President Donald Trump’s executive order placing new restrictions on mail-in voting would assign state officials a Herculean task to reach compliance before the crucial midterm elections.

The order directed the U.S. Postal Service to strictly regulate the envelope design of mail-in ballots and to collect voter data from each state through an online portal, among other things. 

The Postal Service has argued in court that its rule is not an election regulation, but is within the agency’s purview as a standard for a specific type of mail.

But some state officials tasked with fitting their systems to the new regulations say it presents massive — if not impossible — challenges to reach compliance for the November midterms, when voters will decide whether to continue Republican control of the U.S. House and Senate. 

Ballot designs and printing are typically done months in advance of ballots being sent to voters, which begins this week. North Carolina is set to mail out ballots for the Nov. 3 general election on Friday. 

“In some States, it would be impossible at this point to comply with the last-minute rollout of USPS’ novel ballot-verification program,” more than 20 Democratic-led states suing to block the order said in a Wednesday court filing. “In other States, there will be chaos.”

The states presented a list of tasks state and local elections administrators would have to complete. 

That list includes: redesigning ballot envelopes and obtaining USPS approval “on an unprecedented timetable,” purchasing new envelopes, developing technological systems to meet barcode standards in the rule, uploading voter-specific information to the USPS portal that they have not yet received access to and training state and local officials and voters on the new standards.

“Each step of this process is fraught with an extreme risk of error,” they said.

‘Courts will stop it’

Because of the unworkable timeline and a general principle not to change voting policy too close to an election, officials believe courts will ultimately block the rule from going into effect for this year.

“There’s a pretty universal feeling that the courts will stop it from happening,” Katy Owens Hubler, the director of elections at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said in an interview.

“In general, you don’t want to be changing things right before the election. So in a lot of ways, it is already too late. Part of the rule relates to the absentee ballot envelopes themselves. And … almost universally, those have already been designed and printed.”

A Massachusetts federal judge has paused the rule from taking effect through Sept. 11 while multiple legal fights play out.

Tammy Patrick, the chief programs officer at the National Association of Election Officials, a nonpartisan industry group for state and local elections officials, said in a court declaration filed Aug. 28 the timeline was unworkable for the midterms.

“None of the Rule’s requirements can feasibly be implemented before the November 3, 2026, General Election,” she wrote. “Administration of the 2026 election is already well underway, with timelines, budgets, and staffing already set, many of which are unmovable or unchangeable.” 

The rule’s requirements “will place new and heavy burdens” on election offices whose budgets are “already constrained,” she added.

Election officials and USPS began preparing for the 2026 election months ago, she said. And states already set funding levels.

“The infeasibility of the Rule for election officials is obvious when you consider the calendar and preparation for the 2026 general election next to the Rule’s requirements and implementation,” she wrote.

The rule would force states to push through in a matter of weeks what should take a year, Matthew Weil, the vice president for democracy and bipartisanship at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank, said.

“A year of lead time is the best practice before any new policy,” he said.

Envelope design

Some of the requirements themselves are not objectionable, according to experts. 

The standards for envelope design, for example, largely codify best practices the Postal Service has recommended for years.

But the rule also requires that USPS approve each design, possibly through an online portal that has yet to be introduced and has reportedly seen major problems in development.

Nationwide, there are about 40 mail design analysts who would be qualified to judge mail ballot designs. Asking every state, and many counties that have their own designs, to submit them at the same time would be unworkable.

“If even a fraction of election offices has to submit their new envelopes and materials … before the 2026 election, it would take weeks for USPS to work through the sudden volume,” Patrick wrote.

A similar problem could face election offices seeking to order printing of new ballots and envelopes, she said. The turnaround time for new envelopes could stretch 12 to 16 weeks, she said.

Despite those obstacles, the rule would mean any ballots that do not fit the new specifications would be rejected, possibly stopping many voters from casting ballots.

IT problem

Like the implementation of ballot envelope standards, the rule’s requirement that states electronically share voter files with the federal government has suffered from a rushed process, according to an explosive whistleblower complaint published Tuesday.

The Postal Service lacks the capacity to implement the executive order, David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said in a statement Tuesday.

“They secretly rushed development of the technology the order demanded, trying to piece it together in a few months rather than taking the time required for a proper rollout,” he said. “This slapdash effort is guaranteed to result in significant problems just weeks before the election, potentially disenfranchising thousands of voters.”

Owens Hubler said states have not yet gained access to the portal.

“It’s a pretty big (information technology) project to have done very quickly,” she said. “And I don’t know that anybody’s actually seen it yet. So, that’s another aspect of putting it into place before the election that could be pretty tough.”

The Bipartisan Policy Center predicted the difficulty in building the portal in a July 6 comment on the notice of proposed rulemaking by the USPS. The center noted that state and local officials would have difficulty complying.

“Whether election officials can meet this burden at all depends on the successful deployment of a tool that does not yet exist,” the group wrote. “Building, testing, deploying, and training election officials to use a portal before October 4 (the beginning of the 30-day window during which election officials will be supplying lists to USPS) will be an enormous undertaking, and the risk of delay in the deployment of this portal is significant.”

The Postal Service did not respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday.

In a Tuesday statement, a spokesperson said the agency was finalizing the portal’s development, and called it “just one part of a broader, year-round effort” to ensure election mail is properly handled.

“The Postal Service is now finalizing the portal and will soon make it available to election officials who voluntarily wish to familiarize themselves with the platform,” the spokesperson said. “USPS will also provide tools, presentations, and other resources to help election officials understand the platform and make informed decisions about whether and how they wish to use it.”

Universal mail states

States that already mail ballots to every registered voter, and the large jurisdictions within those states, may have an easier time meeting the standards, Owens Hubler said. If they are not already in compliance, they likely have a relationship with a commercial printer that could possibly handle a short order.

But smaller, less-resourced counties and states that don’t have a robust mail-in voting program may have more trouble finding last-minute fixes.

The eight states that have universal mail voting — California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington — “will be affected, but everyone’s affected,” Owens Hubler said. “And I think it is important to think of the ones that just don’t have to do this as often. They may, in the end, be more affected.”

Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Crowley polled slightly ahead of Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany in the first Marquette Law School poll conducted since the primary earlier this month. The poll results were released Wednesday.

The poll was conducted from Aug. 12, the day after the primary, through Aug. 20. Surveyors interviewed 891 Wisconsin registered voters, with a margin of error of 4 percentage points. The likely voter sample was 738, with a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

With less than three months until the midterm election Nov. 3, the candidates have been criss-crossing the state to get their names out to voters and win over support. 

 Crowley pulled in support from 49% of  likely Wisconsin voters, while Tiffany had 44%; another 7% of likely voters said they were undecided. Among registered voters, Crowley and Tiffany were tied at 44%.

The poll found a Democratic advantage among those who are certain that they’ll vote in November, with  84% of Democrats reporting they were certain compared with 82% of Republicans.

“You could either come away with a modest Crowley advantage, by about five points, or a dead tie, depending on whether you’re looking at everybody that’s registered to vote or looking at those absolutely certain to vote,” poll director Charles Franklin said.

The poll showed that 98% of likely voters who were Democrats planned to vote for Crowley, while 91% of likely Republican voters said they planned to vote for Tiffany. 

The biggest percentage of undecided voters were independents: 30% of independents who said they were likely to vote were undecided. Among registered voters, undecided independent voters jumped to 47%.

Among likely voters, Crowley had an advantage with independent voters. About 55% said they supported him, while 16% said they would support Tiffany.

Following the divisive and chaotic primary campaign, Crowley called on Democrats to unify to win in November and campaigned with state Rep. Francesca Hong, who finished a close second in the primary.  

“It’s interesting that the Democrats do appear to be completely unified behind their candidate and Republicans, quite unified, but not quite as much as Democrats,” Franklin said. 

Tiffany and Crowley will be working to win over undecided voters and flip people to support them over the next 10 weeks, especially as Wisconsin’s statewide races are typically decided by close margins. In 2018, Gov. Tony Evers defeated Gov. Scott Walker by about 30,000 votes.

Out of the 98 state legislative bodies across the U.S., the Wisconsin Senate has been deemed the “most flippable” by Wisconsin Democrats. Still, Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) told the Wisconsin Examiner that he sees a definite path for Republicans to maintain their majority.

“We have our chessboard fully laid out. I don’t think there’s any question that, you know, this cycle, it seems as though our backs are against the wall,” Testin said. 

Testin is leading the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate (CERS), which is the campaign arm of the Senate Republican caucus, as Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) decided to retire this year. 

