to $1 trillion from the health insurance plan for people with low incomes.

The legislation also extended a series of tax cuts that were passed in Trump’s first term — cuts that primarily benefit wealthy Americans, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington.

After the bill’s final passage in July 2025, Tiffany issued a statement praising the outcome for “providing tax cuts for seniors, parents, workers and small businesses” as well as for funding federal immigration agencies that have been deployed across the country.

Tiffany also said he would “remain committed to protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for our seniors and the most vulnerable, while rooting out waste and curbing the reckless spending that threatens future generations.”

But in press conferences last week and Tuesday, healthcare advocates said that bill was central to their opposition to Tiffany’s healthcare record.

“When he voted for the one big beautiful bill, he essentially voted for a $1.1 trillion cut in healthcare,” U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth) said at a press conference Tuesday organized by the groups Main Street Action and Protect Our Care. “And that’s the biggest cut we’ve ever seen in this country.”

In addition to benefit cuts, advocates have focused on what HR 1 lacked. U.S. House Democrats tried to persuade the Republican majority to extend enhanced health insurance subsidies for people buying their health coverage on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

The enhanced subsidies were enacted in 2021 and expired at the end of 2025. Democrats’ repeated attempts to extend them were rejected, not only during debate on HR 1 but several times later in 2025 as well as early in 2026.

Pocan said he’s spoken with small business owners across his South Central Wisconsin district who have been affected by the ACA premium increases that resulted.

“We’ve seen small business owners in Baraboo on the Affordable Care Act say that their monthly portion they pay in has doubled or even tripled,” Pocan said. One constituent he spoke with “just got out of the [insurance] system altogether,” setting aside the cash that would have gone to an insurance premium in hopes that it would be enough to cover a healthcare emergency.

“That’s not a healthcare plan,” Pocan said. “That’s not about making health insurance more affordable. That’s about taking insurance away from people.”

According to a July 28 report from KFF, a nonprofit healthcare policy analysis and news organization, coverage through the ACA fell nationwide by 2.6 million in 2026 from 2025 after seven years of steady increases. In Wisconsin, coverage fell 16%, by 45,000 people.

Gov. Tony Evers issued a statement Tuesday blasting Wisconsin’s Republican congressional delegation for letting the enhanced subsidies expire. 

“Congressional Republicans’ refusal to extend the tax credits caused healthcare coverage costs to skyrocket, pricing families in Wisconsin and across the country out of having coverage at all,” Evers said.

Macy Buhler, a De Forest childcare provider and Main Street Action member who joined the press conference with Pocan, said that without those additional subsidies, the cost of insurance for some of her employees rose to unsustainable levels.

Buhler said she can’t cover healthcare for her childcare teachers directly, but has been providing them a stipend to help teachers who need health insurance purchase it on the federal ACA marketplace, HealthCare.gov. She doubled that stipend for 2026, she said — a $40,000 increase in just that expense.

“Early childhood teachers deserve real access to healthcare and medication, not a Congress who makes it impossible for them to afford both,” Buhler told reporters. “Tom Tiffany voted for this bill. We cannot trust him with our healthcare.”

Buhler told the Wisconsin Examiner that she’s “lost some staff and closed a classroom because they can no longer afford to be an early childhood educator, a teacher.”

Nancy Higgs, a self-employed interior designer specializing in affordable approaches for her customers, has been in business since 2023. The ACA coverage made it possible to get health coverage, she told the Wisconsin Examiner.

After a good first year, the business struggled following the 2024 election. Because her net income was too low, she switched to enroll in Medicaid — called BadgerCare in Wisconsin — for her healthcare.

Higgs said she isn’t sure what will happen to that coverage under the HR 1 changes, which don’t take effect until January 2027.

During a virtual news conference on Thursday, Aug. 13, Dr. Sophie Kramer, a Madison internal medicine physician, said the loss of insurance coverage, whether from Medicaid or an ACA policy, will lead to poorer health. The news conference was sponsored by the Committee to Protect Health Care.

