This week Wisconsin Watch marks four years since we published our first Fact Brief in partnership with Gigafact. We call this effort the “fight for facts.”
Since then we’ve produced nearly 700 short yes/no responses to surprising or dubious claims we spot in the infosphere. The goal is to combat the rising tide of misinformation by helping the public find reliable information about a range of topics.
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The Nov. 3 race for Wisconsin attorney general, a rematch between Democratic incumbent Josh Kaul and Republican challenger Eric Toney, features their contrasting views on the Trump administration, abortion, election security and problems in crime lab testing.
Kaul, 45, a former federal prosecutor and private attorney, won his first four-year term as attorney general in 2018, defeating Republican incumbent Brad Schimel, 49.4% to 48.8%.
Toney, 42, a former private attorney, was first elected Fond du Lac County district attorney in 2012. He lost to Kaul by 1.3 percentage points in 2022.
Kaul’s opposition to President Donald Trump has largely defined his second term. He has joined in more than 70 lawsuits to fight Trump administration initiatives, including some to restore funding for infrastructure and schools.
Toney accuses Kaul of being too political and criticizes Kaul’s administration for shortcomings in the state crime labs. When Kaul ran in 2018, he made similar arguments about Schimel’s legal actions against the Obama administration.
Other issues animating voters this election season reveal clear distinctions between the candidates.
Asked about abortion, Toney defended the state’s ban on abortion after 20 weeks and linked the issue to a federal Title IX investigation into a New Richmond School District policy allowing transgender female students to use the girls bathrooms. Kaul said he would join multistate litigation to protect access to abortion medication.
On officer-involved shootings, Kaul advocated for jail alternatives while Toney put the focus on the victim’s actions prior to the shootings.
On election integrity, Kaul emphasized guarding against voter intimidation while Toney focused on preventing and prosecuting voter fraud.
Wisconsin Watch interviewed Kaul in Madison on Aug. 6 and Toney in Milwaukee on Sept. 11. Here are some key areas where the candidates disagree, with contextual information from Wisconsin Watch.
Wisconsin Watch (WW) to Josh Kaul: You said you’ve joined more than 60 multistate cases against the Trump administration. Does that make you a partisan actor?
Kaul: “I look at two things when I decide whether we’re going to join a multistate suit. One is, is the program that we’re talking about, the (federal government) action that’s being taken, is it harmful to Wisconsinites? And then secondly, do we have a strong legal basis for the case? Now, people can disagree on whether programs are important for Wisconsin or not; that’s part of why we have elections for these offices. But I think if you look at our track record, you’ll see we’ve had wins where we’ve gotten either orders blocking what the administration has tried to do, or the administration has backed down in a number of those cases.”
More context
A ChatGPT-assisted analysis Sept. 15 found that of the 72 lawsuits Kaul has joined against the second Trump administration, 40 won a permanent or temporary favorable ruling or settlement, nine failed and 23 are pending. Successful cases include a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding birthright citizenship; court rulings blocking a $65 million cut to federal research funding of the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and orders blocking the Trump administration from demanding states provide personal information of FoodShare recipients.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul at his campaign office in Madison, Wis., on Aug. 6, 2026. (Narayan Mahon for Wisconsin Watch)
WW to Eric Toney: What is your assessment of Kaul’s lawsuits against the Trump administration?
Toney: “Well, one of the things we saw when he first ran for attorney general, he campaigned against federal lawsuits and said the office was too political. And now he’s broken that promise, and that’s essentially what his entire campaign is about. And so we see the consequences where the politics are coming before public safety.”
More context
In his first campaign for attorney general, Kaul accused then-Attorney General Brad Schimel, a Republican, of politicizing the office by filing too many lawsuits against the Obama administration. But Kaul also said he would join lawsuits that protect consumers and students.
WW to Toney: What’s one thing from the Kaul administration you would stop doing?
Toney: “The failure we’re seeing in the broken promises with the forensic testing at the (state) crime lab. We’ve seen, when I helped the attorney general get more crime lab positions in the ‘23 budget, when the nonpartisan audit came out a year later, we saw that those positions hadn’t been filled, that they had less DNA analyst positions filled compared to 2020.”
More context
A 2024 audit by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau found that the vacancy rate of crime laboratory analyst positions increased from 2.6% in July 2019 to 9.5% in July 2023; and that the median turnaround time for analyzing evidence increased from 39 days for assignments created in FY 2019-20 to 58 days for assignments created in FY 2022-23.
Toney: “And we’re seeing the consequences of that with increased time for testing is taking, on average, over twice as long in some categories, including DNA, despite more resources. We have to take some of the recommendations from that nonpartisan audit with performance metrics in place for these analysts, who do a great job. But we have to have those standards in place.”
More context
Wisconsin Watch found the median time for DNA testing in criminal cases was 112 days in 2024, up from 61 in 2022. Annual DNA case intake dropped from 4,347 in 2022 to 4,124 in 2024. But the number of items of evidence increased from 38,076 to 39,992. And data cited by Toney on staffing don’t indicate which positions are accountable for the crime labs’ output.
Wisconsin attorney general candidate Eric Toney interviewed at the Milwaukee Police Association Sept. 11, 2026. (Andy Manis for Wisconsin Watch)
Toney: “We saw the campaign promise that he had talked about, the rape kit test, for example. And towards the end of that first campaign, he talked about all the hard work that was going to be needed to find justice for those survivors. And so what we’ve seen from those original kits, it was probably over $9 million, over 4,000 kits tested, and in his almost eight years as attorney general, they’ve gotten less than 15 convictions.”
More context
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in 2024 that in 2015, three years before Kaul took office, Wisconsin received $9.5 million in federal grants to test and clear a backlog of rape kits and only 10 people were convicted of sex offenses over the next 10 years as a result.
WW to Kaul: Your opponent has said that on average, DNA testing is taking twice as long as it did under the previous attorney general. What is your response?
Kaul: “He’s making a comparison that’s not a direct comparison. When it comes to DNA analysis in particular during my time as AG, we upgraded the type of testing we do. We now use what’s called probabilistic genotyping. And as a result of that, we’re able to get DNA matches in more cases. So we can actually solve more cases and hold more people accountable for crimes they’ve committed. But it also is a more involved process, and so doing a case is more complex.
“Another area we’ve seen that happen is with toxicology testing. We’ve upgraded. We now use technology that allows us to identify controlled substances at lower quantities — which, at a time when we’re dealing with fentanyl, which can be very potent at very low quantities, is really important. But it also means we get more data, and so analysts are reviewing more data.”
“What we have had a challenge with is the Legislature has consistently declined to give us the resources that we’ve asked for.”
More context
In the 2023-25 state budget, Kaul requested 16 additional crime labs positions and the Legislature provided three; in 2025-27, Kaul requested 19 and the Legislature provided none.
WW to both: U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said he wants to make the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision on abortion permanent in every state. What would that mean for Wisconsin?
Kaul: “Clearly there is an effort at the federal level to restrict access to abortion rights. One of the things that has been talked about is trying to put restrictions in place on medication abortion, for example. And so, obviously, a critical issue that we have worked on during my time as AG is protecting access to safe and legal abortion in Wisconsin. If there’s federal action where we’ve got a strong legal basis for challenging it, and it’s in the interest of Wisconsinites to challenge it, we will be prepared to do so.
“In Eric Toney, you have an AG candidate who was more than happy to be the lead abortion enforcer in the state. He called for the AG’s office to have enforcement authority. He raised the possibility of adjoining counties even prosecuting people for abortions, prosecuting medical professionals. And so reproductive rights is very much at stake in this year’s elections.”
More context
Toney said during the previous campaign (but later said he was taken out of context): “We need to give our attorney general the authority to prosecute. They already would have the technical authority to investigate it. And I think another approach would be allowing for adjoining counties to be able to investigate and enforce that abortion ban in Wisconsin.”
Toney: “We have five-month, or 20-week, protections in the law right now. I’m not advocating for any changes to that, and if there is going to be any change, that needs to be something that’s voted on by the people and not decided on by politicians in Madison. We know how difficult this decision can be for women and girls and their families, and we need to make sure here in Wisconsin that we’re creating a supportive environment for women and girls that I hope life may be the choice that they decide to make. And that support has to extend beyond that as well and making sure that we’re protecting women and girls’ private spaces, bathrooms, locker rooms and sports. And we’ve seen the attorney general has failed to stand up in New Richmond, Wisconsin, where we’ve seen the school district allowing biological boys in the girls bathrooms.
More context
In April, parents and students filed a federal lawsuit claiming the district allows “male students to use girls’ bathrooms based on gender identity rather than biological sex.”
“And that’s in contrast to Josh Kaul, where he essentially advocated for getting rid of the five-month protections. He called them restrictions and is effectively advocating for nine-month abortion here in Wisconsin.”
More context
On Toney’s nine-month claim, Toney’s campaign cited a 2024 interview in which Kaul was asked: “A Wisconsin law prohibits abortion after 20 weeks. What more do you want to see there in the law?” Kaul replied: “What we have are not protections. We have restrictions on abortion in state law. I’d like to see some changes made that ensure that people are able to get the reproductive health care they need, and that decisions are made between women and their doctors or their spouses or their spiritual advisors — whoever it is that they want to talk to — but not having the government intervene.”
Wisconsin attorney general candidate Eric Toney is seen at the Milwaukee Police Association Sept. 11, 2026. (Andy Manis for Wisconsin Watch)
WW to both: Does Wisconsin’s attorney general need to do more to safeguard Wisconsin elections?
Toney: “We’ve got great protections in the law right now, if we have somebody that’s serving a felony sentence, to deter them from registering to vote and then prosecuting them if they ultimately vote. And I’ve prosecuted some of those cases where felons have ultimately registered and voted.
“And that’s where we need to have a similar process that reviews noncitizens that could be on our voter rolls. We have people that are lawfully in the country that are noncitizens, whether it’s for work or school, that may get a driver’s license or an ID card, and we don’t know what that problem could be because there’s no process in place to review it. And that’s where I’d like to see a similar process that we use for felons for that noncitizen process, just to make sure that people have confidence in those results. And if somebody is doing that, that they’re being prosecuted.
“But we don’t know what the number is because we’ve been unable to get the (state election commission and state Department of Transportation) to communicate on some of that information.”
Kaul: “Throughout my time as AG, we’ve had concerns about elections being attacked in one way or the other. I was AG in 2020 when Donald Trump and his allies tried to overturn the results. We defended the results in various cases and we won every one of those cases and ultimately the will of the voters was upheld.
“There have been concerns over the years about voter intimidation at the polls and we made clear that voter intimidation is a crime and that people who commit that crime need to expect to be held accountable.”
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul at his campaign office in Madison, Wis., on Aug. 6, 2026. (Narayan Mahon for Wisconsin Watch)
WW to both: The fatal Madison police shooting of Corey Ruiz, who was armed with a knife, has raised debate about officer-involved shootings. Should changes be made, inside or outside of the criminal justice system?
Kaul: “One thing I’ve long been a proponent of is investment in treatment and diversion programs. The fundamental idea is, if there are folks who end up in the justice system because they have committed violent crimes and they’re a danger to our communities, they need to be held accountable and separated from society. On the other hand, there are people who end up in our justice system who have underlying struggles like drug addiction or mental health challenges. And if you put those people in jail, in a lot of cases for minor offenses, and then they come right back out without having those underlying issues addressed, they’re likely to keep ending up back in the system, causing more damage and costing more money to communities and having worse outcomes for them as well.
“I think you’re going to get better outcomes in general when you have law enforcement officers who know the communities where they’re working. And so investing in things like community policing, I think, is really valuable.”
Toney: “Whenever we look at a problem we have to look at the entirety of the problem. When we look at officer-involved shootings, we have to look at what is the officer doing and then what is the individual who’s been shot doing. And we see a tremendous amount of training for law enforcement, whether it’s de-escalation, use of force, all of those different types of things.