Senate Republicans currently have an 18-seat majority, meaning that they only have room to lose one seat this year. Four seats have been identified by Democrats and Republicans as essential to determining control:

• Senate District 5: covering Wauwatosa and other parts of Milwaukee County. State Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa) and Republican Mike Roberts are vying for the seat that is currently represented by Sen. Rob Hutton, who opted not to run for reelection. 
• Senate District 17: A southwest district covering Iowa, Lafayette, Green, Crawford and Grant counties as well as parts of Dane County. Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) faces a challenge from Rep. Jenna Jacobson (D-Oregon). 
• Senate District 21: Incumbent Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) is retiring this year, leaving open the southeast district that includes part of Racine and Milwaukee Counties. Democrat Trevor Jung, the former Racine transit and mobility director, is running against Republican businessman Jim Croft.
• Senate District 31: Sen Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) is seeking another term in office and faces a challenge from Republican Michele Magadance Skinner, an Eau Claire County board member. The district covers Eau Claire County and parts of Dunn, Trempealeau and Chippewa counties.

Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) expressed confidence in her party’s effort to take over the chamber during a press conference after the August primary, saying that Senate Democrats flipped four seats in 2024 and her caucus expects to do the same this year. “I think we’re going to be able to do it with David Crowley leading the way,” she said. 

There are a few factors that have contributed to Democrats’ confidence. 

The midterm election environment is expected to be friendlier to Democrats with a Republican in the White House, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. President Donald Trump’s popularity has steadily declined in Wisconsin since he took office for his second term, according to Marquette Law School polling. 

A recent Marquette poll found that 46% of Wisconsin voters said they would vote for Democrats in legislative races, while 42% said they’d vote for Republicans. The survey did not deliver detailed information on specific districts.

Democrats also got to work early, immediately after the state budget was finished last year, hoping to take advantage of new, more favorable voting maps.

“We had these maps early,” Hesselbein said. As a result, campaigns got started sooner than they had in past years.

Senate Democrats are targeting two districts that went for Trump in 2024. Democrat Charly Ray and Republican Erik Severson are competing in Senate District 25, an open district that encompasses Douglas, Bayfield, Ashland, Washburn, Iron, Sawyer, Polk and Burnett Counties. In Senate District 29, which includes Marathon, Wood, Portage and Waupaca Counties, Sen. Cory Tomczyk (R-Mosinee), who was elected to the seat in 2022, is facing a challenge from Democrat Gillian Battino, a retired radiologist. 

Republicans didn’t know until this year how many of their incumbents would run for reelection — one-third of the caucus ended up deciding to retire including Sen. Van Wanggaard in SD 21, Sen. Rob Hutton in SD 5 and Sen. Jesse James, who had previously planned to challenge Smith. 

Testin said the environment around the races “means we have to work overtime between now and November to help our candidates get across the finish line and do what we can to contrast our candidates versus the Democrats in the key races.”

Testin said this may be the year that not having incumbents in a seat could turn into an advantage, noting that there’s been “sort of an incumbency malaise that we’ve seen in the electorate” and Republican Senate candidates are being encouraged to stay “hyper focused on local and state issues”, including affordability issues and lowering property taxes, and to avoid “getting wrapped into the national narratives of what’s happening out in D.C.”  He said their candidates are relying on a good “ground game” to protect their seats and candidates have strict metrics for doorknocking and are on track to get to 15,000 to 20,000 doors in the key seats. 

“So far our candidates have done exactly that,” Testin said. 

“We have our budget set for our key races,” Testin added, noting that it could be anywhere from $1.5 million to $2.5 million allocated to the competitive seats. “Based on what we’re able to raise, we are going to make adjustments on the fly as needed, and as things sort of evolve on the ground and things change as they always do in campaigns, you have to be nimble and flexible.”

According to July reports, the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate has raised nearly $5 million this year and had $5.3 million on hand. The bulk of that fundraising came from billionaires Diane Hendricks and Elizabeth Uihlein, who each gave $2 million.

Testin said he is proud that the Republicans have been able to outraise Democrats so far and they are running ahead of where they were in 2024 when it comes to fundraising, but he is expecting money to flood into the state now that the primary is over. 

“These races are expensive. It costs a lot of money to get our candidates’ message out there, to get them up on air to do digital ads, radio, direct mail, and that’s just the sad reality,” Testin said. 

When it come to the Uihleins and Hendricks, he said they’ve been strong supporters of the caucus and “despite the criticism leveled against those individuals, what never gets a light shined onto it is the money that comes in from states like Illinois, New York, California, billionaires and multi-and mega-millionaires from the liberal elite who have flooded Democrat coffers for years.”

The Republican Senate committee is also working closely with its Assembly counterpart, which is being led by Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August: “I often joke that — we speak on the phone more often than we speak to anyone else,” Testin said.

“This is what’s sort of unique, as opposed to previous cycles, where we have historically sort of operated in our own silos,” Testin said. “We are working hand in hand to ensure that there is no daylight between us,” he said, including “coordinating as best that we can with their candidates in the key seats that overlap ours.” 

Senate Democrats’ recently filed a lawsuit against  Skinner, who is running in Eau Claire, over questions related to her residency, attempting to get her removed from the ballot in November.

The effort was blocked by a Dane County judge this week. State Senate Democratic Committee Executive Director Andrew Whitley said in a statement that questions still remained, but the issue would be left up to voters. 

Testin said ahead of the hearing that the effort smelled of “desperation.”

“You would think if they would spend more time propping up their own candidate and his record and track record, that they’d be able to highlight that. But they haven’t been able to,” Testin said. “From our standpoint, we are in the driver’s seat between now and Nov. 3.”

The Wisconsin governor’s race is expected to have some influence on downballot races. Testin said Republicans were “salivating” at the prospect of running against State Rep. Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist, who narrowly lost the primary to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. Her loss, Testin said, makes the job of Republicans a little bit harder.

Crowley faces Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany in November.

“Full disclosure, I mean, I consider David Crowley a friend of mine,” Testin said, adding that they were freshmen in the state Legislature at the same time. “Obviously, I don’t agree with him politically.” 

Testin said Crowley will have to grapple with controversies during his tenure as Milwaukee county executive, including a lapse in an employee health insurance contract and projected future budget deficits. He also mentioned comments that Crowley made minimizing his differences from Hong. 

“I think that’s going to be a real problem for them because the Democrats in these key seats are going to have to answer for some of those policy positions,” Testin said, citing “some of these radical policies that have been pushed by the DSA.”

Testin said a potential Crowley governorship is part of the reason it’s crucial that Republicans hang onto the state Senate. 

“It’s so crucial and important that, at the very least, if Tom Tiffany were to fall short in his bid for governor — which I don’t think he will — that at the very least, that we have a backstop in the state Senate as well as the state Assembly, to have a counterbalance to any of the proposals that would come out that administration,” Testin said.

A Dane County judge denied Wisconsin Senate Democrats’ request Thursday that Michele Magadance Skinner, a Republican state Senate candidate and Eau Claire County Board member, be tossed off the November ballot.

Skinner, who currently serves as an Eau Claire County Board member, is running against Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) for Senate District 31, a key seat that will help determine control of the Senate next year. 

The lawsuit was filed against Skinner this week by the Wisconsin State Senate Democratic Committee (SSDC), the campaign arm of the Senate Democratic caucus, based on questions about her residency. The Wisconsin Elections Commission, which had previously dismissed a complaint about Skinner, was also a defendant in the suit. 

Dane County Circuit Court Judge Jacob Frost said at the close of the hearing he would deny the temporary injunction as the plaintiffs had not provided sufficient evidence that Skinner is not a Wisconsin resident.

“This does appear likely to be her primary residence,” Frost said, “which would mean that… she is eligible to vote here and therefore eligible to run.” 

David Hollander, the attorney for the SSDC, and Matthew Fernholz, Skinner’s attorney, questioned the state Senate candidate on a number of issues, including tax records, homes in Georgia and Florida, and voting records.

Skinner defended her status as a Wisconsin resident, detailing her history in the state from birth through school and throughout her career. She said that she moved around while working as a TV reporter in Georgia and Minnesota before becoming a founder of a recruitment firm after moving back to Wisconsin. 

Skinner said she has lived primarily in Altoona since 2000 with one exception. She described her current residency across the year as “seven months in Wisconsin, in Altoona, and five months elsewhere.” The five months, she said, is split between Florida and Georgia. 

“It goes back and forth and is really dictated by events, weddings, family events, birthdays, holidays,” she said. 

The exception Skinner referred to was when she registered to vote on Nov. 18, 2021 in Georgia and voted on Jan. 5, 2021 in the Georgia U.S. Senate runoff elections. She said that the election was “in the news.”

“I’m a former journalist. People were talking about it,” she said. 

Skinner said she was considering changing her residency due to COVID-19 pandemic: “The home there is bigger, has a larger yard. It’s more rural and Dawson County afforded more ability to be outside and Wisconsin at that time had some pretty stringent COVID restrictions, so we went down to Georgia.”

Skinner said that she didn’t ultimately switch her residence from Wisconsin to Georgia because COVID restrictions were eased in 2022, and she said that she has voted in Wisconsin elections consistently since 2022. She was elected to the Eau Claire County Board in April 2024. She also ran a failed campaign in 2024 challenging state Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) for her seat in the Wisconsin Assembly.

“Georgia was my COVID home. Wisconsin has always been and will be my other home,” Skinner said.

Skinner also denied that she is the owner of a home in Dawsonville, Georgia or in Florida. She said both are owned by her husband. 