“So much of what we do depends on patients having consistent access to healthcare. I treat patients with chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer, heart disease, hypertension — and those don’t disappear when someone loses insurance, they just become harder to manage,” said Kramer. “I’ve seen too many patients suffer from treatable conditions simply because they didn’t have access to affordable care.”

Dr. Kristen Dall-Winther, another participant in that news conference, owns her own practice in Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District. Tiffany has been her U.S. representative since 2019.

“I see first hand what happens when patients struggle to afford care, when rural hospitals are under financial pressure, and when people put off seeing a doctor because they are worried about what it will cost,” Dall-Winther said. “Tom Tiffany has repeatedly voted for policies that make those problems worse.”

Dall-Winther cited forecasts that HR 1 could eventually cost more than 250,000 Wisconsin residents their healthcare coverage.

Kramer also cited Tiffany’s vote against a federal bill that would have codified a right to abortion in September 2021. The measure passed the House on a party-line vote but stalled in the U.S. Senate.  

Nine months later, in June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the nearly 50-year-old decision in Roe v. Wade that had legalized abortion nationwide. An 1849 Wisconsin statute that was interpreted as an abortion ban went into effect as a result.

“Tom Tiffany could have voted to protect that federal right to abortion in law, but he voted against it, allowing state bans like ours to interfere in personal medical decisions,” Kramer said.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court subsequently ruled that the Wisconsin law didn’t apply to elective abortion.

Republican gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany began his general election campaign against Democratic nominee Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley by seeking to paint his opponent as a fan of data centers. Data centers have become a source of great concern for Wisconsin voters. Crowley’s Democratic primary opponent Francesca Hong made the issue central to her campaign before narrowly losing to Crowley last week. Neither Tiffany nor Crowley supports a moratorium on the construction of new data centers, as Hong did. Both Tiffany and Crowley support new guardrails for data centers. 

Crowley has cited the issue when contrasting himself with the candidacy of Hong, who was the only candidate in the Democratic primary to support a one-year moratorium on the construction of new AI data centers. Crowley says a moratorium would do nothing to regulate the data centers that already exist in Wisconsin, and says that his own strategy includes stringent regulation of both existing and prospective data centers.

In a July Marquette Law School poll, 73% of Wisconsinites said the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits and 27% said the benefits are greater than the costs.

Crowley and Tiffany have expressed support for some of the same policies when it comes to data centers, including prohibiting nondisclosure agreements between the companies that build them and local governments, allowing local communities to have final say on whether a data center is built and protecting consumers’ utility rates. 

“Data centers should pay the full cost of the infrastructure, energy demand and public services they require,” Crowley has said. 

Tiffany has highlighted protecting the state’s farmland and Crowley has highlighted protecting the state’s natural resources, including by encouraging companies that seek to build in the state to “bring your own clean energy,” which Crowley refers to as his “Beyonce” plan. Crowley also proposes that the state require contributions to Wisconsin’s Focus on Energy fund, an energy efficiency and renewable energy program, and that only union labor be allowed for the construction of data centers. 

One area of difference — Tiffany supports repealing a tax credit that was passed by the Republican-led state Legislature and signed into law under Gov. Tony Evers, while Crowley has not committed to doing so. 

“I do not believe Wisconsin should automatically roll back all data center tax incentives, but I do believe we need a more rigorous review of whether taxpayers are receiving sufficient value for the incentives being provided,” Crowley told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in July.

In a recent statewide ad, Tiffany’s campaign introduced the Milwaukee County executive as “Data Center David Crowley.

The ad follows days of his campaign highlighting the issue, including releasing a clip of Crowley being interviewed on NBC news in which he says he does not support a moratorium on data centers and circulating a video of Crowley saying at a forum early in the Democratic primary that Wisconsin had the “opportunity” to become the “AI and data hub not only for the entire country, but for the entire globe.”