“We can’t paint anything with a broad brush, but many of these officer-involved shootings, we have somebody that either may have a weapon, acts like they have a weapon, or is actively resistant or not following the commands of law enforcement. And so we want to make sure that if somebody disagrees with what law enforcement’s doing, that they follow those commands in the moment, and then they can take whatever that legal process may be after the fact if they think something was done unlawful.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
Over the past several years, gridlock between the Republican Legislature and Democratic governor’s office means election legislation in Wisconsin has hardly seen the light of day.
Though Republican lawmakers have pushed for stricter voting rules, Gov. Tony Evers has blocked those efforts at several turnsduring his eight years in office, leaving election policy changes in a stalemate of bills and vetoes. Instead, courts have increasingly become the primary venue for election rules to be challenged and changed.
That dynamic could change after November’s elections. Democrats hope to retain the governor’s office and win control of both legislative chambers. Republicans are vying to hold the Legislature and flip the governor’s office. Either outcome would give one party unified control of state government — a so-called trifecta — and a much clearer path to enacting its election priorities.
The results could shape election rules over the next several years, including how voters cast ballots and have them counted in the 2028 presidential election.
Still, unified control would not necessarily produce dramatic changes to Wisconsin election policy. Some major election policies are now written into the state Constitution, and Republicans have already achieved many of their goals.
“I don’t see big changes coming in state law, almost regardless of what partisan configuration the state ends up with after the election,” said UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden, who runs the school’s Elections Research Center. Republicans, he said, took advantage of a political trifecta from 2011 to 2018 to implement their biggest priorities.
Democrats would have limited room to change policy
If Democrats were to win a trifecta, Burden said, Republicans’ past success in putting major election policies into the state Constitution wouldn’t leave them much room to maneuver.
They could try to make the state’s voter ID law more accommodating, but eliminating it altogether would be difficult, he said. Democrats could turn toward other priorities, like enacting automatic voter registration and potentially allowing people with felonies to vote if they’re on parole.
Sen. Mark Spreitzer, a Democrat from Beloit, said that if Democrats win a trifecta they would immediately try to pass legislation allowing election officials to process ballots on the Monday before an election. That measure would give officials an extra day to process ballots, likely speeding up unofficial results at the end of the night.
“These are very low-hanging fruit that either Republicans were interested in but didn’t have unanimity on, or, in a couple of these cases like drop boxes and curing, we have a different perspective than they do,” Spreitzer said.
Democratic gubernatorial nominee David Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, told Votebeat he would prioritize the Monday processing proposal.
“This common-sense change would help election workers process ballots more efficiently and reduce delays in reporting results, while maintaining the security and integrity of the election process in Wisconsin,” he said.
Crowley also said he would support better funding for local election officials, which has long been a concern for municipal and county clerks in Wisconsin. Spreitzer agreed.
Democrats could also revive some of the bills that have stalled under GOP leadership, including shortening the state’s residency requirement, banning firearms near polling places and establishing automatic voter registration.
Crowley himself was the lead author on an automatic voter registration bill during his brief tenure in the Legislature. Like most Democratic election bills under the GOP Legislature, his bill didn’t receive a public hearing or floor vote.
Republicans could prioritize noncitizen voting legislation
Republicans would also have limited room for broad policies if they won a trifecta, Burden said, largely because they enacted most of their policy priorities during their previous period of unified control. That includes one of the nation’s strictest voter ID laws and a requirement to reject absentee ballots missing a witness address.
One area where they could go further is citizenship verification. Republicans could pursue requirements that voters provide documentary proof of citizenship, Burden said, or revive efforts to audit the state’s voter rolls for potential noncitizens.
“That has just been a drumbeat coming out of the Trump administration: executive orders, lawsuits, DOJ actions, requests for data from the state, and other things,” he said. “So Republicans in the state will feel pressure, if nothing else, from the Trump administration to do something more about citizenship in such a key battleground state.”
Republican lawmakers have already pursued such measures. Earlier this year, Evers vetoed a bill that would have required a noncitizen voter audit. During legislative testimony in January, Rep. Dave Maxey, the GOP chair of the Assembly Elections Committee, said that he would prefer IDs used for voting to also clarify a person’s citizenship status. Maxey didn’t respond to Votebeat’s request for comment.
Republicans could also revive other election bills Evers vetoed, including legislation that would have banned those with felonies from voting until they paid certain court fees and a proposal to eliminate the voter ID exemption for people who are indefinitely confined because of age or a disability.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Tiffany, a U.S. representative from northern Wisconsin, has also supported several election policies that could become relevant under unified GOP control. In Congress, he voted for the federal SAVE Act, which would have required people registering to vote in federal elections to provide documentary proof of citizenship. In his time in the state Legislature, Tiffany co-authored the bill that led to the state’s voter ID requirement.
He acknowledged the Monday ballot processing bill at a press conference in August, but didn’t signal whether he supported it. This specific policy priority may have more of a chance, Burden said, because it has broad support across the spectrum despite some GOP dissension.
Stalemate likely to continue under divided government
The stalemate that has been the status quo since 2018 would likely continue under any form of divided government, Burden said. Even if Republicans win a trifecta, Democrats have a backstop in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which has a 5-2 liberal majority, Burden said. Republicans, meanwhile, could challenge Democratic priorities in federal court, where they may have the upper hand.
“With Evers and Republicans in power the last eight years, it’s been mostly stalemate: lots of vetoes and very little actual lawmaking around elections,” Burden said. “If things were to flip with Tiffany in office and Democrats were to win both chambers — I think that’s unlikely — I would expect more stalemate.”
Spreitzer, the Democratic senator, said some proposals, like the Monday processing bill and deleting poll list numbers from the back of absentee ballots, may still be viable under split control.
“Those are things we could very easily get done and demand in a split-government situation,” he said.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Milwaukee County sales and property taxes have increased under County Executive David Crowley.
The Democratic nominee in the Nov. 3 election for governor takes credit for “the largest property tax cut” in the county’s history.
That occurred after Act 12, a bipartisan state law, allowed local leaders to raise Milwaukee city and county sales taxes and provided local governments in Wisconsin more state aid.
The law was largely aimed at helping the Milwaukee governments avert financial crises.
Crowley signed the near-doubling of the county sales tax, to 0.9% from 0.5%, after the Milwaukee County Board approved it.
Property tax levies have increased under Crowley, who took office in May 2020, though not as much as the state average (2.6% from 2020 to 2023):
2020: $304.8 million
2021: $310.3 million (1.8% increase)
2022: $313.8 million (1.1%)
2023: $292.3 million (-6.9%)
2024: $299.6 million (2.5%)
2025: $309.9 million (3.4%)
This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the northern Wisconsin Republican running for governor in the Nov. 3 election, has rarely diverged from supporting President Donald Trump since Trump began his second term in January 2025.
UCLA/Voteview found Tiffany’s support for Trump at 93% in 2025 House of Representatives votes.
The methodologies varied on the number of votes reviewed.
In 2026, Tiffany’s votes supporting Trump included opposing a measure that would have blocked Trump from ordering more strikes on Iran. Tiffany also backed Trump in voting against a bill to provide aid to Ukraine and sanction Russia.
On statements, Tiffany diverged from Trump in August. Tiffany said he opposed moves to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America” and import cheaper ground beef.
In September, he supported Trump’s proposed $5,000 “dividend.”
This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
A plane carrying Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany was forced to make an emergency water landing in Wausau Saturday night.
Tiffany, who represents Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District, said the small aircraft lost power during its final approach for landing at the Wausau Downtown Airport.
During a press conference at the Wausau Fire Department Sunday, Tiffany said he believes the pilot, Leonard Boltz, attempted to restart the plane, but was unsuccessful.
“At that point, he just said, ‘Hang on, Tom, and buckle up because we’re going to go down,’” Tiffany told reporters. “It was just real shortly after that, I would guess 10 seconds, we hit the water.”
Boltz landed the plane in the middle of Lake Wausau on the Wisconsin River, according to information shared by the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office.
Tiffany said he lost his phone in the crash, but Boltz was able to call 911. He estimates they stood on top of the sinking plane for roughly 10 minutes, before beginning to swim toward shore. He said they discovered a sandbar after 150 feet and were able to wait there for emergency responders.
The sheriff’s office reported dispatchers received the call at 8:49 p.m. Saturday. Firefighters from the Wausau Fire Department rescued the two men using an airboat around 9:05 p.m.
Tiffany credited Boltz for pulling up the landing gear before hitting the water, which he said likely kept the plane from cartwheeling and may have saved their lives. He estimates the plane was going around 70 miles per hour at the time of the crash.
“It was quite a night, quite a day, and (I’m) just grateful for the Lord for sparing us to see another day,” said Tiffany, who became emotional when speaking to reporters Sunday.
Tiffany and the pilot were the only people aboard the aircraft. Both were transported to Aspirus Wausau Hospital with minor injuries.
GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany became emotional while reflecting on the emergency water landing and rescue from Lake Wausau. (Avery Martinez / WPR)
Tiffany said he received 12 stitches to close a laceration in his eyebrow after his head hit the dashboard. The pilot also sustained minor injuries. Both men were released from the hospital Saturday night.
The congressman repeatedly thanked the Wausau Fire Department and other first responders for their quick rescue.
He said the incident would not keep him from continuing his campaign for governor, adding that he planned to be back on the campaign trail Monday.
“I signed up for this job. We’re going to finish the job,” Tiffany told reporters.
An investigation into the loss of power on the Beechcraft K35 airplane will be handled by the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board.
The aircraft remained in Lake Wausau, according to a statement from the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office. Officials asked boaters to avoid the area and use caution until crews can remove the plane.
David Crowley, the Democratic candidate for governor, wrote on X that he is grateful that no one was hurt in what he called a “horrifying incident.”
Airport manager praises pilot for ‘awesome flying’
John Chmiel, Wausau Downtown Airport manager, was among those to survey the waterlogged plane on Sunday morning.
Chmiel noted aircraft incidents like this are incredibly uncommon.
“You think about it, in your community there’s probably multiple car accidents a day,” he said. “In the United States of America, there are less than a half dozen (aircraft incidents) a day in the entire USA, so that kind of puts things in perspective.”
Chmiel said the pilot – in his opinion – had done everything right in identifying the area for the plane to land and guiding it into the water, especially after the sun had gone down.
“Which was a very difficult maneuver to execute safely,” Chmiel said. “And he was able to actually retract the landing gear, so he would have a better result of landing on the water.”
He’s also a pilot and owns Wausau Flying Service.
“Regardless of what happened leading up to the accident, once he knew he was committed to a water landing, he did every single thing right. It was awesome flying,” Chmiel said.
When asked by WPR if this is a normal procedure for an emergency, to look for a water landing, Chmiel said he’s always taught pilots to look for alternative landing areas.
“The beautiful thing about water is there typically isn’t obstructions or people or vessels in there that you have to worry about hitting,” he said.
That said, actually pulling it off safely is its own art, he added.
“We spend our whole careers trying to prevent that from happening, and sometimes things slip through the Swiss cheese, as we call it,” he said.
When an aircraft accident happens at an airport, the process is different, Chmiel said. In this case, where the plane hit water off airport property – it wasn’t necessary for him to be involved, but he said he was Saturday night.
“It’s not a common occurrence, but we’re always prepared for it, if it does,” he said.
Wisconsin voters on Nov. 3 will decide whether to approve three Republican-led state constitutional amendments that GOP lawmakers say would limit government overreach and Democrats describe as unnecessary.
The general election referendums would limit the governor’s use of the partial veto to raise taxes and fees, prevent the government from stopping religious gatherings during future emergencies and ban discrimination by state and local governments and public education institutions.
To amend the state constitution, lawmakers must sign off on identical language during two consecutive two-year legislative sessions before putting the question to voters. Under Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, Republicans have often turned to constitutional amendments as a way to advance their priorities without confronting the governor’s veto pen.
State Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Hortonville, who led the ballot question on prohibiting government discrimination, said he sees a distinction between the types of issues addressed through legislation, which could reach the governor’s desk, and “fundamental” questions brought in a constitutional amendment. Murphy, who was first elected to the Assembly in 2012, is not running for reelection this year.
“There are lots of things that I would do that Tony Evers would have vetoed. There are very few things that I would bring as a constitutional amendment to try to get around that,” Murphy said. “I’m glad that I can take this to the people for a signing rather than to Gov. Evers because I think the people will support this, but I think he maybe would have vetoed it.”