“My name is not on the deed. His name is on the deed only,” Skinner said. “I’m his wife… I have access to it and I keep some of my stuff there. It’s my husband’s home and I do have a key.” 

Skinner was also questioned on tax credit claims. She claimed a Wisconsin lottery and gaming tax credit in 2020, right before registering to vote in Georgia. Her husband claimed a homestead property in Georgia in 2025, which Hollander argued could only be claimed if Georgia was the principal residence for both him and Skinner.

Hollander argued after the close of questioning that Skinner had not shown her Wisconsin residency. 

“There’s nothing before you, your honor, other than ‘I say I’m a Wisconsin resident, and so therefore, I’m a Wisconsin resident. It’s just her word,” Hollander said, adding that if he were defending his own residency he would provide a lease, mortgage, utility bills, public library card or other documents. “We live in this digital world where it’s really easy to find things that have your address on it.” 

Fernholz, Skinner’s attorney, noted that the lawsuit was aimed to “disenfranchise one of the two major political parties after the primary.” He noted that after the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s deadline to finalize the ballots has passed there is no opportunity for Republicans to put another candidate on the ballot. 

The Wisconsin Elections Commission is required to certify the list of candidates to appear on the general election ballot “no later than the 4th Tuesday in August,” which would be Aug. 25. In the lawsuit, the SSDC argued the Court could order Skinner be removed from the ballot as late as Sep. 2. 

Frost cut Fernholz off before he finished his arguments to say he’d be denying the request. 

“Skinner, not unlike many Wisconsin residents in their retirement years, is a multi-state person, meaning that she spends winters outside of the cold and the snow of Wisconsin,” Frost said. 

Frost said the evidence seems to show that “Skinner consistently has elected and has the intent that Wisconsin is her residence. That her husband has consistently said Georgia is his residence doesn’t change that,” Frost said.

“It might make her likely to have questions asked about her property taxes or her husband to have questions asked about his,” he said, adding that that was not the issue at hand. 

When it came to her voting records, Frost said he did “think it’s a little suspicious.”

“Perhaps she faked being a Georgia resident for purposes of voting in a unique election after having just voted in Wisconsin,” Frost said. “But there’s no evidence to contradict what she said, which is it was that period of COVID.”

Andrew Whitley, the executive director of the SSDC, said in a statement that the group disagreed with Frost’s decision and has questions about whether the couple completed their taxes properly,  but he said the decision whether Skinner should serve in the state Senate is now up to voters. 

“Now it’s up to the voters to decide – someone who carelessly maneuvers around the law or a lifelong public servant who has fought his entire career to lower costs, fight corruption, and prioritize working families. The choice is easy,” Whitley said.

Michele Magadance Skinner issued a statement after the ruling: “Today’s ruling in Dane County court was a testament to the important role the justice system plays in our democratic republic. I am thankful that the judge saw through the political games and blatantly false smear campaign conducted by Jeff Smith and his liberal allies. Tactics by Mr. Smith and SSDC have proven this adage to be true: ‘never wrestle with pigs – they have fun and you get dirty.’”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In a show of unity following a divisive and chaotic primary, Democratic gubernatorial nominee David Crowley met for breakfast with the losing candidates in the primary along with lieutenant governor nominee Sarah Godlewski and top Wisconsin Democrats.

Democrats are competing to hold onto the governor’s office against Republicans U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and David Varnam and hope to flip control of the state Senate and Assembly in November.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Devin Remiker, Joel Brennan, state Sen. Kelda Roys and state Rep. Francesca Hong gathered with the nominees at a cafe in Middleton. Crowley sat at the head of the table next to Godlewski and Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton).

The elected officials and losing primary candidates departed the breakfast while Crowley and Godlewski addressed reporters. 

Crowley, who in July restarted his campaign 10 days after he dropped out, said Gov. Tony Evers, who endorsed him, was his campaign’s “secret weapon.”

“He has a lot of trust and he’s done a lot of work. He’s one of the very few governors that we know has continued to deliver year after year,” Crowley said, adding that Evers’ message and experience helped as well. “We’re not going to win this race focusing on ideology alone. It’s about focusing on Wisconsin values. We cannot allow Washington politics to creep up into our own backyard.”

Godlewski, who won the nomination in an uncontested primary and introduced Crowley, said national politics are a “clear distinction from that guy, Tom Tiffany, who is an election denier, career politician who only cares about the wealthy and corporations.”

“That’s not who Wisconsin is, and that’s not who we are going to elect this November,” Godlewski said

Hong did not speak to reporters, but released a statement congratulating Crowley around the time of the breakfast.

“This campaign was not about getting one person into office. It is about building a movement for permanent affordability and a government that puts working people first. Our movement is strong, and the work isn’t done,” Hong said. “I fully support [Crowley] and look forward to working with him to defeat Congressman Tiffany in November.” 

Crowley also criticized Tiffany and promised to ensure that northern communities, many of which are represented by Tiffany, are not forgotten.

“We’re going to make sure they’re a part of this process and we can lend their voices to the solutions. We know no one has been listening to them across this state,” Crowley said, adding that Tiffany has not been hearing the concerns of his constituents and is only loyal to President Donald Trump. 

Tom Tiffany in Deforest

Tiffany, who has Trump’s endorsement, met with supporters in the afternoon at a bar in Deforest alongside lieutenant governor nominee David Varnam and attorney general nominee Eric Toney.

“Well, it appears that Thanksgiving may be safe this year,” Tiffany said, referring to the late-in-the-race controversy over a post made by Hong about canceling the holiday. The joke got  laughs in the bar. 

Ahead of the election, Republicans spent millions on ads to help boost Hong’s campaign, hoping she would become the Democratic nominee. 

In his remarks Wednesday, Tiffany tried to tie Crowley to Hong.

“There is not a dime’s worth of difference between the candidates that ran for the Democrat,” he said. “David Crowley will do the same stuff that Francesca Hong would have. He just didn’t say it.”

Tiffany also criticized Crowley for his leadership of the state’s largest county, including a lapse in health insurance coverage for Milwaukee County employees and the projected future budget deficits that the county faces, despite  Crowley’s talking point that he has only signed balanced budgets as county executive. 

Tiffany was also asked whether Crowley’s nomination changes his approach to the race. 

“It’ll be the same stuff, the same socialism, whether it’s David Crowley or anyone else,” Tiffany said. “You know, he was in the race, then he was out of the race, and then he was asked to get back in the race. He didn’t know whether he wanted to be governor or not. I want to be the governor of the state of Wisconsin, and we’ve had a plan from the very beginning that we’ve been sharing.” 

The Republican ticket will include Jay Schroeder, who won the GOP primary for secretary of state. Schroeder wants to eliminate the Wisconsin Elections Commission and put it back under the control of the secretary of state. 

Tiffany did not disavow the idea of eliminating the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which was created under former Gov. Scott Walker. 

“We’ll assess that after I am elected,” he said. “It should be easy to vote but hard to cheat, right, and we’re counting on that happening here with this election here in November.” 

Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair Brian Schimming told reporters that it is a new race and that he wouldn’t put much stock in polling or primary results. 

“Democrats spent the last several months fighting with each other. It took them three candidates to finally get to one that they could push through the primary, and the fact is that the last four or five months has been all about stopping Francesca,” Schimming said. “So it’s a new race.” 

Schimming added that “a primary winner will get a bump, you know, so I’m not going to be surprised by anything I see in the polls in the next week or two.”

Data centers and young voters 

In the Democratic primary for governor, Hong built much of her campaign on motivating young voters and leveraging her stance on AI data centers. She supported a one-year moratorium. Both Crowley and Tiffany addressed how they would approach the issue Wednesday. 

Asked about winning over Hong voters, Crowley said young people should have a seat at the table. 

“They need to be a part of creating the strategy and making sure that you know they have opportunities as well,” Crowley said. “Young people don’t feel that they can look into their future right now. When the average home-buying age is 40 years old, when right now they’re looking at data centers and artificial intelligence taking the jobs in the future, and so we have to focus on making sure that we’re lifting up their voices and protecting what they believe needs to be protected.”

Tiffany said that his message to young voters is “we’re going to make life more affordable for you.” He said he would do that by cutting property taxes by eliminating Evers’ 400-year veto that gives school districts authority to bring in more revenue by raising taxes, and by cutting regulations on homebuilding to make it more affordable to build a home. 

“I understand the frustration. I mean, I have three daughters in their twenties, and it’s not easy to make ends meet at this point,” Tiffany said. 

Crowley, who has said he supports banning nondisclosure agreements for data center projects, did not offer his support for a moratorium on AI data centers when asked by a reporter.

“We have to focus on making sure that we have accountability with these data centers,” Crowley said. “They have to pay their own way, they need to pay for their own infrastructure and they need to bring their own new clean energy. I am committed to working with the state Legislature to make sure we have as many guardrails as possible.”

Tiffany said he would end subsidies for data centers that were signed into Wisconsin law under Evers, work to ensure that utility rates don’t go up and would ban nondisclosure agreements. 