“And he wants you to pay for it. Data Center David Crowley won’t roll back tax incentives. Our lakes run dry. Family farms paved over. Why? Because Crowley’s campaign is funded by the people building them. Big Tech wins. Wisconsin pays,” the ad states.

The ad is referring to contributions that Crowley has received from unions including the Wisconsin Pipe Trades Association PAC Fund and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 139 PAC. 

Tiffany told reporters the day after the primary election that it sounds like David Crowley will give “a blank check to data centers” and that data centers “do not need to be subsidized by us, the taxpayers.”

However, Tiffany has not been a big critic of data centers until recently. He called data centers “exciting new technology” in an interview in January. While in Congress, he voted for a bill that would have banned states from being able to regulate AI developers for 10 years.

Tiffany also recently received a $5,000 contribution from Robert Marchant, the lobbyist for the Wisconsin Data Center Coalition, which lobbied against a bill that would ban data center nondisclosure agreements and lobbied for sales tax exemptions for data centers. 

The Crowley campaign has responded to Tiffany’s attacks by sharing videos of Crowley explaining his positions on data centers, including highlighting his support for allowing local communities to decide whether they want a data center. 

“Communities should be able to make a decision whether or not they want a data center. It shouldn’t be steamrolled; it should be brought to the table. If they don’t want a data center, they shouldn’t be forced to have one. There are no ifs, ands or buts about that,” Crowley said in a video posted to social media over the weekend. “If they decide to make their own decision, they need to be transparent. They need to protect taxpayers. They need to increase the level of renewable energy production and protect our water. They need to do all of that while providing family-sustaining opportunities for Wisconsinites, rather than bringing people into Wisconsin. If they make a decision not to do it, we need to honor that decision. We need to make sure that we are holding these folks accountable because, right now, they’re getting all these tax breaks and steamrolling local communities.” 

Wisconsin’s crazy rollercoaster of a Democratic primary is finally over. After staying up all night waiting to see David Crowley declared the winner by one-half of one percentage point at 2:30 Wednesday morning, a lot of voters are feeling dizzy and seasick. 

Many Francesca Hong supporters are angry. Their grassroots campaign, the best organized, most energized, with the boldest vision throughout the race, was big-footed by Gov. Tony Evers’ last-minute endorsement of Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. Adding insult to injury, Crowley had already dropped out when Evers urged him to jump back in with a big boost from late campaign cash, apparently for the sole purpose of thwarting Hong. 

Crowley supporters are relieved. They saw Hong as an inexperienced candidate who would lose a winnable general election to Republican Tom Tiffany, a Donald Trump enabler and election denier who has plans to sell off public lands and bring back a total abortion ban. 

National media viewed the Wisconsin primary as a test of the left which, according to the New York Times, the left clearly failed with Hong’s “stunning” loss. 

But feverish punditry about the significance of Wisconsin’s primary has distorted the real meaning of the results. Polls showing Hong was on track to win by double digits were less accurate than the anecdotal experience of voters who knew their friends and neighbors were fretting about how to vote and hadn’t made up their minds right up until Election Day. Those voters moved to Crowley in big numbers at the very end of the race, as he came to seem like the safe alternative. But Hong’s near-miss is hardly a stunning defeat. On the contrary, it showed real strength for a candidate who, when she started, was counted out.  

If your main exposure to Hong was the video of her appearance on Fox News, where she talked in circles about an old tweet in which she recommended canceling Thanksgiving, refusing to either disavow or endorse the idea, the worry made sense. 

It wasn’t just old, establishment types who felt it. “A lot of our members had to be talked down off the fence, they were so worried about electability,” says Robert Kraig, executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin, which endorsed Hong. 