Including the three this year, GOP lawmakers have put 12 constitutional amendments to voters during Evers’ nearly eight years as governor. Voters have approved seven of them. Nearly 63% of voters approved the most recent referendum in April 2025 on requiring photo identification to vote.
Evers is encouraging voters to reject the Republican-led referendums.
“I think they’re all frankly off base, and I’m encouraging people to say no,” Evers told Wisconsin Watch. “I mean, if we want our legislators to look like that and do stupid things like that, then vote yes. But I think most people are fine with what it is.”
Milwaukee County executive and Democratic gubernatorial nominee David Crowley is also splashing cold water on the amendments. He said he would “absolutely not” vote for the governor’s veto amendment. He said the DEI amendment threatens government efforts to help older adults, veterans, people with disabilities and “individuals of all races, genders and religions.” On the amendment to allow religious gatherings during emergencies, he said “under extreme circumstances, leaders must make difficult decisions for the greater good of our state.”
“But let’s be clear: This is a bad faith argument from far-right extremists to distract from the fact they caused an affordability crisis for Wisconsin families,” Crowley said.
Republican nominee and U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany said he plans to support all three questions.
“No governor, Republican or Democrat, should have unchecked power to raise taxes or fees with the stroke of a pen, especially for the next 400 years. While David Crowley wants to preserve that power, I support ending it regardless of who holds the governor’s office,” Tiffany said. “I also support constitutional protections for places of worship. Our constitutional rights should never be conditional, and our government should never be allowed to discriminate.”
Here is what you need to know about the three constitutional amendments.
The governor’s partial veto
Text on the ballot: “Shall section 10 (1) (c) of article V of the constitution be amended to prohibit the governor, in exercising his or her partial veto authority, from creating or increasing or authorizing the creation or increase of any tax or fee?”
The background: Republicans advanced this question as a constitutional amendment after Evers used his veto pen during the 2023-25 budget to raise school revenue limits by $325 a year for the next 400 years. The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority in 2025 sided with Evers in a lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of the 400-year veto.
Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, who led the ballot question through the legislative process, said voter approval will reset the separation of powers between the Legislature, the executive branch and the courts.
“It’s always about separation of powers,” Kapenga said in an interview. “This is a mechanism put in place specifically for this reason, so that if we feel that those other two branches breached their authority in that separation, we say we’re going to go directly to the people and let them make that decision.”
Republicans running for office this year have claimed incorrectly that the veto raises property taxes for the next 400 years. The veto actually raises annual revenue limits, not a specific tax or fee.
The revenue limit caps how much school districts can receive in revenue from a combination of general state aid and property taxes. Local school boards decide how much property taxes to raise and are not required to levy the maximum allowed amount, though historically most have. Under the revenue limit, the Legislature and governor can reduce local property taxes by significantly increasing general state aid to schools, but that rarely happens.
What groups support it?: Groups including the Wisconsin Property Taxpayers, Americans for Prosperity, the Wisconsin Realtors Association and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce all registered in support of the resolution during the 2023 and 2025 legislative sessions.
Who is opposed?: State lobbying records show the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers union, and the League of Women Voters registered in opposition to the question.
Crowley told reporters in August he would be willing to use the partial veto if elected.
“They want to eliminate the power of the governor, and so what they’re trying to do is just rig the system,” Crowley said. “This is not about rigging the system. This is about listening directly to constituents and figuring out how we can deliver on their behalf.”
Gathering in places of worship during emergencies
Text on the ballot: “Shall section 18 of article I of the constitution, which deals with religious liberty, be amended to prohibit the state or a political subdivision of the state from ordering the closure of, or forbidding gatherings in, places of worship in response to a state of emergency, including a public health emergency?”
The background: When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Wisconsin, the Evers administration’s “Safer at Home” order limited what businesses and activities could remain open in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.
The order limited religious gatherings to fewer than 10 people. It categorized liquor stores as essential businesses allowed to remain open, which state Rep. Ron Tusler, R-Harrison, said sent a bad message to Wisconsinites.
A constitutional amendment on the November ballot would prohibit the government from closing churches during health emergencies. Yante Turner of Sun-Seeker MKE is shown speaking to the crowd as dozens of community members attended the 24th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Justice Program on Jan. 20, 2025, at the St. Francis of Assisi Church in Milwaukee. (Julius Shieh / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)
The Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2020, under a conservative majority at the time, struck down Evers’ “Safer at Home” order. But Tusler, who led the question during the 2025 session, said a constitutional amendment would prevent the government from controlling people’s access to places of faith in the future.
“Many of us, you know, dedicate our entire lives toward our faith, and in a situation like COVID, there’s a lot of fear, and there’s a lot of uncomfort, and there’s a lot of strangeness, things we’re not used to,” Tusler told Wisconsin Watch. “When we’re in a situation like that, people of faith need their faith at that moment more than ever, and to deprive people of it is a particularly heinous sin that our government shouldn’t commit.”
What groups support it? Pro-Life Wisconsin and Wisconsin Family Action, Inc. registered in support of the ballot language during the 2023 and 2025 legislative sessions.
Who is opposed?: The League of Women Voters opposed the constitutional amendment, according to state lobbying records.
“Closing places of worship does not prevent any person from worshipping God, as such worship can and is practiced on an individual basis in one’s own home during an emergency,” the organization wrote.
Prohibiting DEI in government
Text on the ballot: “Shall section 27 of article I of the constitution be created to prohibit governmental entities in the state from discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, public education, public contracting, or public administration?”
The background: Murphy, the Republican state representative from Hortonville, said the idea for the ballot question stemmed from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard, which found considering race in admissions to higher education institutions is unconstitutional. Murphy said he saw an opportunity for a broader question that covered discrimination and giving preferential treatment to certain populations across all levels of government and education.
“I’m just very much of a supporter of the idea that when people put government in charge of something, they want it to be the best it can be,” Murphy said. “One of the ways to do that is not to put a bunch of things that get in the way of picking based on merit.”
Republicans are supporting a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would end government programs with preferential treatment by race. In this photo, Tia Richardson speaks in front of the mural she painted during a mural unveiling at the Community Development Alliance on Feb. 18, 2026, in Milwaukee. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
Responding to criticism that the referendum could end programs that help disadvantaged groups in Wisconsin, Murphy said governments and schools can continue those efforts as long as everyone is able to participate.
“People that are disadvantaged are disadvantaged,” Murphy said. “If programs help disadvantaged people, then they will still be helped. It can’t exclude anybody.”
What groups support it? The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty won a case before the state Supreme Court, which found an undergraduate financial aid program for minority students was unconstitutional.
The case was decided unanimously by the liberal-controlled court, though liberal justices broke from conservatives to point out that the country’s history of racial discrimination continues to be entrenched in societal outcomes. The case advanced to the court as lawmakers were considering putting the constitutional amendment before voters.
The conservative law firm registered in support for the constitutional amendment during the legislative process. WILL Managing Vice President and Deputy Counsel Dan Lennington said the referendum will “end discriminatory DEI programs throughout Wisconsin and ensure our government serves all citizens equally.”
Who is opposed?: Opponents have claimed the amendment would limit opportunities for disadvantaged groups. The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters opposed the constitutional amendment during the legislative process, according to lobbying records.
The League said the amendment intends “to weaken the individual rights and liberties of Americans who have been guaranteed protection by the Civil Rights laws of our country.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
It took mere minutes for conspiracy theorists to seize on a Milwaukee election error after the August primary, when officials initially forgot to extract election results from five of the city’s nine absentee ballot tabulators. They lobbed baseless accusations that election officials had switched votes or otherwise tampered with the results.
But audit logs from those five tabulators show no evidence of tampering between the time officials initially left the facility and returned again to correctly extract results, experts told Votebeat.
“I don’t see a ‘there’ there,” said Duncan Buell, a chair emeritus of computer science and engineering at the University of South Carolina who has been analyzing election data and voting systems since 2010.
Ryan Macias, an election consultant who previously worked for the arm of the Election Assistance Commission that certifies voting machines, agreed there were “no signs or evidence that anything was done outside the norm” between the initial error and the successful extraction of the results.
More than three weeks after the primary election, city officials released audit logs from all nine tabulators to the Wisconsin Elections Commission and the public on Sept. 4. The files detail every action on the nine Milwaukee tabulators used to count absentee ballots for the Aug. 11 election.
On each of the five affected tabulators, the logs tell the same story: Officials mistakenly selected “export audit log” instead of “export files” during the initial extraction, which happened between 10:15 p.m. and about 10:40 p.m. Then, officials locked the machines.
Officials began turning the machines back on at around 11:30 p.m., after they realized they had made a mistake. They extracted the correct files shortly after midnight. The audit logs show no ballots being scanned, votes being deleted, or that the data contained on the tabulators was manipulated in any way.
The error didn’t change the vote count at all. It just delayed election results by a couple hours.
When Macias first learned of the issue, he assumed that the problem was human error and would be resolved.
“Now, looking at the audit log, I can tell you with a 100% fact that what I assumed happened (is what) happened,” he said.
Other experts agreed.
Jennifer Morrell, CEO of The Elections Group, said she reviewed the audit logs with her team of experienced election experts.
“From what I see, those logs match the public account exactly,” she said.
“In the roughly two hours between those two exports, there’s no scanning or counting activity recorded in the logs on any of those five machines,” she said. “And just as importantly, the ballot counts on every machine match the officially reported.”
Conspiracy theories percolated well before Milwaukee released audit logs
Conspiracy theories about what may have transpired in Milwaukee on Election Day began circulating almost immediately after Milwaukee officials announced the mistake. Popular social media accounts questioned the credibility of election officials, and others suggested that officials were directly involved in fraud.
Three days after the election, Votebeat requested the audit logs — the records that could show exactly what happened on the tabulators during the period conspiracy theorists were questioning. Milwaukee did not release them until Sept. 4, more than three weeks later, and after the Wisconsin Elections Commission also asked the city to make them public.
Experts said that delay was not unusual.
“Releasing audit logs — these machine logs — that’s not a typical part of the documentation that election offices normally produce,” Morrell said, adding that it’s likely that Milwaukee would have needed legal approval before releasing the logs. “The fact that they did make them public, I think that’s a responsible process — not a cover-up.”
More important, she said, is that the officials retained the records in the first place.
“The fact that the log is there, the fact that these things are recorded should be seen as a positive even though it was slow for them,” she said. “I think the more concerning thing would be if the log just didn’t exist at all.”
Milwaukee plans better documentation for the future
In response to the error, Milwaukee election chief Paulina Gutiérrez outlined several changes meant to prevent similar problems.
Written instructions for extracting results will now include images showing election officials which options to select on screen, Gutiérrez said in a letter to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Those instructions will also be made available to observers at the city’s absentee ballot facility.
Before the results are downloaded, she said, the extraction teams will be briefed on the process. As workers move through the steps, they will verbally identify each selection they make so other members of the team can confirm they have followed the correct procedure.
“In this instance, an error occurred during the results-download process,” she told the commission. “At the same time, the safeguards surrounding the election worked as intended: The discrepancy was identified, the underlying election results remained intact, the correct files were retrieved, and Milwaukee’s accurate election results were ultimately reported.”
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Milwaukee County Executive David 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 county jail and House of Correction inmates.
Crowley, the Democratic candidate for governor, also approved a three-year extension in 2025.
Generally all inmates can access tablets, which can be used for text messages. People who want to message with inmates must create an account.
The tablets cannot access the internet. They can access the contractor’s “intranet,” which includes entertainment and educational material.
The goal is to help inmates “stay connected to family, loved ones, and legal and support services,” the county executive’s office said.
The tablets became an issue in the gubernatorial campaign after a judge Aug. 28 raised questions about their use for witness intimidation, victim harassment and child pornography access.
This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
Milwaukee County Legislative Information Center: File 21-1004
Milwaukee County Legislative Information Center: File 250222
It took until the early morning hours to call the Democratic primary for governor of Wisconsin. When the counting ended at 3 a.m., Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley had beaten state Rep. Francesca Hong by fewer than 4,000 votes, closing a gap that public polling had put at double digits in Hong’s favor. Hong, a democratic socialist, made a moratorium on new AI data center construction a signature of her campaign. Crowley had a different data center answer: build, but make sure the data centers provide real benefits to surrounding communities.