“Well it sounds like David Crowley will give a blank check to data centers,” Tiffany said. “They do not need to be subsidized by us, the taxpayers, and we’re gonna make sure that people’s electricity rates do not go up. We’re going to make sure that we have full transparency.”

Crowley and Evers in final sprint

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and Gov. Tony Evers met with volunteers at Crowley’s campaign headquarters in Madison on Monday to thank them for their support.

Crowley and Evers have been racing cross the state over the last week to try to boost Crowley’s profile and win enough support to overtake state Rep. Francesca Hong, who has been leading the field in recent polls. 

Evers told reporters that people are “jazzed as hell” for Crowley. He had stayed out of the primary until July when the campaign of Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez collapsed. Crowley, at the time had suspended his campaign, but he was encouraged by Evers and others to get back into the race with Evers’ endorsement. 

Asked if he regretted waiting to endorse, Evers said he might have done it slightly earlier.

“No. Well, I wish I — yes and no,” Evers said. “It came to a point, and that point was really important…. Maybe in the return, I might have done it a week or two earlier, but this is kind of fun.”

Evers has said in recent days that he doesn’t think Hong can defeat likely Republican nominee U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany. He told reporters Monday that he would campaign for Hong if she wins, saying the “alternative is not good.”

Crowley told reporters that he feels optimistic going into Tuesday. 

“This primary has been chaotic. It’s been messy, but so is our democracy, and at the end of the day, it’s about making sure that all of our voters across this state or wherever they are that they have great options,” Crowley said. “We’re going to continue to focus on the affordability crisis, making things more affordable for families across this state, but also that I’m the only one that’s going to be ready on day one. We have seen a lot of incredible momentum in the past few weeks.”

One of Crowley’s supporters is Lester Pines, a 76-year-old retired attorney who spent much of his career fighting for progressive causes including against former Gov. Scott Walker. Pines said he was “moderately optimistic” going into Tuesday. He and Kaleem Caire, the co-founder of One City Schools, hosted a meet-and-greet event for Crowley early in the campaign.

“I was very impressed with David’s story of his life and with the fact that he’s the Milwaukee county executive and understands what it takes to actually run a large unit of government, and he’s a great communicator,” Pines said, adding that his actions have been “consistent with the positions that I have had, and my friends have had for decades.” 

Pines said Crowley is the right person to go up against “Tom Trump Tiffany,” though he said that he’ll be 100% in for Hong if she becomes the nominee. 

“I’m more than willing to support her if she’s the nominee. The problem is that she has littered herself with a number of very negative things that are going to become what the campaign is about despite how hard she’s going to try to stick to the issues, and that is what worries me,” Pines said. 

Hong rallies canvassers

About two hours later, just a few miles further east in Madison, Hong greeted her supporters before they got started with a canvassing effort at her campaign office in the Willy Street neighborhood. Hong has been leading in polls since early in the primary, and her lead has grown significantly since March of this year.

Hong told her supporters that “now it’s time to level up.”

“It’s not just about winning tomorrow, but it’s about uniting our coalition. It’s about bringing in new builders. It’s about making sure everyone in Wisconsin sees themselves in our vision for a better Wisconsin for everyone,” Hong said. 

Many Democrats, including Evers, have expressed doubts about Hong’s ability to win the general election as a democratic socialist with a history of making controversial social media posts in a swing state that voted for President Donald Trump twice. 

“We’ve been winning in the polls. We’ve been winning over voters because we’re the campaign that actually listens to what they want and what they care about, and we’re going up against a Republican, who will never care about Wisconsinites, who will sell out our natural resources to the highest bidder. Tom Tiffany is an election denier and a traitor. He supports a national abortion ban. A vote for Tiffany is a vote for Trump, not for the people,” Hong told her supporters, adding that the campaign is about the people and “not just my opponents, not about the rhetoric and certainly not about the tweets.” 

Answering questions from reporters, Hong said she looks forward to building unity after the primary and that she is “very confident that we’ll be able to show folks that Democrats are coming together to make sure that Democrats win down and up the ballot this November.”

Throughout her campaign, Hong has held over 320 events and leveraged thousands of volunteers to build support. She said she knew she’d have to “out hustle” the other candidates as the “wildcard” in the race. 

Even the day before Election Day, a handful of new canvassers were given a quick training and instructed to keep things positive when talking about other Democratic candidates and speaking to voters who like Hong “but they’re worried about her electability.” 

One volunteer said they supported Hong because she doesn’t take corporate PAC money, adding, “there’s only one other candidate who does that and she has no motion,” a reference to state Sen. Kelda Roys. Another volunteer mentioned Hong’s position on AI data centers — she supports a one-year moratorium, while other candidates have said they want to impose new regulations. 

— Baylor Spears

Roys sees path forward down to the wire

State Sen. Kelda Roys campaigned through the weekend, with stops scheduled in De Pere and Green Bay on Friday, Ojibwa and Hudson on Saturday, Eau Claire and Mauston on Sunday and online events Sunday afternoon and evening.

On Monday she began her day at the Wisconsin State Fair, followed by a brew pub meet-and-greet in Wauwatosa, a town hall event in Whitewater and wrapping up with a rally at a Madison restaurant two blocks from the Capitol.

“There is such a hunger for change,” Roys told the group of about 90 who gathered under a tent in the back yard of Naples 15. “People are furious about what this Republican authoritarian regime is doing to our country, and they want a leader who is willing to stand up and fight for it. And people are ready to finally put the nail in the coffin of the Walker years.”

Surrounded by enthusiastic supporters, although polls have put her behind Hong and Crowley, Roys said she saw  signs that she takes as a message not to count her out.

“Even now this weekend, as I traveled around and I said, ‘Who’s undecided?’, a good chunk of people still raise their hands,” she said. “We know that when folks see all the candidates side by side, when they hear us, when they have the opportunity to actually clue in and pay attention, they do gravitate towards me and my progressive policies.”

She mentioned a poll after the one Democratic gubernatorial debate that showed her gaining support from swing voters.

“I am just overwhelmed by the outpouring of support that I have received all over the state, and I have to tell you, it has accelerated wildly in the last several weeks since the debate,” Roys said.

After her pep talk, which lasted a little more than 15 minutes, Roys spent another half-hour taking questions and comments from the crowd.

Bryna Caves, who is running in the Democratic primary for the 50th Assembly District that includes Green County, told Roys that she had originally supported Hong’s campaign.

But hearing Roys at a rally Caves held in February to launch her own campaign, “it was really obvious to me that Kelda had equally as progressive values as Fran but was wildly more qualified. She had way more experience. Her policies were much more thought out, and I just was much more in touch with her in person,” Caves said.“I flipped because it was obvious to me that she is — If we really want to achieve the goals that we want, like universal healthcare, childcare, if we want to make these things actually happen, the one that’s going to be able to get it done with no drama is Kelda.”

— Erik Gunn

Brennan looks forward to next phase

Joel Brennan met with a small group of supporters in a quiet and scenic Mequon neighborhood on Monday. Brennan aimed to canvas the area, filled with huge houses, scenic nature views, and quiet courts, and cul de sacs to gain support ahead of the Tuesday Democratic primary election. 

Pointing to his experience serving as Secretary of Administration under Gov. Tony Evers, as well as in the private sector and running the state’s largest science museum, Discovery World, Brennan told reporters that he’s a prime candidate. Brennan said that the more he talks to voters, the more he hears people express frustration “with the government doing nothing, and government standing in place when we have real problems to address around healthcare, around childcare, or education.” Brennan added, “I’m somebody who’s always been about getting things done.” 

Brennan said he’s looking forward to what comes after the election Tuesday. “The field will change, the conversation will change after tomorrow,” he said. Despite all the twists and turns during the primary race, Brennan said voters remain focused on how to improve their lives, and how candidates can help them achieve that. 

Looking back at whether he has any regrets in his campaign, Brennan said that the disappearance of local media in small towns was a challenge. “I’m the son of two journalists,” said Brennan, “the world has changed. But I think we’re worse off if we don’t get local eyes, and local coverage, and local conversation about what’s going on. If there was something that I wish I had more of in this campaign, it’s sitting across the table from a grizzled local media veteran talking about local issues, forcing me to know more about that community, forcing me to answer for the issues in that community. And we don’t have that.” Brennan said that he believes “that we’d be a better-informed electorate if we had more of a chance to have those local conversations.”

Asked what he thinks will be the key to beating Republican Tom Tiffany in the race for governor, Brennan went after Tiffany’s ads. “Everybody has seen commercials to this point of Tom Tiffany looking over his shoulder and looking at his mother,” said Brennan. “I think the fall campaign’s going to have to be Tom Tiffany looking over his shoulder and seeing Donald Trump. Because he has spent more time with Donald Trump than his mother is my guess, and he’s been more closely aligned with him in his voting record than almost anybody else in America, and he has to answer to that.” 

Brennan said that Democrats also need to “offer up a positive vision” including how to help farmers and how to open up educational opportunities, “stop pitting property tax payers against kids,” and how to ensure healthcare is more affordable for people. “We better be offering up an alternative and a vision that solves problems for people and gives them a pathway to understanding that things are going to be better and things are going to be different if we get elected,” he said.