For those voters, the big struggle in the primary was a contest between hope and fear. Kraig sees this as a natural phenomenon. “People are hard-wired to be risk-averse,” he says. Especially when the stakes are high, people’s fears, and the sense that they have to protect what they have, overcome their aspirations for something better. Kraig spent time trying to persuade people that they needed to be more imaginative, to consider that many candidates who once seemed improbable, including President Barack Obama and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, changed people’s views of “electability.” 

Hong’s priorities — free childcare, a massive expansion of healthcare, a big minimum wage hike, fully funded schools paid for with a tax increase on the rich — and her assertive, take-it-to-the-hoop attacks on Tiffany, whom she called a “traitor,” resonated with a lot of Wisconsin Democrats. It was the fear that she was not ready for prime time, that she would lose regular voters by speaking the lingo of the academic left, more than her socialist policy positions, that caused them to jump ship. That doesn’t mean the Hong movement failed, or that Democrats can afford to ignore it now that Crowley pulled off his narrow win.

As Kraig points out, voters are not particularly attached to “moderate” policy positions. Progressive ideas can generate big support among a cross-section of voters. Hong’s campaign demonstrated that. 

It makes sense that people who were the most fed up, who felt they had the least to lose, supported Hong. Some were young DSA members. But also, Kraig says, some of his group’s organizers who are “standard liberals” — doctors who are deeply concerned about the systemic failures of healthcare — pushed hard for the group to endorse Hong because of her recognition of the need for radical change in the healthcare system.

The night before the election, I watched Hong fire up canvassers at her campaign office on the east side of Madison. A young, excited group of volunteers clearly felt like they were part of something historic. That movement energy has not been lost. It’s up to Crowley to tap it and to Democrats to recognize its significance. It would be a huge mistake for the Crowley campaign, having pulled off its narrow victory, not to try to connect seriously with the grassroots energy that animated Hong’s supporters. 

Kraig and Christine Neumann-Ortiz, the executive director of the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, which also endorsed Hong, both hold out hope that Crowley, a former community organizer, will not just talk about “unity” with Hong voters, but will listen seriously to them and adopt some of their positions. 

Kraig suggests that Crowley take a page from President Joe Biden, who invited the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic party to help him shape policy after he won in 2020. “It would be good to be credible. To take some positions. Not just call for unity. He could do events with Fran on some issues he wants to lean in on,” Kraig says.

Crowley could make inroads with an energized voting base by taking a stronger position against rapacious AI data centers — one of the issues that animated the Hong campaign. That could be complicated for him with his trade union endorsers. But Hong was the first to recognize what others now see: Voters are demanding a stronger stance.

“It’s going to be really important to connect to those organizer roots and to be bold, not to be timid and move to the center or the right,” says Neumann-Ortiz. 

Voces embraced Hong because she was deeply engaged in defending immigrant rights, including through the Statewide Community Defense Network. “People are coming together to support immigrant families being persecuted by ICE,” Neumann-Ortiz says. Crowley could do more to connect to that, taking a clear stand in support of measures that protect immigrant families.

 “We are in a period of growing authoritarianism — people see that, and growing economic inequality — people feel that,” says Neumann-Ortiz. “We need a movement that brings working people together and challenges the divisions of the right and Tom Tiffany. That’s what’s needed; not to lose that fighting spirit.” 

People are fed up with the lesser-evil argument that “you have no choice,” she adds. And they aren’t putting up with it. “We have seen the emergence of candidates that are much more progressive,” she says. “They come out of a community organizing culture and are willing to demand more.”

More progressives are going to continue to run for office, Neumann-Ortiz predicts. Real political power, she says, “comes from that organized community. They are doing the real democracy work, not just in elections, but the ongoing work of people coming together.” 

Crowley won with a boost from Evers, although he dismisses the idea that he is a creature of the “establishment.” Kraig thinks that’s silly – of course he got a big establishment hand up. But that doesn’t have to be how he governs. 

“Progressive Era champions put into office by the political machines turned against them and became reformers,” Kraig points out. He holds out hope that Crowley, connecting with his organizer roots, might follow in that great Wisconsin tradition.