The postmortems have treated the race as a proxy war between the party’s establishment and its left flank, which is certainly a theme. But it was also a statewide primary in which data centers became a defining issue, and it is worth asking why an issue that appears so popular at first glance was held by the candidate who underperformed at the polls.
Dig beneath the surface, and the anti-data center position seems politically weaker. While national polling can’t explain the results of a statewide race, it suggests voters’ views on data centers may be more nuanced than a simple for-or-against debate. In the Rainey Center’s May national survey of 1,010 registered voters, data centers sat underwater, 29% favorable to 48% unfavorable, and the sharpest hostility was exactly where Hong was strong: 41% of very liberal voters held a very unfavorable view, the most intense opposition of any ideological group.
But when you look closer the picture changes. Black voters were the most favorable group in the electorate, 36% favorable to 30% unfavorable, with a third saying they were not sure. White voters ran 29% to 53%. None of this makes Black voters cheerleaders for AI, but it is a long way from the revolt a moratorium presumes, and the rest of the survey shows why.
Hong’s dismissal of data centers excites populists, but most voters are interested in a more thorough understanding of the issue. It’s worth understanding what voters are actually worried about and how Crowley defused those concerns. In our polling, Black voters are most concerned that data centers will destroy jobs: 19% named AI destroying jobs as their top concern, and another 12% said the projects do not create enough permanent jobs. Jobs are justice, and Black voters want to see a data center policy that creates jobs in their communities.
And while data centers sound scary in the abstract, their impact can be enormously positive. Loudon County, home of more than 250 data centers, will see $1.3 billion in tax revenue next year from data centers, enough that property taxes have been slashed by 30% in the last decade.
Data centers are still controversial, and advocates for America leading the world in technology will need arguments that persuade voters. The pro-data center coalition is unions, blue-collar workers, rural communities looking for economic development, and Black voters. Accountability can strengthen data center support with these voters and expand the coalition.
Requiring data center operators to sign a community benefits agreement, committing to local hiring, infrastructure upgrades, and payments to the community before construction begins, drew 66% support overall and 60% to 14% among Black voters. And 61% want ratepayer protections, the industry pledge that data centers cover their own power costs, written into binding law.
Crowley has embraced the principles of Donald Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge (though he would surely plead ignorance as to the policy’s provenance). He has said data center companies should cover the full cost of the grid upgrades they require, use union labor and sign community benefit agreements. His position aligns with Black voters, union voters and non-college voters who want jobs and accountability.
Rob Smith is a fellow at the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy and a commentator on American public policy, culture, leadership, and national priorities. His work focuses on issues including energy independence, U.S. competitiveness and the policies shaping America’s future.
Devan Patel is the Visiting Fellow for Tech Ethics & Democracy at the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy and a lawyer and political strategist focused on artificial intelligence, technology and public policy. He is also an adjunct professor of law at Notre Dame Law School and has worked at the intersection of AI ethics, national security and democratic governance.
TheJoseph Rainey Center for Public Policy, named for the first Black House member, is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit think tank formed in 2018 to examine public policy issues. Its advocacy positions span the partisan divide.
Guest commentaries reflect the views of their authors and are independent of the nonpartisan, in-depth reporting produced by Wisconsin Watch’s newsroom staff. Want to join the Wisconversion? See our guidelines for submissions.
The first election issues story reported and produced by the Northeast Wisconsin News Lab (NEW News Lab for short) was published Wednesday.
The consortium of newsrooms includes the Post-Crescent in Appleton, the Green Bay Press Gazette, the Green Bay Press Times, Wisconsin Public Radio and yours truly — Wisconsin Watch.
The collaborative effort formed in 2021 to advance in-depth local reporting on important topics. Previous seasons of the NEW News Lab focused on racism as a public health crisis, lack of affordable housing, local school funding and coverage of local judicial systems.
This time around, leaders from the partner newsrooms used feedback from the Local News Landscape Study conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay to decide which issues to cover.
Reporters from the Post-Crescent and Press Gazette will focus on public safety and education.
The Green Bay Press Times called dibs on the environment.
WPR will tackle the economy.
And here at Wisconsin Watch, we’re reporting on health care.
One thing I appreciate about the NEW News Lab is the collaboration. Working with fellow journalists toward a common goal is part of why I love this work.
We hope this coverage helps you make informed decisions when you head to the voting booth in November.
And if there’s an issue the NEW News Lab is not focusing on that matters to you, reach out to Wisconsin Watch’s statehouse team. They’re covering a different set of issues ahead of the election.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
It’s election season, and Wisconsin Watch reporters are researching story ideas to help voters better understand their choices in November.
It’s a big election. Democrats are expected to do well because of a national mood that has turned against Republican President Donald Trump.
In Wisconsin that means Democrats may win control of the Senate and Assembly for the first time in 16 years. If they also win the governor’s office, they would be able to enact a legislative agenda, which they weren’t able to do under eight years of Gov. Tony Evers.
If Republicans hold on to the Assembly or governor’s office, but lose the Senate, expect another four years of gridlock. If they hang on to the Legislature and take back the governor’s office, they could restore the conservative experiment that began under Gov. Scott Walker.
We’re planning to ask the candidates about some of the biggest issues that could turn on the outcome of this election: Will Democrats repeal 2011 Act 10 and what would that mean for the state? Will Republicans encourage mining in the state as a way to lower income taxes? How will either party fix our crowded prison system — by adding more capacity or granting more clemency? What’s the deal with data centers?
With such high stakes, Wisconsin Watch wants to hear from you. What questions should we be asking the candidates for governor, attorney general, lieutenant governor, treasurer, secretary of state? What issues are important in your congressional or legislative districts? Send us your questions by clicking here.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, will not face criminal charges in Wisconsin for promising $1 million checks to voters during the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race.
La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke, a Democrat, who was tapped as a special prosecutor to review the case, wrote in a letter Tuesday that he did not believe a jury would convict Musk of a crime.
“I have routinely worked with campaigns and candidates from both parties and nonpartisan elections to correct any potential violations of election/campaign laws,” Gruenke wrote. “In this case, without the famous name attached and the large dollar amounts involved, it is a simple case of a poorly worded statement that was corrected and brought into compliance with the law.”
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, the Democratic nominee for governor, said during a campaign stop in Madison he was “befuddled” by the decision.
Crowley, who said he had not read the reasoning behind the decision, was confused how Musk’s promises ahead of a 2025 event in Green Bay did not violate state laws.
Wisconsin law prohibits a person from offering, promising, giving or lending anything of value to someone to convince the person to go to the polls, vote or refrain from voting. The Wisconsin Elections Commission in July found that Musk likely broke the law and referred complaints to the Brown County District Attorney’s Office, which earlier this month referred the case to Gruenke as a special prosecutor after identifying a conflict of interest.
“We are talking about someone who publicly talked about giving a million dollars to folks to actually go vote, which is absolutely against the law here in the state of Wisconsin,” Crowley told reporters outside a health clinic in Madison.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican nominee for governor, did not immediately respond to questions from Wisconsin Watch Tuesday afternoon.
Crowley on Tuesday did not say whether he would support additional legislation to strengthen the state’s election bribery laws.
“I would assume that our laws are very clear as far as the fact that we cannot give more than $1 to make sure that people are voting,” he said. “I think the laws are extremely clear.”
Democratic state lawmakers last year proposed bills seeking to expand the state’s election bribery laws to prohibit payments to voters for signing petitions during an election, like in the Musk case. The legislation died without receiving a hearing in the Republican-controlled Legislature.
The context
About $144.5 million was spent on the 2025 election between now-Justice Susan Crawford and former Attorney General Brad Schimel, making it the most expensive state supreme court race in U.S. history. Musk spent about $30 million of that total, which included giveaways to conservative voters.
The issues stemmed from social media posts Musk made in March 2025. The first post promoted an event in Wisconsin in which Musk said entrance would be “limited to those who have voted in the Supreme Court Election” in addition to providing million-dollar checks to voters “in appreciation for you taking the time to vote.”
Musk hours later shared a message that entrance was limited to people who signed a petition “in opposition to activist judges” and the million-dollar checks would be provided to spokespersons for the petition.
Gruenke said he did not believe a jury would convict Musk given that nothing was given to individuals for voting.
“Even if I could convince a jury that the original post was still a bribe, I do not believe that a jury would convict Elon Musk of a crime after considering the intent, the second post, and the fact nothing of value was ever given to anyone for voting for an incident occurring in March of 2025,” Gruenke wrote.
Musk still faces a civil lawsuit in Brown County Circuit Court brought by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign regarding bribery allegations tied to the 2025 state Supreme Court race.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
What happened?
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday lifted one of two injunctions against President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting mail voting, but additional legal hurdles and practical considerations could make it difficult to implement it in time for the quickly approaching November elections.
The unsigned ruling, which cut along ideological lines, focused on a relatively narrow legal question: whether the lower court’s injunction was premature. The majority made it clear that it was not deciding on the legality of Trump’s order as a whole, which is certain to be quickly challenged again in court as the administration moves to put its provisions in place.
“The court’s disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the government to implement the order will necessarily be lawful,” the majority wrote. “On that score, time will tell.”
The ruling, made in response to an emergency request, didn’t specify which justices had joined it. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who dissented, warned that the ruling would create a “Kafkaesque nightmare” that “needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a separate dissent, joined by Justice Elena Kagan.
What’s the dispute?
Shortly after Trump issued his executive order in March, states, nonprofit organizations and Democratic Party committees filed multiple lawsuits seeking to block it. In June, in the case brought by states, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani found that some key provisions of the order were unconstitutional and blocked them from going into effect for this year’s elections.
Talwani issued an injunction specifically preventing the federal government from enforcing those provisions of the order against the 24 jurisdictions (23 states and the District of Columbia) whose attorneys general and governors brought the lawsuit. The list included most Democratic-led and swing states, including Arizona, California, Michigan, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
The Trump administration appealed, arguing the judge’s order was issued prematurely, before the Postal Service and other relevant agencies had finalized their plans to carry out the order’s provisions. The administration also argued that the injunction prevented it from implementing the order in the unaffected states because of the logistical impossibility of a bifurcated mail-voting system.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Talwani’s order in late July, prompting the administration to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to lift the order and allow the agencies to act in time for the November election. In filings, the states warned that “the consequences of allowing such transformative changes to take effect so close to this fall’s elections would be extreme” and would disenfranchise voters.
On Aug. 11, Talwani issued a separate injunction against the order in the lawsuit brought by nonprofit groups, led by the League of Women Voters. The decision made it clear that her ban on implementing the law extended to all states, not just the 24 jurisdictions that brought the other lawsuit. That ruling again rejected the Trump administration argument that it was too soon to address the underlying issues.
The Trump administration again asked the Supreme Court to issue a ruling and make it clear that it would also apply to the Aug. 11 court order. If not, Solicitor General D. John Sauer warned in a court filing, it would require prolonged legal battles that would “effectively run out the clock” on the government’s ability to implement its plans.
On Friday, while the administration’s request was still pending before the Supreme Court, the Postal Service issued its final rules for implementing the order, which it said it would not put into effect for this November’s election unless and until the Supreme Court cleared the way.
The Supreme Court’s ruling addressed neither the second injunction nor the fact that the Postal Service had issued final rules, leaving observers to wonder about how those developments might affect what happens next.
“I expect that the trial court will now amend (the second) injunction and issue a new injunction that will stop USPS from implementing its now final rule. And that too may end up at the Supreme Court within a week,” wrote Rick Hasen, an election law professor at UCLA, on the Election Law Blog shortly after the ruling.
What happens now?
The Supreme Court’s ruling Monday will not be the final word on Trump’s executive order. The question before the Supreme Court was a relatively narrow one about whether Talwani issued her order prematurely, before the government had taken final action to carry out the executive order. The states and voting rights groups are likely to go back to court quickly to challenge the Postal Service and the final rules it issued last week.