— Isiah Holmes

Peggy Hedberg, a Madison resident, recently switched her support in the Democratic primary for governor from state Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley — a decision she said she has made because “pragmatically” she wants to vote for someone to win. Roys has been polling in the single digits.

Hedberg said it was Crowley’s energy that won her over.

“I felt like he had the strength to carry us,” she said, noting that it was hard for her to switch. She said she cares about electing women, especially as abortion access is one of the most important issues to her, but she also cares about having a candidate who can work with the Legislature to get things done. “I had to make a decision, and that was hard, but I felt that with Evers’ backing and other factors that this would be a better way for us to move forward.” 

Hedberg was at a meet and greet with Crowley on Wednesday afternoon in downtown Madison. Crowley is looking to win over voters like Hedberg with just five days until Election Day. 

Crowley told reporters that he is focusing on consolidating votes from people who are undecided. According to the last Marquette Law School poll, 34% of likely Democratic primary voters had not yet made up their minds. 

Crowley’s campaign ended in July, then restarted at the end of the month following the implosion of Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez’s campaign. In his second launch, Crowley entered with the endorsement of Gov. Tony Evers, triggering accusations that he is the candidate of the Democratic “establishment.” He said Wednesday that “when people try to call me the establishment, I look at that as a slur, particularly as an African American candidate.” Describing his background as a child of parents who struggled with addiction, mental illness and serial evictions, he said he has always represented the people, not the powerful.

When Crowley entered his campaign’s new office on East Washington Avenue in Madison at mid-day on Wednesday, he made a circuit of the room, greeting attendees individually with a huge grin and firm handshakes. Crowley told reporters that six days is “absolutely” enough time to get voters acquainted with him. 

The stop is one of several Crowley is making this week as he crisscrosses the state in an attempt to introduce himself to voters and win enough support to overcome state Rep. Francesca Hong’s substantial lead in recent polls. Election Day is Tuesday.

Crowley told one group of attendees that “there are Democrats everywhere,” describing his campaign stops in Wausau, Rhinelander, Hudson, Superior and Green Bay. At a recent stop in Baraboo he took pictures at the Clown Museum.

Crowley said he was trying “to see if we could find Tom Tiffany.”

This week, Crowley campaigned in Appleton with Gov. Evers and won the endorsement of U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, the Congressional Black Caucus PAC and state legislators including Legislative Black Caucus Chair Sen. Dora Drake and Rep. Lisa Subeck, who spoke at the Madison event.

“There is something magnetic about him. I think about some of the things that I have loved about Gov. Tony Evers — he is a good guy, he is a good person who leads with his head and with his heart — and I think David holds many of those same qualities,” Subeck told the crowd.

Crowley and Subeck served in the Legislature while Democrats were in the minority. Subeck said Crowley had a “particular talent for not only standing up for our core values, but for also working across the aisle without compromising our values” when he served in the Legislature.

Crowley told attendees that the biggest problem facing Democrats is that “all we’ve been doing is responding and reacting to Donald Trump and Republicans.”

“As long as we do that, guess who’s defining us for us? They are,” Crowley said. “So, it’s time for us to get off the sidelines and stop playing defense and get on the offense. This is the time where we not only need a Democratic governor, but we need to make sure that we’re flipping the state Senate, flipping the state Assembly, because none of these policies that I’m about to rattle off becomes a reality unless we’re in charge.” 

Crowley spoke about capping the cost of childcare at 7%, fixing the school funding formula and boosting the state’s share of special education costs to 90% as well as supporting unions by repealing the union-busting law Act 10.

At one point, Crowley took issue with a proposed moratorium on AI data centers, which Hong has made a key point in her campaign. He said that he is frustrated that the Republican-led Legislature finished its work this year without establishing any regulation on the constructions of them. 

“People may talk about a moratorium, but what is that moratorium going to do about the data centers that are currently being built or are operating right now? It’s short-term thinking but it doesn’t address the long-term concerns we all have in this state,” Crowley said, adding that data centers need to “pay their own way.”

Crowley said that implementing a ban on non-disclosure agreements between local governments and big tech companies building data centers, requiring union labor and having companies pay for their own clean energy is essential. 

Crowley also challenged predictions based on polling ahead of Election Day, especially after the results of Michigan’s U.S. Senate race. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive, defeated U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens by about 1 point, after polls showed him leading the race by more than 10 points. 

Hong has been polling 20 points or more ahead of Crowley. 

The Crowley campaign released a memo on Wednesday that said “results in Michigan Tuesday night showed polling that failed to appropriately capture and reflect the primary electorate and well overstated the position of the race frontrunner. Democrats are in the driver’s seat in Wisconsin to choose David Crowley and have the best fighting chance against Tom Tiffany in November.”

The memo found that in the four-person primary for governor, Hong led Crowley 42% to 24% while Roys and former Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan were still polling in the single digits. 

Asked about whether he thinks the other candidates could cut into his margins and propel Hong to the nomination, Crowley told reporters that his job is to “convince as many voters as possible why we’re the winning candidate.” 

“With it being almost a clear race between two particular candidates, those voters and those candidates, they’re going to have to make their own decisions,” Crowley said. He also said that he would never tell a candidate to drop out.

The Crowley campaign’s internal poll found Hong up 53% to 33% against Crowley in a head-to-head race. Once those being polled were informed of both candidates’ positions, Hong led Crowley 47% to 38%

Young people make up a large share of Hong’s base, but Evan Natzke, an 18-year-old who recently graduated from Milton High School south of Madison, enthusiastically greeted Crowley at the event. He told the Examiner that he met Crowley before and he appreciated that he seems like a “super genuine person.”

“I just love his energy. I feel like he’s just so charismatic,” Natzke said. 

Natzke said Hong has good ideas, but he is concerned about how she’ll do in the general election, saying that Republicans “are going to be able to paint this picture of her being this super crazy radical person.”

“I just don’t think that a normal voter is going to really like that image that is painted of her,” Natzke said. “And along with that, I’m also unsure if her policies will be able to work at the state level.”

Hasan Piker and Ilhan Omar join Francesca Hong on the campaign trail for governor of Wisconsin. Polls show that Francesca Hong is leading the Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor. Hasan Piker, Ilhan Omar, and Hong deliver their remarks to a boisterous crowd at South Milwaukee High School. Freelance videographer Jonathan Klett captures full video of the event.

A rock concert sized crowd packed the Overture Center in downtown Madison on Friday, July 17, eager to hear former Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler talk about his new book, “This is the Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy.”

People are desperate for a little optimism and a sense of direction and Wikler offers both, served with a big smile and a hefty dose of energetic encouragement. To enthusiastic applause, he described, during an hour-long conversation on stage with former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, how Wisconsin has played a starring role in the fight against authoritarianism and the destruction of democracy by a greedy, corrupt elite. He cast the long battle against former Republican Gov. Scott Walker in heroic terms, connecting it to progress during Gov. Tony Evers’ two terms in office, the end of Republican gerrymandering, the defeat of Elon Musk’s preferred candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the election of a new liberal Court majority and, prospectively, a Democratic sweep of state government this fall. 

The Walker fight was a warmup for the battle against Donald Trump and the unprecedented destruction of society he unleashed, Wikler said. Our state is an example to the nation, leading the way in a people-powered fight to restore a more humane, civilized society.

Listening to him you could forget for a moment how tenuous Wisconsin’s political situation is, and how rocky the Democratic primary has been right up to the eve of an election that will determine who faces Trump’s choice for governor, Tom Tiffany, in November.

But the lesson Wikler is offering is not that political victory is a sure thing. The “plan” he’s devised involves a lot of hard work and a difficult fight. The outcome is far from certain. But he makes a solid case that organizing is the best antidote to despair and has resulted in some impressive victories here in Wisconsin.

It took years after the massive, historic protests of 2011 to defeat Walker, who survived a recall effort and went on to be elected to a second term before Evers beat him by a narrow 1-point margin in 2018. 

Evers hasn’t unwound all the damage Walker and the Republican Legislature did to workers, state agencies and, most of all, public schools in Wisconsin, but in Wikler’s opinion he did a great job playing defense against an arrogant, destructive Republican majority in the Legislature and put the state on the right path. Now that we have fair maps, the days of Republican supermajority control are over and Wisconsin is on its way to restoring labor rights and a once-great school system, Wikler says. Some public schools advocates who feel deeply disappointed by the “education governor” might disagree. Schools all over Wisconsin are in desperate financial shape and the ever-expanding private school voucher program, which is draining their resources, coupled with austerity budgets passed by the Republicans and signed by Evers, have left Wisconsin public schools in desperate shape. Advocates are angry that Evers didn’t get more done.

But broadly, Wikler makes a good case for optimism. And that is not just helpful, it’s necessary. Reminding people of past triumphs and encouraging them to fight for something better is the only way out of our current fix.

We are living in dangerous times. We need leaders to help bring us together. 

