Thousands of Brewer fans packed into downtown Milwaukee and the city’s Summerfest grounds Friday to celebrate the Milwaukee Brewers winning the first World Series in franchise history. 

As the buses and cars drove past carrying the team, its staff and local dignitaries — including Gov. Tony Evers, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, the Democratic nominee for governor — roars echoed through the streets celebrating the end of more than a half century of waiting for a championship team. 

Parents lifted kids on shoulders and fans stood on every possible elevated surface, including Milwaukee Police Department vehicles, to get a glimpse of the world champion Brewers — who defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in game five of the series on Wednesday. 

On Milwaukee’s Summerfest grounds, the official team rally celebrating the win was held at the American Family Insurance Amphitheater while fans packed in to watch the video of the celebration at every stage in the sprawling festival venue. 

Fans hang from a parking garage to see the Milwaukee Brewers World Series parade. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Fans climb on cars to see the Brewers parade go by. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Brewers team bus through the legs of a young fan. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Fans watch the Brewers World Series parade. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Fans watch the Brewers championship parade from a parking garage. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Milwaukee celebrates the Brewers World Series victory (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Fans in a 3rd Ward apartment building watch the Brewers championship parade pass by. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Fans watch the Brewers championship parade. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Fans in a 3rd Ward apartment watch the Brewers championship parade. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Fans watch the Brewers championship rally at Summerfest grounds. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Fans line up for Miller High Life after the Brewers championship parade. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Office in Milwaukee serves fans downtown for the Brewers championship parade. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

While players and coaches spoke from the stage, they repeatedly credited the fan support for carrying them through the playoffs. 

“We couldn’t have done it without these people,” Brewers Manager Pat Murphy said from the rally stage.

Days before the midterm elections, after a campaign season in which Wisconsin’s 50-50 political divide has been laid bare, Brewer fans celebrated the common ground the team offered the state. But politics was not entirely absent from the celebration. While the parade moved through the city, a plane trailed a banner noting that “David Crowley helped keep the Brewers in Milwaukee.” 

“It means everything, the whole state,” Milwaukee resident Mario Williams told the Wisconsin Examiner, adding that the celebration was for fans in “La Crosse, Wausau and Marinette.” 

“We get a bad rep,” he said of Milwaukee. “We’re a great city, multi-cultural, it’s not just all violence.” Thomas Carson, a graduate of Milwaukee’s Casimir Pulaski High School, said that Friday’s celebration was a “spontaneous combustion” of energy in the city. 

“I’ve been waiting on this day,” he said. 

Laura Toburen, who drove down from the city of Greenwood in Clark County to see the parade with her Milwaukee resident daughter and grandkids, said that after 57 years of waiting she was happy to celebrate the team and its city. 

“I love it, to feel it together and just enjoy,” Toburen said.

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. 

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.

Measles cases for the calendar year surpassed 4,000 for the first time in decades, with as many as five deaths in Pennsylvania, as the federal government steps in with financial help for states but also fans vaccination fears and skepticism. 

A weekly report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed 4,080 cases this year as of Oct. 8, up 192 cases in a week. 

Pennsylvania, which has reported five confirmed deaths from measles, alone had 142 new cases for the week — for a total of 1,105 for the year. The CDC has recognized just two of the state’s reported deaths.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, has protested the CDC’s death count; his state’s five deaths would be more than the three deaths reported in 2025 for the entire nation.   

Other states with large numbers of cases, more than 200, did not see their case numbers change for the week: South Carolina (670 for the year), Utah (535) and Wisconsin (207). States with more cases included New York, which declared a measles emergency, with 19 new cases for a total of 103 this year; and Iowa, up 17 cases to 39. 

Kentucky reported separately on Friday that cases there had reached 104, up 10 from last week. 

Pennsylvania, which has become ground zero for this year’s outbreaks, reported this week that a new awareness and pop-up vaccine clinics are leading to more measles vaccinations.   

All but five states have had at least one measles case this year. The last time the United States had this many cases was in 1991, reaching 9,643 cases as the nation still struggled to roll out vaccinations for the disease, amid budget cuts that hit programs in big cities. 

Pennsylvania’s health department this week announced “a surge of interest” in vaccinations as more residents become aware of the outbreak — more than 56,000 doses were given out in September, more than twice the usual monthly volume. The state has added pop-up clinics in the most affected areas.  All but four of the measles cases were among unvaccinated people. 

The Lewistown Sentinel reported that an 18-year-old woman there died in September from brain swelling as a result of the measles virus after two of her brothers survived the disease. 

While the federal government has offered states more funding to combat measles, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy moved forward this week on plans to emphasize vaccine injury, announcing a new clinic and work to strengthen a database that tracks problems after a vaccination. 

“We must listen to patients and families who report vaccine injuries — not dismiss or gaslight them,” Kennedy said in a statement. 

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Kalshi, Polymarket and the Coalition for Prediction Markets have spent at least $3 million this year on lobbying and campaign contributions across the federal and state levels, according to a new report from the government watchdog group OpenSecrets.

Prediction market platforms say they are like commodity markets that offer contracts to speculate on the future price of corn or oil — not sportsbooks that allow gamblers to place bets. But many states reject those justifications, arguing the platforms offer a backdoor to skirt state gambling regulations, particularly on sports.

The issue has sparked action from state regulators, new legislation, and a flurry of lawsuits from states, prediction markets, and the Trump administration, which has sought to sideline state oversight.

Kalshi, by far the largest prediction market platform, has targeted much of its political spending on governors and state attorneys general.

OpenSecrets found that Kalshi poured more than $300,000 combined into the two major political organizations dedicated to electing and supporting AGs: The Republican Attorneys General Association and the Democratic Attorneys General Association.

Likewise, Kalshi donated $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association and $150,000 to the Democratic Governors Association in the first half of the year.

“Like many U.S. regulated companies, we support candidates on both sides of the aisle,” Dani Lever, a spokesperson for Kalshi, told OpenSecrets in a statement.

The analysis found Kalshi has hired at least one lobbyist in 41 states, focusing much of that effort on California and New York. That means the company has a  lobbying presence in every state that has introduced prediction-market-specific legislation.

State lawmakers of both parties are growing increasingly frustrated with prediction markets, arguing they are avoiding state gambling regulations or gambling bans, gambling taxes and consumer protections.

This summer, Sara Slane, Head of Corporate Development at Kalshi, told lawmakers that the company was committed to building relationships with the states. But she said the prediction markets are not subject to state oversight, as they are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates derivatives such as futures contracts on stocks.

That five-member commission currently has four vacancies. But it has aggressively defended prediction markets and its right to oversee them  — going so far as to sue nine states that attempted to regulate the industry. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, has financial stakes in both Kalshi and Polymarket.

With litigation flying on the issue, many observers expect the U.S. Supreme Court to ultimately decide what role states can play in regulating prediction markets.

In addition to its political spending in states, OpenSecrets found the industry remains committed to federal lobbying, with Kalshi alone spending nearly $1 million in the first half of the year. Those efforts focused on the CFTC, the White House, the Securities & Exchange Commission and both chambers of Congress.

Brad Lipton, director of the Roosevelt Institute’s corporate power and financial regulation program, told OpenSecrets the lobbying push was evidence of the “existential question” facing prediction markets.

“It’s not at all clear to me that their business model can compete if they are going to comply with state law,” Lipton said. “They’re really trying to create a situation, I think, where they have enough political power to overcome the legal deficiencies in their arguments.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.