Talwani has also not yet ruled on whether the order can go into effect for future elections, which she found would be premature. A parallel case involving consolidated challenges brought by nonprofit groups and Democratic Party committees is pending in federal court in Washington, D.C.
Should Trump’s executive order go into effect, it would mandate the creation of a series of lists. The Department of Homeland Security would be required to send each state a list of citizens over the age of 18. States using mail ballots would be required to send the federal government a list of all registered voters to whom they are sending mail-in and absentee ballots in key federal elections. The Postal Service’s final rule states that it will decline to deliver mail-in ballots in states that do not provide that list.
The order would also create new design standards and ballot-tracking requirements for mail ballots. Creating such a complicated process before November presents a huge challenge for the cash-strapped Postal Service.
Read more Votebeat coverage of Trump’s executive order on elections:
Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.
Carrie Levine is Votebeat’s editor-in-chief and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Carrie at clevine@votebeat.org.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat’s free weekly newsletter to get the latest.
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Social media videos started popping up earlier this year with users complaining about the cost of living in Green Bay, other cities in Wisconsin and other battleground states.
The people posting the videos make claims that run the gamut – some factual, some misleading and some totally false.
Wisconsin Watch and Sunlight Research Desk looked into the trend, but couldn’t determine who – if anyone – was paying the creators to make the videos.
If the videos were paid for, creators not disclosing that paid relationship could be in violation of federal prohibitions on deceptive advertising, one political advertising expert said.
Republicans and Democrats are increasingly paying for user-generated content, raising questions about the future of election campaigning in the digital age.
In May, TikTok user @lifewithjacob1 uploaded a 20-second video blasting Green Bay’s rent prices.
“Why is rent in Wisconsin so expensive right now?” he said. “I’m on a website looking for a new spot. I can’t find anything under $4,000 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.”
He went on to post more than 100 more, bemoaning skyrocketing prices for gas, housing and even dinner at Culver’s. Almost every video on the account, which was created in May, focused on how expensive life is in Green Bay.
The problem? Many of the videos seem to be pure fiction.
It’s not just that the average rent in Green Bay is a quarter of what he claims, according to July figures from Zillow. It’s also that his name isn’t Jacob, and it’s unclear if he’s ever lived in Wisconsin.
Through a reverse image search, Wisconsin Watch and Muckrock’s Sunlight Research Desk identified the man in the videos as Connor Printz, a self-described “user-generated content creator” who gets paid by brands to make social media posts that don’t look like ads. It’s a burgeoning industry, and one that many Americans may never have heard of — though they’ve likely seen these kinds of posts.
This model is spreading nationwide as dark money groups try to sway voters stealthily by hiring social media creators to push their agendas. Wisconsin Watch and Sunlight Research Desk identified more than a dozen users publishing near-identical messaging about the cost of living in battleground states — claims that oscillate between factual, misleading and downright false.
The videos targeting Wisconsin don’t mention specific political parties or candidates, but they’re strikingly similar to videos where creators in other states supported or knocked certain candidates — part of what MS NOW called a “secret paid influencer campaign.”
It’s unclear who, if anyone, is funding the videos about Green Bay and Wisconsin, or what the goal is. Printz declined to answer questions, and the videos and biography on his account have since been deleted, a phenomenon common with short-term social media campaigns.
The videos themselves do not indicate whether they were paid for. If they were, one political advertising expert said, creators not disclosing that paid relationship could violate federal prohibitions on deceptive advertising. The trend raises questions about the future of political campaigning and the reforms needed to protect elections in the modern age.
Meanwhile, though many of the statistics the creators shared are false — Green Bay is often hailed as a particularly affordable city — the posts speak to a question increasingly on Americans’ minds, one that could prove pivotal in upcoming elections: Why is everything so expensive?
Making money on misinformation?
To try to understand who is behind the Green Bay videos, Wisconsin Watch and Sunlight Research Desk researched creators using public records databases, scoured campaign finance records, conducted reverse image searches, interviewed elected officials representing the city and compiled more than 5,000 videos.
Among the findings: The person shaking his head disapprovingly over the high cost of living in northeast Wisconsin is a former college basketball player turned social media creator whose LinkedIn profile says he’s based in Los Angeles.
While @lifewithjacob1’s TikTok bio said he was “Green Bay born and raised,” his Claremont McKenna College basketball webpage says he’s from Waterbury, Connecticut, and attended high school in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Printz claimed to live in Green Bay and sometimes referred to moving from California to Wisconsin in TikTok videos posted under the @lifewithjacob1 account. Wisconsin Watch and Sunlight Research Desk found no evidence he has ever lived in Wisconsin.
Today, according to his LinkedIn, Printz works as a user-generated content creator through SideShift, a platform where organizations hire content creators. His account states he manages between six and 10 social media accounts at a time, “completing campaigns for brands.” SideShift did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s questions.
According to the American Marketing Association, user-generated content is “sponsored content that looks and feels like genuine customer posts.” While the person on screen has likely received payment or free products, the videos are meant to feel like they’re ranting or raving about something of their own accord. It’s typically a cheaper way to advertise than making sponsorship deals with high-profile influencers or celebrities.
When those posts endorse or recommend brands, products or services, federal law and platform policies require they be labeled as ads or sponsored content. TikTok did not respond when Wisconsin Watch asked if its policies require such disclosures for videos like Printz’s.
Political organizations are increasingly buying this form of content, eager to leverage its authentic — and often undetectable — feel.
Both political parties are hiring influencers to build online enthusiasm for their candidates. Democrats have poured tens of millions of dollars into these secret influencer campaigns since their 2024 election defeat, according to a New York Times report. The influencer firm Creator Grid, which has received funds from the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, boasts connecting “Republican candidates with the internet’s most powerful conservative influencers,” the Times reported. This election cycle, MS NOW reported that influencers received payment to post favorable content about politicians in California and Michigan and attack a candidate in Illinois.
Wisconsin Watch and Sunlight Research Desk found similar videos about the cost of living in cities across the country: La Crosse. Milwaukee. Madison. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Charlotte, North Carolina. Atlanta, Georgia. Many of the users creating these videos have similar usernames, including @rantswithsaum, @rantswithcarlyy or @rants.with.k. Wisconsin Watch contacted several of the users behind the accounts but none responded.
It’s unclear who paid for the videos Wisconsin Watch identified. The Sunlight Research team searched spending records for registered political action committees and political candidates in key swing states but found no evidence of payments to the influencers or influencer platforms tied to these videos. And while Wisconsinites will elect a new governor in November, spokespeople for candidates David Crowley and Tom Tiffany both said they had not paid for or even seen the videos in question.
What is clear is that this type of political content is in demand: Wisconsin Watch found a listing on SideShift from “Project Bullhorn” offering creators $1,500 monthly to “speak on the rising crisis of affordability in the United States ahead of the 2026 midterms.” Project Bullhorn is one of several influencer efforts the New York Times reports Democratic donors are funding. A leader of the initiative declined to answer questions from Wisconsin Watch on the record.
‘More expensive than NYC’
From May through July, Printz posted roughly two videos a day about Green Bay’s cost of living.
In May, he claimed gas prices in Green Bay soared to almost $7 a gallon. While the Iran war has driven fuel prices up, prices at local pumps peaked this spring around $4.50 a gallon.
“Is Green Bay, Wisconsin, actually more expensive than New York City?” Printz asked in a June video, recounting the experience of a friend who purportedly moved from the Big Apple to Packerland, anticipating a lower cost of living.
“Guess what? It was just as expensive. Rent prices were crazy. Gas was crazy. Culver’s is so expensive, more than almost every restaurant in New York City,” Printz said.
In another video, he said tuition at Wisconsin colleges now cost $70,000 annually.
“Just makes you question if it’s worth it now,” reads text on the video of Printz repeatedly shaking his head. According to CollegeBoard data, Wisconsin’s public universities charged in-state students $10,600 on average in 2025.
💵$4k rent? $7 gas? More expensive than NYC? A deluge of TikTok and Instagram videos are making outlandish claims about Wisconsin’s cost of living. In some cases, the people behind them – self-described “user-generated content creators” — are using fake names or don’t even appear to live in Wisconsin. The videos seem to be part of a growing trend of paying influencers to post on political topics, often without any disclosures. Here’s why it matters. Read more at the link in our bio.
In addition to the overblown numbers, locals might spot other faux pas. In one video, Printz asks for feedback from his “fellow Wisconsiners,” a term that would make any self-respecting Wisconsinite cringe.
Green Bay resident Allyson Brunette started seeing the videos pop up in her TikTok feed around May. The inaccuracies were obvious, she said, especially the part about $4,000 rent.
What was less obvious was where all these videos came from. She clicked on the creators’ profiles and discovered that not only did they often follow each other, but some of the users following them were making parallel videos elsewhere.
“It seemed that there was almost this network of these avatars with similar usernames and almost identical content in different cities and states across the U.S.,” said Brunette, who wrote to Wisconsin Watch in May about her suspicions.
“I was like, am I nuts? I think this is a coordinated effort,” Brunette said in a July interview. “What immediately struck my mind, as someone who’s 38 and lived through the Facebook misinformation of the last few elections, was: Is this gearing up to shift political (opinions) before the gubernatorial election?”
Brunette isn’t the only TikTok user raising the alarm about these types of claims. On many of Printz’s videos, commenters called out misinformation and offered the facts.
“Obvious rage bait,” wrote one user in response to the claim that Green Bay is more expensive than New York City.
“Literally nothing you said is true,” wrote another.
Is it legal?
Experts say this novel influence model seems to test the limits of laws governing campaign finance and advertising.
Christopher Terry is an associate professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Minnesota who studies political advertising. He told Wisconsin Watch these types of videos could potentially violate state and federal law, even if they don’t mention candidates, parties, elections or products.
Paid posts are a form of commercial speech, which is not subject to the same First Amendment protections as standard political speech, Terry said. If creators don’t disclose that they were paid to create posts, that could violate the Federal Trade Commission prohibition on deceptive practices, Terry said, though he noted the agency has not enforced that policy against social media influencers to date.
“It has warned a bunch of them. It has threatened a ton of them, but it has not actually brought an enforcement action against any of them,” Terry said.
Any posts that mislead voters about candidates or referendums could also potentially violate a Wisconsin statute barring “false representation … intended to affect voting in an election,” Terry said.
“Any chucklehead in any northern Wisconsin bar will give you an opinion on a political thing … That’s fine,” Terry said. “If he’s paid to think that and paid to sit in the bar and talk to people about it, that’s something else, right?”
Meanwhile, democracy advocates have called on the Federal Election Commission to clarify laws to explicitly require that influencers post disclaimers indicating who paid for their political content.
Prices, misinformation on the rise
While many of these videos are riddled with false information, they channel popular frustrations over real spikes in prices.
“Gas is not $7 a gallon in Green Bay, and average rent is not $4,000. But they’re both more expensive than they used to be … It’s simply true that people are anxious and concerned about the cost of living,” said state Sen. Jamie Wall, D-Green Bay. “And I hear that from people across the political spectrum.”
Across the country, consumers have been sour on the economy for years, said Joanne Hsu, who oversees the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers. The monthly consumer sentiment survey, first conducted in 1946, asks Americans how they feel about the economy and where it’s headed.
The answer in recent months: still not good. When survey workers asked Americans in June about their personal finances, 56% brought up high prices without being prompted.
In Green Bay, where the average home value is about $290,000, the cost of living remains relatively low. But local residents are feeling the strain of rising prices too, state Rep. Amaad Rivera-Wagner, D-Green Bay, said.
Still, he fears the misinformation could stifle Green Bay’s future.
“That’s one of the most frustrating things about social media is that we are now fighting an army of misinformation, sometimes by innocent bystanders, but sometimes by bad actors,” Rivera-Wagner said.
“This is where that confusion can actually cost or have real impact,” he said. “There might be people in and around our community or businesses thinking about moving or working in our community, and they’re seeing a larger narrative that is not only inaccurate, but doesn’t actually talk about how much work we’ve done to make Green Bay still one of the most affordable places to live in the state or the country.”