In the governor’s race, we saw yet another top candidate drop out this week under a cloud of damaging allegations. 

Meanwhile Wisconsin is reeling from a horrible police shooting, and a powerful tornado just leveled several communities days after wildfire smoke blanketed parts of the state, a reminder of the existential threat of climate change.

In the face of these challenges, and under a violent authoritarian regime, it’s easy to see how things can spin out of control. People are angry, desperate, divided.

Wikler offers a better vision. We could pull together and recommit to a peaceful, generous and unifying vision. It’s helpful to reflect on how we’ve done that before.

In the primary, ultimately voters have to come together behind a single candidate or just accept losing a high-stakes race.

But the same idea applies to communities buffeted by natural disasters. Politicians who deny what’s happening are betraying all of us, regardless of political party. We need to prepare and protect ourselves from the undeniable bad weather that’s going to continue to come our way and we need to organize ourselves to stop destroying the planet before there’s nothing left to protect.

On a smaller scale, Madison leaders need to engage with the protesters on Willy Street, take meaningful steps to address the series of appalling police killings in that neighborhood, and figure out how to allow the life of the neighborhood to go on, as tempers fray over an indefinite encampment on the site where Ruiz was shot.

Division and fear are part of what plagues the Madison neighborhood where a police officer killed Ruiz by shooting him in the head after knocking him off a bicycle in a shocking, broad-daylight encounter. Well-meaning neighbors and local officials have blocked streets and canceled community events in part to show solidarity with the protesters and mourners who set up the encampment, but also out of fear that those protesters will disrupt more events after they shut down the Concert on the Square, the Dane County Farmers’ Market, and a city press conference following the shooting. The fear is a symptom of our mutual isolation of an anxious, segregated city that wants to be progressive but has a long way to go toward fostering real inclusion. It ought to be possible to accommodate political speech and healthy public dialogue about racism, violence and injustice right in the same common space where local businesses remain open and we hold inclusive community events. The shutdown and the silent standoff with no visible movement by either the city or the protesters is becoming dysfunctional and driving people further apart. 

In a way it’s not surprising that the wheels are coming off the wagon in local communities as we face more rage, despair and bleak news every day. We are living in a click-bait world. We need to get out of fight-or-flight mode and connect with each other, discover our common interests and organize to build the society we want. 

That’s Wikler’s vision. It beats the hell out of being divided and conquered.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not planning an aggressive campaign at voting sites during the upcoming midterm elections, the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday in response to a States Newsroom inquiry about a letter from U.S. Senate Democrats voicing concerns about armed federal agents at polling places.

ICE, an agency within DHS that has sustained intense criticism since the start of the second Trump administration for its aggressive and sometimes deadly tactics, has no plans to target polling sites in November, a DHS official told States Newsroom in an email. 

The official left open the possibility, though, that the agency’s plans could change based on available intelligence.

“ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations,” the DHS official said. “ICE conducts intelligence-driven targeted enforcement, and if an active public safety threat endangered a polling location, they may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action.”

The email came from a general DHS media account and did not name the official. The statement did not specify anything about DHS agencies other than ICE.

While DHS made similar statements earlier this year, this one responded to a request for comment about a letter this week from a dozen U.S. Senate Democrats to three Cabinet members demanding to know more about the administration’s possible plans to send federal law enforcement officers to polling places across the country. 

The group, led by Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, sent a letter Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in which the lawmakers asked whether armed federal agents would be deployed at election sites, which they said would be prohibited under federal law. 

“Congress has enacted longstanding criminal prohibitions against sending federal personnel to polling places and using federal power to interfere with elections,” they wrote. “Americans should never have to wonder whether the federal government intends to police the ballot box with armed agents.” 

Democrats have voiced increasing worries that President Donald Trump is seeking to control elements of election administration, which is a state responsibility under the U.S. Constitution. 

The issue is at the center of lawsuits brought by Democratic campaign and nonpartisan voting-rights groups challenging an executive order restricting mail-in voting. And U.S. House Democrats say the administration is withholding disaster relief funds as leverage to force states to change their election laws.

“The letter reflects my and my Senate colleagues’ deep concerns that Donald Trump appears to be planning to steal the upcoming election, which Republicans cannot win on the merits,” Markey said in a Thursday statement to States Newsroom. “We know that no unlawful, illegal, and unconstitutional act is beyond him and we must be ready for it.”

Joining Markey on the Tuesday letter were Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York, Gary Peters of Michigan, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Andy Kim of New Jersey, Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Maria Cantwell of Washington.

Growing concern 

The senators’ concerns, they said, arise partly from findings revealed earlier this month that came out of an investigation launched in 2025 by the Democratic National Committee. 

Last October, the committee sought records regarding the possible deployment of federal law enforcement officers to polling stations, ballot-drop sites and election offices. The departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Defense initially did not produce any documents, and during ensuing litigation, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement represented it had found “no responsive records,” according to the July 28 letter. 

But after the DNC challenged the search results, ICE admitted to finding “more than 11,000 potentially responsive pages,” while U.S. Customs and Border Protection, another DHS agency, said it located nearly 117,000, lawmakers wrote. 

The Department of Defense declined to comment Thursday on the senators’ letter, telling States Newsroom that it will instead follow its typical protocol of responding directly to the authors themselves. 

The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s focus on elections  

Democrats’ inquiries into the administration’s plans also stem from comments President Donald Trump has made in recent months about election integrity.

When a PBS Newshour correspondent asked Trump in May if he would send ICE agents or National Guard troops to polling sites for the midterms, he said he would “do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections.”  

And earlier this month, during a nationwide primetime address, he again reiterated claims about the country’s voting systems being vulnerable to hacking and disputed his 2020 presidential loss, sowing doubts about the entire election process despite having a lack of evidence to back up his words.  

“President Trump’s statements, coupled with his repeated threats to invoke the Insurrection Act — which authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the United States to suppress rebellion or domestic violence — only heighten concerns,” the senators added in their letter. 

“The Administration now has a choice,” they wrote. “It can continue to fuel the appearance that it is laying the groundwork for an unprecedented federal intrusion into state-run elections, or it can finally provide Congress and the American people with the transparency they deserve.”

The lawmakers requested that Blanche, Mullin and Hegseth provide details about any possible plans to deploy federal troops at election sites in November and identify who may have authorized such deployments, setting a deadline of August 11. 

They also asked that the federal agency leaders produce records “concerning the possible deployment of federal law enforcement personnel or troops to polling places or other election sites.” 

State Rep. Francesca Hong received a significant bump following the shakeup in the Democratic primary for governor, according to a Marquette Law School poll released Wednesday.

With in-person early voting underway and Election Day less than two weeks away, it is the latest poll to be released that seeks to understand how Democratic primary voters are responding to recent events. Once again it shows Hong leading. It is also the last Marquette Law School poll that will be released ahead of the primary. 

A Marquette Law School poll released last week showed that 26% of likely Democratic primary voters would vote for Hong. Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes followed with 15% of likely Democratic voters in that poll. However, that poll was taken before Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez dropped out of the race due to a campaign finance disaster and before Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley got back into the race. 

“I’m pleased to say we managed to do an entire week of polling and no candidates changed,” Charles Franklin, director of the poll, joked at the start of the release of the results. 

The latest poll was conducted between July 22 and July 27. Just after Crowley rejoined the race on July 18 with the endorsement of Gov. Tony Evers. The poll included responses from 407 registered voters, including 254 respondents who were also interviewed for the previous poll and 153 new respondents.

The poll showed that Hong received support from 38% of likely Democratic primary voters — a 12-point jump. She was followed by Barnes with 16% and Crowley with 7%. Former Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan and state Sen. Kelda Roys were each supported by 2% of those polled. 

About 34% of likely voters said they were still undecided — down from 45% the week prior. Franklin said this isn’t a trivial number. 

The poll also asked undecided voters who they were leaning towards. The choice of Democratic primary voters, including those with a lean, was 46% Hong, 21% Barnes, 11% Crowley and 4% each for Brennan and Roys.

“This is the lay of the land and what you see is very obvious and that is Francesca Hong has opened up her lead, expanded it beyond where it was a week or so ago,” Franklin said, adding that it looks similar to Evers’ position in 2018 polling during that Democratic primary. “Took people a long time make up their minds and get to know the candidates, and Evers moved up into a significant lead at the end.” 

The poll also sought to understand the impact of Evers’ endorsement. About 62% of those polled said they had heard of the endorsement. Among primary voters, 36% said the Evers endorsement makes them more likely to support Crowley, 9% said less likely and 56% said the endorsement doesn’t make any difference.

Franklin said the numbers reflect “the fact that endorsements don’t matter the way they did 30 years ago, even with a guy with an 89% approval rating.”

“People make up their own minds. The machine is not what it used to be,” Franklin said. “I think there’s a wide open debate, and I guess we’ll really know the answer on the 11th or the morning of the 12th… He does still have two weeks to go in this campaign to convert that into votes.” 

Of Crowley, Franklin said, “He’s certainly in a better position than he was in March when we asked about him way, way, long ago. But these fundamental results say he’s in third place.” 