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
Systems used to transmit unofficial election night results broke down in Green and Winnebago counties during Wisconsin’s August primary, causing problems processing and posting results.
The issues had no bearing on the official results that counties across the state are still certifying. But those breakdowns come as national experts have encouraged a move away from transmitting results over modems and toward physically delivering them. Many other states and election jurisdictions have shifted away from transmitting results by modem, but it remains common in Wisconsin.
Much of the concern about sending results over modems has related to cybersecurity. But experts say there are additional reasons to avoid the use of modems, and the recent issues in Wisconsin are one example. There’s no indication that the Election Day issues in Green and Winnebago counties, which both use Liberty Vote election technology, had anything to do with a hack.
Pam Smith, the president and CEO of Verified Voting, an elections technology organization, said election security is not only about preventing incorrect results or cyberattacks. It also means making sure the systems that election officials rely on are available and functioning when they need them.
A breakdown in transmitting unofficial results may not change the outcome of an election, she said, but it can still disrupt election night operations and consume significant staff time.
“It matters because it’s a time suck for the county and everybody trying to deal with it,” she said.
In a statement, a Liberty Vote spokesperson said the company has “every confidence these isolated issues will not occur in future elections.”
Green County changing results reporting process for November
The results transmission failure caused the most significant delay in Green County, where officials did not fully shift to a backup method for collecting results from municipalities until the next morning.
Officials there and their vendor, Liberty Vote, are still trying to understand what went wrong after county staff were unable to process the results that municipalities sent over via fax modems, Green County Clerk Arianna Voegeli told Votebeat.
When municipalities in Green County send their unofficial results to the county clerk’s office, they appear as encrypted files on a so-called listener server set up to receive the transmissions, said Voegeli, a Democrat. Normally, a different software called a results workstation pulls those files and uploads the results to the county’s unofficial results reporting system, but that process broke down on Election Day, she said.
County staff tried to troubleshoot the issue with Liberty Vote after discovering the issue at 9 p.m. on election night but couldn’t find a solution. That meant they had to turn to alternative methods to get the results from municipalities and didn’t have them all until the next morning — far later than most counties.
Voegeli said she consulted with the Wisconsin Elections Commission at the time to discuss what to do. The commission, she said, encouraged her to get municipal results as quickly as possible.
“Their recommendation was, at that point, to do my due diligence and do the best I can with trying to contact people (that) night to get those results in,” she said.
She opted not to use sheriff’s deputies to wake clerks that night, she said. Instead, she called all 24 of them; most didn’t return her call until early the following morning, but the few who responded delivered results over the phone. She got back to work at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday to finish processing results as municipal officials either came in person to deliver the unofficial results or told Voegeli the results over the phone. All the results were uploaded by 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
Had it been November, she said, she would have employed sheriff’s deputies to wake up clerks. She opted not to do it this time around, Voegeli said, in part because the Wisconsin Elections Commission didn’t give hard guidance, and she didn’t feel she’d save meaningful time by waking them.
As of Monday, she said, officials still had not determined what caused the failure. But Green County is changing its approach for the November election.
Voegeli said nearby municipalities will drive to the county office to physically deliver unofficial results, and the faraway ones will verbally transmit results via telephone.
“Even if we determine what the cause of this issue is, I think we’re still going to plan on that for the general election,” she said. “We really want to make sure that we’re getting those results out in a timely manner.”
Winnebago County shifted gears on Election Day
Winnebago County, which also uses Liberty Vote systems, also had trouble transmitting unofficial results by modem, but officials there shifted to a backup plan that same night.
After polls closed, municipal clerks were initially unable to send unofficial election results over a cellular modem. County officials and Liberty Vote are still trying to understand what went wrong, County Clerk Julie Barthels said. After noticing the error, Barthels instructed municipal clerks in the county to drive in the results and hand them over physically. The last one arrived around 10:30 p.m. on Election Day.
The city resolved the results-reporting issue by 9 p.m., said Barthels, a Republican. But by then, municipal officials were already on their way to the county and Barthels said she didn’t want to turn the municipal officials around again to deliver them via modem.
Winnebago County isn’t planning for any shift in results reporting for November. But she said she’ll work with Liberty Vote to understand what went wrong.
“They’ve promised me this will not happen in November,” Barthels said about Liberty Vote. “We’re going to get to the bottom of what happened. I so trust our system. But it’s like any other computer. One day it works, and the next day it doesn’t.”
Some election security experts warn against modeming results
Smith, the Verified Voting CEO, said any method that requires election equipment to communicate with other devices — whether that’s through a secure cellular network or a physical phone line — introduces additional vulnerabilities.
“It’d be great if they would move towards a safer operation of not not having that connectivity,” she said
But Geoff Hale, a visiting fellow for election security at the Center for Democracy & Technology, said transmitting unofficial results via modem does not pose a major technical risk as long as the official results are protected through testing and audits of paper ballots. Every method for transmitting results has trade-offs, he said: Driving a USB stick for an hour may have fewer vulnerabilities than an internet-connected method, but it also takes far longer.
The more important safeguard, Hale said, is for election officials to stay involved throughout the process, validating results and checking for errors — especially when verifying the official count. Hale previously worked for a decade at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
In this case, he said, Winnebago and Green counties responded appropriately by having backup plans in case their initial systems failed.
“This one doesn’t concern me quite as much as some other things I’ve seen,” he said.
Noah Praetz, president of Ready For Tuesday and a longtime election administration and security consultant, said jurisdictions embraced reporting results via modems in the 2000s and 2010s.
But a major benefit of using modems is speed, and Praetz emphasized the downsides of slower alternatives, as delays in reporting results can create openings for bad actors — including foreign governments — to sow distrust.
“People want to get results out of their hands,” he said. “They want to satisfy their voters.”
That was evident in Milwaukee on Aug. 11, when a human error in exporting results caused a 90-minute delay that exasperated election watchers and prompted widespread conspiracy theories about what had gone wrong.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
President Donald Trump, speaking alongside cryptocurrency leaders at the White House this week, made a statement that Republican and Democratic candidates alike wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole.
“If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center,” Trump said, “I would absolutely want it because the jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid, are just enormous.”
It’s not the kind of message anyone is using in competitive midterm races.
The race to build data centers, which power artificial intelligence and cloud computing, has run aground amid frustration from voters who don’t want to live near the massive warehouse campuses. Even the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm warned that anger over data centers — some of which dwarf football stadiums and use more energy than small cities — could cost them a seat.
Opposition stretches across the political spectrum because of fears that the behemoths will jack up electricity bills, drain people’s water wells, create unhealthy amounts of air and noise pollution and forever change a community’s character — all while getting lucrative tax breaks from states competing for their business.
Trump has framed data centers as a necessary component of a top national and economic security priority: winning the AI race against China. However, he also has acknowledged concern over rising electricity bills, previously saying “it’s only fair” for the companies to shoulder their costs.
He also suggested this week that data centers need “a little public relations help.” In recent months, he has gotten tech giants to sign a voluntary pledge to shield U.S. consumers from higher utility bills from data centers, even as he pushes to streamline the process for companies and utilities to build their own power plants.
But building power plants doesn’t happen overnight, and the immediate political reality for candidates across the country is far different.
“It is yet another dimension in which the White House appears tone deaf — tone deaf at best and indifferent to the interest of other Republican candidates at worst,” said James Henson, the director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, Austin, a nonpartisan research organization.
Republican committee issues warning over data centers in Ohio
Statewide candidates from Nevada to Wisconsin, both Republican and Democratic, are weaponizing data centers against their opponents, and candidates who absorb those attacks are subsequently trying to distance themselves from them.
In Ohio, a data center hot spot with closely contested races for governor and U.S. Senate, the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned in a memo Tuesday that Sen. Jon Husted is vulnerable to losing his seat because of the centers.
Democratic nominee Sherrod Brown is airing attack ads against Husted that call him the “face of data centers in Ohio” as people gather signatures for a statewide referendum to ban their construction.
The Republican memo said it’s been a “sleeper issue for the entire election cycle.”
“Brown is using it because it works,” the NRSC said. “More than any other thing in this race, data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck. If he loses and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice — and they will not go near the next one.”
The memo suggested voters may balk at Democratic candidates who want to stop data center construction altogether in favor of a Republican candidate who only wants data centers built if a community approves it in a local vote and it pays for its own power, water and other utilities.
Most registered voters oppose building a data center in their area, according to a July Fox News poll.
Still, the issue falls behind other voter concerns, such as cost of living, as November looms. A Quinnipiac Poll conducted in June asked voters what issues were important in deciding who to vote for in U.S. House elections, and about 4 in 10 mentioned AI data centers.
Trump’s statement already put to use in Nevada race
In Nevada, Democrat Aaron Ford quickly tied Trump’s statement to Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, characterizing them as being in “lockstep on data centers.”
In a statement, Ford said Trump and Lombardo are “Nevada data centers’ biggest cheerleaders” who “only care about catering to their ‘billionaire friends’ while Nevadans pay the price.”
Ford this week unveiled a policy platform in which he said he would halt new state tax breaks for data centers — he estimated them at $200 million currently — while auditing existing projects to ensure they are delivering on promises. He also said he would ensure data centers pay for their electricity needs, do not deplete Nevada’s water supply and help local governments negotiate strong benefits agreements with developers.
Texas’ governor changed course and got a jab from Trump
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who last November celebrated Google’s announcement of a $40 billion investment there by calling the state “the epicenter of AI development,” is under attack from his Democratic challenger, Gina Hinojosa, over his pursuit of data center development.
Abbott has since changed course by promising tougher action, such as removing the state’s sales tax exemption and holding up projects to review their energy usage.
Trump criticized the shift, saying “I think it’s a mistake” in a recent interview with Punchbowl News.
Asked about Trump’s support for data centers, Abbott’s office said the governor’s “top priority is to protect Texans’ safety and quality of life and ensure the integrity of our power grid and water supply.”
“Simply put, Texans must come first,” Abbott’s office said.
Data centers complicated Wisconsin governor race
While Trump embraces data centers, even some of his allies are using them for political attacks. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, running for Wisconsin governor, released a TV ad this week branding his Democratic opponent as “Data Center David Crowley.”
The ad includes a clip of Crowley saying Wisconsin could become the “AI and data hub not only for the entire country, but for the entire globe.”
Crowley has said local communities must have veto authority while also calling data centers a part of the modern economy that could bring significant economic benefits to the state.
Tiffany, who Trump has endorsed, has also said positive things about data centers. In January, Tiffany called data centers “exciting new technology,” in an interview with PBS Wisconsin. And last December, he voted for a bipartisan bill known as the SPEED Act, which is designed to accelerate construction of new AI infrastructure projects like data centers. It hasn’t passed the Senate.
Neither Tiffany nor Crowley support a moratorium on new data center construction.
Tiffany has called for repealing the state tax incentive for data centers, while Crowley has not. They both have called for stricter regulation.
Crowley, at an event Wednesday where he received the endorsement of the environmental group Clean Wisconsin, downplayed the attacks Tiffany has made against his data center position.
“He’s getting very good at saying one thing and doing something different,” Crowley said, pointing to Tiffany’s votes in support of the SPEED Act.
“What Congressman Tom Tiffany’s doing is lying because he’s trying to run away from his record in Congress,” Crowley said.
This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
As TV monitors at a primary night watch party showed state Rep. Francesca Hong leading the Democratic race for governor in Dane County, the crowd erupted in cheers.
But this wasn’t Hong’s event in Madison. It was the party for Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany at the Rustic Manor wedding barn in Hartland.
Attendees saw a Hong victory as a path to take back the governor’s office, where Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has blocked conservative bills for nearly eight years. In recent weeks, Tiffany and fellow Republicans attacked Hong over past social media posts, including calls to abolish the U.S. Senate, defund police and cancel Thanksgiving. They saw the posts as signs Hong would be a weak general election opponent.
“We’re hoping that Hong will win the primaries because what she says is just outright insanity,” 19-year-old Tiffany campaign worker Ellie Guida said.
Instead, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley eked out a comeback victory to win the Democratic nomination.
And now a new poll shows why Republicans have reason to worry.