“Things could shift, I guess, but the Evers endorsement and the reentry did not boost him into second place. He’s in third place.”

WASHINGTON — New data reveals the number of women running in the 2026 elections is slightly up from 2024, but experts say there is still progress to be made with women’s representation in public office overall. 

The number of women running for governor has reached an all-time high this election cycle, and the number seeking a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives could also set a record, according to July 20 data from The Center for American Women and Politics, or CAWP. 

The center, part of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, collects data on women’s representation in federal, state and local government. 

The center also conducts research and runs educational programs on the role of women in politics. Its mission is to increase female involvement in public life. 

Women in the midterms

There are 85 women major-party candidates running for governor across 36 states this year, a number that significantly exceeds the previous record of 69, set in 2022. 

Fifty-one of those women are Democrats, another record, and 34 are Republicans. 

On the congressional level, 580 women are currently major-party contenders for the U.S. House, a figure that is just three away from the 2018 and 2020 record of 583 women candidates. 

That record could be broken once Louisiana reaches its candidate filing deadline for the House on Aug. 7, according to CAWP.  

The number of Democratic House candidates who are women has already reached an all-time high at 387. The remaining 183 women running are Republicans. 

In the Senate, 64 women from major parties are running for a seat, exactly half of them Democrats and half of them Republicans. The record for women Senate candidates was set in 2022 at 70. 

Fairly high numbers of women would need to emerge as Senate candidates in Maine and South Carolina to beat that record of 70, said CAWP Director of Data Chelsea Hill during a media briefing with other CAWP research experts on Tuesday.

A day before the briefing, Republican Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina, who was sworn in July 14 to replace her late brother, Lindsey Graham, announced plans to run for a full six-year term following the encouragement of President Donald Trump. 

Although record numbers of congressional women candidates have not yet been reached in either the U.S. House or Senate, the overall number of women running for Congress is up compared to the last election cycle. 

In 2024, the number of women who sought seats in Congress dropped after having previously increased for three consecutive cycles, a phenomenon that CAWP later described as “evidence of stalled progress toward gender parity,” Hill said. 

Despite the increase in women seeking office over the years, female representation is still low when taken as a percentage of all candidates running for Congress and state governors. 

According to another set of CAWP data from July 20, women make up 27% of total candidacies for the U.S. House and 23.9% of the total for the Senate in 2026. About 25% of gubernationarial candidates are women. 

Milestones within reach 

But at the same time, CAWP experts said at the media briefing, there are many milestones women could achieve in the 2026 election cycle, including firsts for women in certain government positions and for “women of specific racial and ethnic backgrounds and within either party.” 

They pointed to current Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, a Republican, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democrat, who are both running to become the first women to serve as governors of their respective states. 

And Deb Haaland, the former U.S. secretary of the Interior currently running in New Mexico, could become the first-ever Native American woman governor in any state if she wins in November. 

At the congressional level, names such as Milat Keros, Aisha Wahab, Denise Powell and more have the potential to break barriers for women in public office. 

Keros is in place to become the first Black woman to represent Colorado, Wahab the first Middle Eastern or North African woman to serve from California and Powell the first Democratic woman to represent Nebraska in Congress.

At the end of the media briefing, CAWP Scholar and Director of Research Kelly Dittmar said the center’s 2026 candidacy data could be used as a tool to study and open up a broader discussion about women’s political pathways, nodding particularly to Blackburn and Klobuchar’s gubernatorial runs. 

“When we think about women moving to be chief executives of a state as a potential pathway to the presidency, (it’s) also something we need to always keep our eye on,” she said. 

CAWP’s data focuses on major party candidates and will continue to be updated regularly to account for upcoming state filing deadlines and congressional primary results. 

UPDATE: This story has been updated to include reactions. 

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez is suspending her campaign for governor after a week of trying to navigate the fallout of a financial disaster. 

“As we have continued to dig into our financial reports, it has become clear that there are issues that would be an ongoing distraction —  not just for this campaign, but for the primary and for Wisconsin,” Rodriguez said in a statement and a video posted to X. “This race is too important to Wisconsin to let that happen.” 

Rodriguez’s troubles emerged when she announced she fired her campaign manager, Kara Spencer, on Sunday due to “serious mismanagement and inaccuracies in campaign finance filings she prepared.” Rodriguez’s January finance reports showed hundreds of duplicate contributions, and during a Monday press conference, Rodriguez said she had hundreds of thousands of dollars less than she expected, but was determined to push ahead, calling it a “bump in the road.”

While she sought to continue on, additional mistakes arose when she submitted her campaign finance reports Wednesday. Her initial report showed she had less than $35,000 in the bank and over $150,000 in debts to sort through. 

However, her campaign put out a statement saying that she had raised $219,000 since July 1 and would be launching a new campaign ad. Her campaign also said that it was still “actively working to ensure our financial records are accurate and complete.” 

The initial report showed a payment to WI Federation of Republican Women, which was a mistake that was fixed in the amended report. However, the amended report also dramatically increased the tally of her campaign dollars to show she ended the period with $643,206. 

The campaign later said that report was a mistake, and the campaign did end the period with only $34,991 in cash-on-hand after all. 

Rodriguez in her statement on suspending the campaign said that she “cannot in good conscience allow these questions to become a cloud over an election that Democrats need to win.”

“I am deeply hurt and betrayed by what happened,” Rodriguez said. “As I said on Monday, part of being a leader is taking swift action, doing the right thing, and being as honest as possible when there’s a problem.” 

“This was never just about any one race or any one candidate,” Rodriguez continued. “This is about protecting Wisconsin from a legislature hell-bent on putting corporations over schools and insurance companies over patients. It’s about showing the rest of the country that we can win here, govern here, and fight for the middle class — and that Wisconsin will lead the way.”

Her exit from the race is the third in recent weeks, narrowing the field to four candidates: former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, state Rep. Francesca Hong, state Sen. Kelda Roys and Joel Brennan, former head of the Department of Administration.

There are just 25 days until Wisconsin’s primary election.

Rodriguez’s campaign appeared to be growing momentum ahead of the financial scandal partially due to the endorsements of her former Democratic opponents, Missy Hughes, the former CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. Crowley dropped out last Wednesday and endorsed Rodriguez on Thursday, around the same time that Rodriguez said she realized something was amiss with her financials. 

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, there is a push to get Crowley to re-enter the race, and two Democratic sources told the newspaper that Gov. Tony Evers is “very seriously considering” backing that effort. Late Friday, Crowley released a statement from “Democratic candidate for governor David Crowley” calling a press conference in Milwaukee at which he will make an announcement at 11 a.m. Saturday.

Evers has so far stayed out of the race. When the two-term governor announced his retirement, however, he left open the door for endorsing in the primary saying “never say never” and “if there’s somebody who really needs support, and I want them to win, I might get in.”

Hughes also called on Crowley to get back into the race in a post on X.

While some Democrats sought to pull Crowley back into the race, candidates still in the race highlighted their campaigns  and hoped to pull supporters over to their campaign. 

Brennan, the only other current or former member of Evers’ administration still in the governor’s race, was the first to issue a statement Friday.

“I deeply respect Lieutenant Governor Rodriguez and the ideas and energy she brought to this race,” said Brennan. “This is no doubt disappointing for her and people who supported her campaign, and I am committed to joining her in the fight to protect the Wisconsin we love.”

Brennan has been among the most vocal critics of how the Rodriguez campaign had managed its finance and compliance operation. He emphasized when he submitted his own report this week that her difficulties had weakened her as a candidate in the general election against the likely Republican nominee, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany.

“While a lot has changed in the Democratic primary, one thing has not: we need a governor who can win and who will fight for Wisconsin to get things done,” said Brennan, adding that he was “the candidate who will get big things done.”  

Sen. Kelda Roys followed shortly after with a call Friday “to unite the party so that we can defeat Tom Tiffany and deliver a Democratic trifecta.”

Both Brennan and Roys have finished further back in polls on the race to date. Until this week Rodriguez, Barnes and Hong have been the top candidates in polling.

The Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair Brian Schimming said in a statement that Democrats are “in full meltdown mode.” 

“With zero clear candidate and lackluster fundraising, any hope Democrats had has turned into a dumpster fire,” Schimming said. “As Democrats fight among themselves in primaries and scramble for resources, Republicans are organized, well-funded, and laser-focused on victory in November.”

Democratic candidates vying for the chance to flip Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional seat for the first time in 16 years made their case during a debate Tuesday night. 

The three candidates competing for the Democratic nomination are Chris Armstrong, a New Richmond resident and IT small business owner; Fred Clark, former Democratic state legislator, former executive director of Wisconsin’s Green Fire and owner of Clark Forestry, Inc.; and Ginger Murray, a small business owner and lawyer from the Northwoods. The debate was hosted by WJFW Newswatch 12.

The winner of the Democratic primary will face the winner of the Republican primary in November. The GOP  candidates participated in a debate last week. They include Michael Alfonso, whose father-in-law, Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, formerly held the seat and has been campaigning on his behalf. The other Republican contenders are Niina Baum, a lifelong Northwoods resident and dog musher; Jessi Ebben, a public relations professional; and Kevin Hermening, a financial advisor and former U.S. Marine. 