Crowley led Tiffany 48% to 44% in a new Badger Battleground Poll conducted Aug. 12 and 13 by Platform Communications. Crowley also led 42% to 30% among independents and 54% to 35% in competitive Assembly districts.
Tiffany was viewed unfavorably by 43% of poll respondents, compared with 26% with an unfavorable view of Crowley, with 31% lacking a solid opinion of Crowley. The margin of error was 4.4 percentage points, and the poll was conducted via landline and cellphone interviews.
Still, even attendees at Crowley’s watch party in Milwaukee raised concerns about whether he can persuade Hong voters to support him in the general election.
Keith Schmitz, leader of the suburban Milwaukee progressive group Grassroots North Shore, said Hong’s supporters are more likely to back Crowley if Hong strongly endorses him. He expects Democrats to unify around beating Tiffany.
Crowley’s win reshapes the race for Wisconsin Democrats and Republicans. The three gubernatorial candidates who lost the primary joined top Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan and Attorney General Josh Kaul at a breakfast Wednesday in Middleton with Crowley and Democratic lieutenant governor nominee Sarah Godlewski in a show of unity.
Tiffany began a “Common-Sense Leadership Tour” in Green Bay Wednesday with Republican lieutenant governor nominee David Varnam and Attorney General nominee Eric Toney.
Brandon Scholz, former chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin and now an independent political analyst, highlighted how facing Crowley instead of Hong changes the challenge for Tiffany. He pointed to Crowley being “more measured in his responses and comments,” along with his more moderate positions.
“It will be hard, I think, for Tiffany to do the damage to Crowley that he could have done to Hong,” Scholz said.
Anthony Chergosky, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, said he expects Tiffany to portray Crowley as a “far-left liberal who has demonstrated shortcomings in his position in Milwaukee.”
Right on cue, Tiffany released a statement and ad Wednesday responding to Crowley’s primary win. Tiffany claimed there was no difference between Crowley and “a socialist.” The ad highlighted Milwaukee County budget deficits under Crowley and suggested that portended mismanagement, higher prices and increased taxes if he became governor.
Supporters cheer U.S. Rep. and Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Tiffany at his primary election watch party at the Rustic Manor wedding barn in Hartland, Wis., Aug. 11, 2026. (Zoey Elwood / Wisconsin Watch)
In response, a Crowley spokesperson said Tiffany was in “meltdown mode” as he prepared to face Crowley. The spokesperson called the attack “a desperate effort to distract from his own extreme record of voting 100% of the time to advance Donald Trump’s extreme MAGA agenda.”
Here is what else we learned from Wisconsin’s partisan primary and how it sets up the road to the Nov. 3 election.
Undecided voters broke for Crowley
As Crowley looks to unify Democrats, the 40-year-old may need to shore up support among younger voters.
The Marquette Law School Poll showed 66% of voters ages 18 to 29 supported Hong, while election results showed she led in 10 of the 13 counties with University of Wisconsin campuses.
Polling showed Crowley with more support among older voters and people living in rural counties. Crowley led Hong by half a percentage point statewide, but his margin widened to 4 percentage points in rural counties, according to a New York Times analysis. Hong’s lack of spending on broadcast TV ads may have contributed to her weaker performance among older and rural voters.
The last Marquette Poll before the primary found 34% of Democratic primary voters were undecided — a dynamic Marquette Law School Poll director Charles Franklin said benefited Crowley.
“The fact that so many undecideds apparently coalesce on Crowley is an important lesson that undecideds really can make up their mind in a lopsided way,” Franklin said.
Older people and moderates likely fueled Crowley’s late surge, according to Franklin.
Supporters cheer as results come in for the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary election during Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley’s election night watch party at the Hyatt Regency, Aug. 11, 2026, in Milwaukee. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
Franklin said older voters don’t usually wait to decide, but this year they did, potentially helping Crowley. Older people also vote more than younger people. He also noted how moderate voters were initially undecided, helping Crowley.
Many people don’t tune in to primaries until a few weeks before voting, Franklin added. He pointed to Evers’ endorsement late in the race. In the last Marquette Poll before the election. 36% of Democratic primary voters said Evers’ endorsement mattered to them.
“It’s obvious that a lot of those late deciders did go to Crowley, overwhelmingly. It just took them till the last week or so of the campaign to decide to do that, or even on Election Day,” Franklin said.
The next Marquette Poll is scheduled for release by the end of August. The first Marquette Poll after the 2018 primary showed Evers and incumbent Gov. Scott Walker tied, but Evers went on to win by 1 percentage point. That election came during Trump’s first midterm cycle.
Evers’ job approval rating stood at 51% in a July 22 Marquette Poll, and Franklin said the poll showed Evers remained popular with Democratic primary voters.
This was the first time in more than 50 years that a sitting Wisconsin governor endorsed a candidate.
“Governor Evers’ endorsement proved to be the key factor in this election,” Chergosky said. “It’s a great reminder that endorsements can make a huge difference in primary elections.”
Two GOP-endorsed candidates lose statewide races
The state Republican Party suffered two more setbacks Tuesday as party-endorsed candidates lost statewide races.
The party endorsed consultant Will Martin — a staffer under former Govs. Tommy Thompson and Scott Walker — for lieutenant governor, but stay-at-home dad and former Lancaster mayor David Varnam secured the Republican nomination by 11 percentage points.
The party also backed beef farmer and auctioneer Nate Pollnow for secretary of state. He lost to real estate investor Jay Schroeder by more than 20 percentage points. Schroeder said he would make the secretary of state Wisconsin’s chief election official and abolish the Wisconsin Elections Commission — something that would require legislative action. Republicans skeptical of the 2020 election results have rallied against the WEC in recent years, which may explain Schroeder’s appeal among primary voters.
The secretary of state keeps track of enrolled laws, resolutions, official acts, fees, positions and appointments, but generally attracts little notice.
While both secretary of state candidates aligned with Trump, Schroeder more heavily emphasized his support for Trump’s movement.
Martin’s lieutenant governor campaign website focused largely on developing energy resources and protecting public safety. Varnam focused on immigration and cutting taxes — issues that ranked as more important among Republican voters surveyed in the Marquette poll earlier this year.
Scholz said the endorsed candidates’ losses raise questions about the state party’s role in elections.
“Does Wisconsin have a viable state party organization that can contribute?” Scholz asked. “And I’m not talking about getting $9 million of contributions from (billionaire GOP megadonors Richard and Liz) Uihlein and (Diane) Hendricks and then pushing them through to campaigns. That’s not a state party.”
The state GOP didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Congressional races set
U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden and 2024 Democratic nominee Rebecca Cooke face each other again in the 3rd Congressional District.
Cooke lost to Van Orden in 2024 by 3 percentage points. She ran in the Democratic primary for the district in 2022 but lost to state Sen. Brad Pfaff, D-Onalaska.
Van Orden beat Pfaff to flip the seat in 2022 and has held it for two terms. This year marks the first time Van Orden will run for reelection with a Republican president in office.
Van Orden first ran for the seat in 2020 and lost by just under 3 percentage points as Democrat Joe Biden carried Wisconsin. In 2022, when Republicans took back the House, Van Orden won by nearly 4 percentage points.
Democrat Rebecca Cooke, left, is vying to unseat U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden. (Cooke campaign and Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Chergosky said Van Orden, a close Trump ally, must rally MAGA supporters, who can be more difficult to turn out during a midterm election.
“There are many voters who eagerly show up to vote for Trump, but aren’t as excited to vote when he’s not on the ballot,” Chergosky said.
Cooke enters the rematch with higher name recognition and national endorsements from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin. She also has outraised Van Orden by $1 million.
The 7th Congressional District, which Tiffany is vacating, will likely stay Republican, Chergosky said. Michael Alfonso, son-in-law of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, won the Republican nomination.
Backed by Trump, Alfonso defeated runner-up Kevin Hermening, by 22 percentage points.
“His victory shows the power of the Trump endorsement in Republican primaries,” Chergosky said.
Alfonso will face Democratic Rep. Fred Clark.
Republicans have held onto the northern Wisconsin district since 2011 when Duffy was elected.
Emergency room nurse Mitchell Berman won the Democratic nomination in the 1st Congressional District and will faceRepublican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil. Berman defeated the runner up Peter Burgelis by nearly 23 percentage points after Burgelis ended his campaign to endorse Berman in July.
National Democrats are targeting this seat as they seek to win control of the House. But Steil had more than 35 times the cash on hand as the Democratic primary challengers combined as of July. Chergosky also said Steil has a well-developed brand in his southeastern Wisconsin district, giving him the advantage.
For Berman to defeat Steil, Chergosky said he’ll need to raise money quickly and increase his name recognition.
Legislative Democrats play it safe
Democrats have a shot at winning control of the Legislature for the first time in 16 years. Doing so would require flipping two Senate seats and five Assembly seats. In three districts Wisconsin Watch monitored, Democratic voters chose familiar faces in the primary.
In the 17th Senate District, Rep. Jenna Jacobson, D-Oregon, will face incumbent Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green.
Jacobson, endorsed by the State Senate Democratic Committee, won the primary by nearly 30 percentage points over former New Glarus School Board member Corrine Hendrickson, who focused on funding public schools and child care. Jacobson has served in the Assembly since 2022.
Kamala Harris won the district in the 2024 presidential race when Marklein, a co-chair of the powerful Joint Finance Committee, was not up for reelection.
In the 21st Assembly District, Oak Creek Mayor Dan Bukiewicz defeated David Liners for the Democratic nomination.
Bukiewicz has served as mayor of Oak Creek, which the district encompasses, since 2017. But Republicans have held the seat since 2003.
Liners ran as a democratic socialist, but he hadn’t previously held office. Bukiewicz benefited from strong name recognition and high-profile endorsements like U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin.
Democratic strategist and former Evers staffer Melissa Baldauff said Democrats want candidates they can trust, rather than unknowns.
“There’s definitely something to be said for voting for a known entity,” Baldauff said.
Another democratic socialist, Rep. Ryan Clancy, D-Milwaukee, will likely keep his 19th Assembly District seat after defeating the more moderate Bridget Maniaci in the Democratic primary.
Maniaci criticized Clancy for what she said was failed legislation and unleveraged resources. She outraised him by $2,000.
While other democratic socialists, including Liners and Hong, lost their elections, Clancy won by nearly 9 percentage points. Chergosky said it’s because his constituents know his record.
“In Clancy’s heavily Democratic district, voters may be comfortable supporting an outspoken democratic socialist whose record they already know,” Chergosky said. “In a statewide race for governor, voters may place much greater emphasis on who they believe can defeat the Republican nominee in November.”
Chergosky said each Assembly district is unique, and many are “ideologically homogeneous.” He said voters in an urban, heavily Democratic Assembly district may be more receptive to a candidate like Clancy than voters in a statewide race, where candidates must appeal to urban, suburban and rural voters.
‘A referendum on President Trump’
Democrats cast substantially more primary votes than Republicans, a trend that could shape the outcomes in November, especially as Trump’s approval ratings decline.
Democrats cast nearly 800,000 votes, compared with nearly 500,000 votes from Republicans.
Meanwhile, nine Republicans are retiring from the Legislature this election cycle, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg.
Political science experts have said these retirements come during an expected Democratic surge. Wisconsin’s legislative maps were redrawn in February 2024 after experts described the previous maps as some of the most gerrymandered in the country. In November 2024, Democrats flipped 14 legislative seats.
In 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris won Assembly Districts 61, 21 and 51 — three districts Democrats aim to flip this November.
Republicans have held each seat for more than a decade, but the incumbents won by just 3 percentage points in 2024.
While Assembly Districts 51 and 61 still have incumbents, Rep. Jessie Rodriguez, R-Oak Creek, is retiring from her 21st Assembly District seat. Republican nominee Dylan Pfaffenbach, a Carroll University student, will face Bukiewicz, the more experienced Democrat.
The party controlling the White House, Chergosky said, notoriously faces headwinds in midterm elections. Tracking Trump’s approval rate will be key to predicting outcomes. The new Platform Communications poll found 30% of respondents had a favorable view and 66% had an unfavorable view of Trump.
“For Democrats, the playbook is clear: Frame this election as a referendum on President Trump,” Chergosky said.
Tom Kertscher and Brittany Carloni contributed reporting.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
Milwaukee election officials spent Tuesday trying to prove they had a better way to count absentee ballots — faster, smoother and with less reason for anyone to doubt the process.
Then, after 15 hours of nearly flawless work, a few minutes of human error blew up the plan.
At around 11:10 p.m. on Tuesday night, city officials left their central count facility without exporting results from five of its nine tabulators, forcing them to race back under police escort and delaying Milwaukee’s results by about 90 minutes. It was the third time in recent years that a significant tabulator-related mistake disrupted the city’s heavily scrutinized absentee-ballot operation.
So, right around midnight, chief Milwaukee election official Paulina Gutiérrez and other city officials climbed into a white van under police escort and headed back along the Milwaukee River to the central count facility they thought they had shut down about an hour earlier.
There was ample evidence of what had gone wrong — and no evidence of tampering or any sign the results were affected.
“We’re all human, and humans can make errors,” Gutiérrez told Votebeat, just past 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday, after she and several other city officials shuffled from tabulator to tabulator to export the results they had failed to retrieve the first time.
By then, the warehouse-like room was largely empty. Temporary workers had gone home. Election observers, believing the night was over, had left, too. Gutiérrez, wearing a white blazer and pants and maintaining an even-keeled expression as reporters surrounded her, said the results were secure, and that the city would determine how the error occurred and how to prevent it from happening in the future.
City of Milwaukee Election Commision executive director Paulina Gutiérrez speaks to the media on election night. She assured reporters later in the night that the city error didn’t jeopardize ballot security. (Cullen Granzen for Votebeat)
Her explanation did little to slow the criticism.
Within minutes, Dan Eastman, a right-wing lawyer who has filed election-related cases in Wisconsin, wrote on social media that there was no way central count could work for Milwaukee. Loomer Unleashed, a podcast hosted by right-wing pundit Laura Loomer, was more explicit: “Yeah, they cheated!”
Others, including Democrats, criticized the city without alleging wrongdoing.
“What an inauspicious ending to an otherwise quiet day,” said Ann Jacobs, a Democratic appointee on the Wisconsin Elections Commission and a regular observer at the city’s absentee ballot counting operation.
Mistakes add up for the state’s most scrutinized election operation
In November 2020, after arriving at the county clerk’s office to transmit Milwaukee’s election results, then-city election chief Claire Woodall realized that she forgot one of the facility’s 12 flash drives containing vote results at central count, a mistake some conservatives seized on as a flagrant oversight. That led her to create a checklist that the city has since used to avoid similar errors, outlining over two dozen steps for extracting, securing, and transmitting election results.
Four years later, at the next presidential election, Milwaukee election officials made the extraordinary decision to count 31,000 absentee ballots all over again because some staff didn’t lock tabulator doors in the early morning. Those panel doors, which cover the on/off switch and sometimes a slot for USB drives, were supposed to have been locked during counting.
The process Woodall created to prevent future such errors included a single official extracting results from each tabulator while accompanied by other staff. Officials appeared to have followed that process in November 2024, but not this time. Instead, different staff members downloaded the files from different tabulators and did so inconsistently, not realizing that results were not properly exported from five of the tabulators.
“The fact that this happened five times seems more like a training issue,” Woodall told Votebeat. “Was this person trained on how to export results? Are they familiar with the machines and how you export results?”
But she also cautioned people not to get too carried away by a human error that wasn’t indicative of any fraud or fatal flaw in the election system.
Just after 1:15 a.m. Wednesday, Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson stood beneath the bright fluorescent lights outside his courthouse office, facing roughly a dozen reporters who had stayed well past midnight waiting for the city’s results. Nearly two hours had passed since Christenson first expected those results to arrive.
Now, with the mistake finally corrected and the long election night stretching on, he told the assembled media that Milwaukee operates under constant scrutiny — and that people make mistakes.
“At the end of the day,” he continued, “what’s important is that we’re transparent, that the results are secure, and that we’re open and honest. And that’s what the City of Milwaukee election director did. She came up here and she explained it, went back, got the results, brought it back to us, and we got everything right.”
Errors undermine city efforts to build trust, lobby for policy change
Milwaukee officials have long argued that state law and limited resources make the city’s massive absentee-ballot operation harder than it needs to be. But the string of high-profile mistakes at Milwaukee’s central count operation has complicated their efforts to persuade lawmakers to give them more flexibility.
Wisconsin law prohibits municipalities from processing ballots before 7 a.m. on Election Day. That leaves Milwaukee — home to the biggest central count operation in the state — to open envelopes, verify signatures and witness addresses, and prepare tens of thousands of ballots for counting in a single day.
For years, election officials have pushed for legislation allowing municipalities to begin that process before Election Day. The proposal has been repeatedly stalled by the Republican-controlled Legislature, largely on the basis that Milwaukee cannot be trusted with additional time. That’s despite state Rep. Scott Krug, a high-ranking Republican, having spent years behind the scenes trying to gather support for the policy.
As liberals on Tuesday suggested the pre-processing law would have helped stave off mistakes, Krug said that the city wasn’t helping its cause.
“Complete incompetence at the facility isn’t helping anything here,” he said on social media. “This was human error that could have easily been double checked before leaving the facility. More than one answer to the problem not one silver bullet.”
How officials, experts think central count operation can improve
Allowing Milwaukee to start processing absentee ballots earlier would relieve some of the pressure on Election Day. But election experts say it would not solve all the other weaknesses in an operation handling more absentee ballots than any other in the state.
Jennifer Morrell, CEO of the Elections Group, said a successful central count operation depends on three things: experienced staff, a space designed for the work and the right equipment. Milwaukee, she said, falls short in each area compared with similarly sized cities that have invested more heavily in election administration.
The city election commission never had enough full-time staff to begin with, Morrell said, and currently has a small handful of vacancies. While central count relies on temporary employees, she added, it still needs enough experienced full-time staff to run an operation of that size.
The city also has no permanent home for its central count, meaning officials must adapt the operation to spaces that were not necessarily designed for processing tens of thousands of absentee ballots. Morrell also said the city lacks equipment that other cities of similar sizes have invested in, like a mail sorting machine. That means Milwaukee election workers sort tens of thousands of mail ballots — sometimes more than 100,000 — by hand. Madison’s sorting machine, by comparison, allows the city to sort hundreds of ballots in minutes.
Gretchen Macht, the founder of the Engineering for Democracy Institute and an associate professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Rhode Island, has spent the past few years assisting Gutiérrez to find more efficient ways to conduct its central count. In an interview with Votebeat, Macht invoked an old saying in both election administration and engineering: You can have something fast, accurate, or cheap, but you can only pick two.
For Milwaukee officials, sacrificing accuracy is an obvious nonstarter.
“Our number one priority is efficiency and accuracy,” Gutiérrez said, adding that she’ll never sacrifice election operations just to improve speed.
But without more money or changes to state law, there is only so much faster the city can go.
Just before midnight on Tuesday, that consequence was playing out on national television.
With more than 90% of the state’s unofficial results in and Milwaukee’s absentee ballots poised to determine the outcome of the Democratic gubernatorial primary, NBC News election analyst Steve Kornacki was waiting for the city’s numbers to arrive.
“We’re kind of indefinitely waiting for them to get their act together here,” he said. “We waited 90 minutes for them. They did this whole procession, and then we find out there’s nothing on the sticks.”
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley’s win over Madison Rep. Francesca Hong in Tuesday’s gubernatorial primary was undoubtedly a shocking comeback.
In the last Marquette Law School Poll before the primary, Hong had 38% support compared with 7% for Crowley. But don’t blame the polling! That same poll showed former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes with 16% support before he dropped out. Another 34% were undecided. The rapid pace of the modern news cycle means voters likely didn’t even tune in until the final weeks. We knew Democrats were sharply divided heading into Tuesday, but predicting precise results proved to be a fool’s errand.
But now that we know the winner, here are some factors that might account for what happened.
A sitting governor’s endorsement matters — a lot
There’s no modern precedent — not since 1970 — for a sitting Wisconsin governor backing a candidate in their party’s primary. The lack of clear direction from the establishment allowed several candidates to hang around until Tuesday, but once Gov. Tony Evers started stumping for Crowley, conservative and moderate Democrats had clarity.
Also worth noting: Evers is still relatively popular. The Marquette Poll found 47% of all voters had a favorable view compared with 43% who had an unfavorable view (most politicians these days are under water). His job approval was at 51%. And 36% of likely Democratic primary voters said Evers’ endorsement made it more likely they would support Crowley.
Democrats want to win
When Democrats were desperate to defeat Gov. Scott Walker in 2018, they nominated the moderate old white guy. That became a blueprint for winning the 2020 presidential election as well. After electing five Supreme Court justices and knocking on the door of a legislative majority this fall, they don’t want to blow a once-in-a-generation chance to enact their agenda (i.e. reversing Act 10, accepting Medicaid expansion, protecting abortion access, boosting public schools).
Hong spent the last two weeks of the primary as the presumptive nominee and faced an avalanche of negative press about her past social media statements about defunding the police and canceling Thanksgiving.
Whether you like those views or not, they’re not moderate. But Wisconsin general election voters generally are. It’s possible that’s what kept progressives like U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Bernie Sanders and U.S. Reps. Mark Pocan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the sidelines.
One other consideration: Crowley has been running Milwaukee County government for six years. A primary is like a job interview, and Crowley’s resume was a better fit for the traditional notion of what a governor does.
Huge turnout
There were nearly 800,000 votes cast in the Democratic primary this year. In 2018 there were 538,000 votes cast. Evers won about 42% that year. Crowley won just shy of 40%.
There was some speculation that Republicans would cross over and vote for Hong in the primary to help U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany. But in the final weekend top Republicans, including Walker, were discouraging that strategy because of concerns about a democratic socialist winning in November. Whether that was more bluster aimed at pushing voters into Hong’s column … doesn’t really matter any more.
Hong won Dane County, Crowley won Milwaukee County — but not by much
Neither candidate ran up the scoreboard on their home turf. But that’s likely because there are moderate and progressive Democrats all over.
Some noted Sen. Kelda Roys’ strong showing in Dane County might have cost Hong progressive votes. Roys received about 10,000 fewer votes than she did in 2018.
Hong also polled much better among young voters, and she appeared to do well in counties with University of Wisconsin campuses like Eau Claire, La Crosse, Kenosha and Winnebago, but undergraduates don’t return until the end of August.
Black voters are mobilizing in 2026
Black voters are a small (about 5% of the general electorate) but important voting bloc for Democrats. When they stay home, Republicans have a better shot of winning statewide elections. When they mobilize, Democrats like Barack Obama win Wisconsin by double digits.
There’s some evidence that Republican attempts to dismantle majority-Black voting districts for the sake of picking up House seats in the South are mobilizing voters there. Elections are nationalizing, and what mobilizes a voting bloc in one part of the country could be mobilizing them everywhere. In Milwaukee County there were 151,000 votes cast, up from 113,000 in 2018.
Worth noting: Crowley would be Wisconsin’s first Black governor. The United States has only ever had six Black men serve as governor. Only Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is serving currently.
Betting markets on the Wisconsin governor’s race have flipped
In the weeks before the election, Tiffany had overtaken a generic Democratic candidate in the betting markets (which Wisconsin voters can’t legally participate in) with a 60% chance of winning. As it became clear that Crowley had a chance of beating Hong on Tuesday night, the market flipped to 78% in favor of Crowley.
Another easily preventable late Milwaukee ballot count
Ballot-counting errors happen. When elections are blowouts, no one notices. When they’re close, every little misstep gets overblown.
Milwaukee didn’t report its final absentee ballot count until early Wednesday morning. There was a mistake in downloading data from vote tabulators. There’s no evidence that votes were tampered with or changed. Republicans still pounced on the delay as evidence of something suspicious.
It’s worth noting that Republicans are also the ones who have refused to pass a clean bill that would allow absentee ballots to be processed starting on the Monday before an election. That would likely prevent the kind of hyperventilating that happens when a winner isn’t known before the 10 o’clock news.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
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