The seat is currently held by Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is running for governor. The general election will be an uphill battle for the Democratic nominee in a district that has been represented by Republicans since 2011. In his 2024 reelection campaign, Tiffany defeated his Democratic challenger by 63.6% to 36.4% of the vote.

Dems describe how they’ll compete in Trump Country 

Prior to Tiffany and Duffy, Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District was represented by Democrat Dave Obey, the longest serving U.S. House member in Wisconsin history, from 1969 until 2011. The Democratic candidates all laid out their reasons why they believe they can flip the district back from Republican control. 

Ginger noted the success of progressive women in recent state Supreme Court elections, saying it is a sign that a candidate like her could win in the district.

“The lady lawyer leaders have been killer, crushing it and getting the support of this community. Most notably, Susan Crawford pushed this district over the 50% mark and showed that counties that haven’t voted blue in the longest time are absolutely looking for someone to take the reins. There are 96 other women in the Democratic caucus who are waiting for more women to join them to hold people accountable in Washington, DC, and I fit that bill.”

Armstrong said that his appeal is being a “normal guy.”

“I grew up here. I went to school here, raised my family here, started my company here. I think what people are looking for is just normal people going to get up there and advocate for them and really hold this administration accountable and start advocating for policies that are really going to make a difference in people’s lives. It’s not just Democrats, but it’s also independents and Republicans that are really sick of the status quo.”

Armstrong announced his campaign for the seat in April 2025. He said that he got “activated” by Trump’s second inauguration as he watched a “flurry of illegal, un-American, unconstitutional executive orders and Elon Musk taking a sledgehammer to the federal government.”

“I couldn’t believe that nobody was doing anything about it, so I took to the streets in my hometown in Richmond and started protesting by myself at the busiest intersection in town at rush hour.”

Clark highlighted his experience as a state lawmaker who represented a rural part of the state. He served in the state Assembly representing parts of Sauk, Columbia and Marquette counties between 2009 and 2014 before moving north to Bayfield County to retire.

Clark said he learned as a legislator “in order to be effective in your job as a representative in a district that’s very mixed politically, you have to commit to working with everybody, and you have to commit to engaging every person you represent with respect and with listening and with the willingness to find solutions.”

“I used to tell the people that I worked with, I don’t care whether you voted for me or not. It’s my job to represent you, and I’m going to do that to the best of my ability,” Clark said. “In this campaign, I’m reaching out to voters with the same proposition that this election is more about character than it is about party.”

The candidates were all critical of President Donald Trump, a distinct difference from the Republican debate where the candidates focused on their support for the president. 

Armstrong said the Trump administration needs to be held accountable. “It breaks the law and does not follow the Constitution every single day, and the fact is that, you know, Trump admits it publicly.”

Clark said he would support investigations into potential violations of the law and corrupt activities.

Democratic members of the House have introduced articles of impeachment this year that call for removing Trump from office accusing him of circumventing congressional war powers, engaging in unconstitutional detentions and deportations and usurping Congressional power of the purse.

Murray noted the two previous articles of impeachment levied against Trump and said she would “absolutely” support articles of impeachment if enough lawmakers thought it was right. 

“It won’t take very long, considering all the information that we already have,” Murray said. “I also think the fastest way to remove the current administration is to get to the bottom of the Epstein files.” 

The  candidates focused much of their criticism on the campaign of mass deportation and detentions being carried out by the Trump administration.

“What this administration has done is to create a reign of terror in American communities… It’s not only immoral, but it’s unconstitutional,” Clark said, adding that Congress should work towards visa reform. “That would be the single, simplest, most impactful solution, and we could… allow law-abiding people to work in this country legally and fill American jobs that employers need.”

Trump’s mass deportation campaign is “just inhumane, cruel and, fundamentally, anti-American,” Armstrong said. He added that immigrants are essential to the Wisconsin economy and many will never see the benefits of the taxes they pay. He also said he recently got outreach from a Trump voter in Eagle River, who asked him about immigration enforcement. 

“I said, well, not a big fan of Trump’s leadership, and when ICE and CBP are regularly violating people’s First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, Tenth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, these people need to be held accountable for their crimes against the American people,” Armstrong said. “He said ‘You know, I voted for Trump, and I’m voting for you because I need someone who’s going to stand up for the rule of law in the Constitution.’”

Addressing millionaires and helping average Wisconsinites

Asked about the rise of Democratic Socialists in the Democratic party, including the momentum behind state Rep. Francesca Hong’s campaign in the gubernatorial primary race, the candidates said the focus should be less on labels and more on helping the average Wisconsinite.

Armstrong said he was a “fan” of Hong.

“I just don’t really think it makes a lot of sense to get caught up on all the trappings of different labels,” he said. “I mean, if we’re talking about policies that are good for normal people, you know the policies of many administrations, not just the Trump administration, have favored the well-connected, the super rich. We need to be getting back to the work of the people. I really don’t care what label you put on it.” 

Clark said he hadn’t heard of the label until a few months ago, but that it gets back to asking how to ensure people can afford housing, healthcare and to live in their communities.

“There’s a role for government in helping make sure that those things can happen,” Clark said, adding, “If you want to go back to look at the Republican presidents like Dwight D. Eisenhower, a lot of the things that his administration was talking about are things that people on the other side of the aisle would call socialist or communist today, so I don’t think the labels are doing us any good.”

Murray said the conversation should be about the “have and have nots,” saying that the government is “set up to support billionaires.”

On healthcare, the candidates appeared to have differences on how far the federal government and Congress should go to help with coverage.

Armstrong said the U.S. should be able to figure out how to ensure healthcare access for everyone, even in an area like the 7th CD with low population density.

“I don’t admit to be a healthcare policy expert, but Medicare For All sure seems to be something that is viable,” Armstrong said. “We’re the richest country in the world in the history of this planet, and there’s just no excuse that can’t deliver high quality healthcare for everybody.”

Clark said cuts to the Affordable Care Act tax credits have “precipitated a crisis that is going to affect everyone.” He noted that many rural hospitals, including in Wisconsin, get more than 50% of their revenue from Medicaid, meaning that cuts could lead to closures in rural areas. He said the first action by Congress should be to reverse those cuts and restore Medicaid funding.

“Then, we need to look forward to how we find healthcare that works for everybody,” Clark said. “I support strengthening Medicare support, lowering Medicare enrollment age, and I support creating a public option that will make affordable healthcare run by the Medicare program available to everyone at any age for a fair price.”

Murray said she would support any of those options because they are an improvement from where the country is now, but she said that she would want to ensure the solution is possible.

“I am for universal healthcare. I do not want to over-estimate my impact or influence,” Murray said. “I will be one of 435 people who would be voting on this issue in the House of Representatives… I’m in favor of it as long as we get results. It’s not empty promises to our people. They need real results, and they need them really quick.”

Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, one of the leading candidates in the Democratic primary for governor, fired her campaign manager over the weekend due to mismanagement of financial reports. She told reporters Monday that her campaign will continue, calling it a “bump in the road,” although the error means she has hundreds of thousands of dollars less than she thought.

On Sunday at 9:30 p.m., the Rodriguez campaign released a statement saying that the candidate had fired her campaign manager, Kara Spencer, “after discovering serious mismanagement and inaccuracies in campaign finance filings she prepared.”

Rodriguez said at the press conference at her campaign office in Madison that she became aware something was wrong when a statewide ad did not start to run on TV last Tuesday. The campaign had put out press release announcing it was making a $1 million ad buy. 

Rodriguez said she became concerned and started asking questions when the ad did not run. She said that on Wednesday she was notified by her media team of an unpaid invoice. 

“I was given excuses by my campaign manager that did not make sense. By Thursday afternoon, I saw that the total cash was far lower than I had expected,” she said, adding that she wouldn’t be able to give a specific number because her books were still being reconciled.

Rodriguez said she brought in a team of political communications, legal and compliance experts to analyze her reports. They found “double counting of contributions that inflated how much money we had raised” and “a significant failure to report certain expenses that had been paid.” 

According to Wisconsin’s campaign finance website, Rodriguez’s January report was submitted at 2:13 a.m. — after the Jan. 15 deadline. It was then amended at 3:23 a.m. and then again at 5:01 a.m.

Rodiguez’s final campaign finance report uploaded that evening included a number of duplicate payments. According to a review of the campaign finance reports by WisPolitics, there are  at least $275,000 in duplicate donations.

In January, Rodriguez reported raising $618,284.

Rodriguez said her campaign manager had worked with her for several years and in compliance for her whole career.

“As we are trying to make sure we have a lean campaign, it made sense for her to do the compliance report since that was her expertise, and that was one thing I had full trust in,” Rodriguez said, adding that Spencer had given her reports on a regular basis about the finances and everything looked fine until last week. 

“I cannot tell you what was in her mind about why she did what she did. I will tell you that when you work with somebody for as long as I have, it was an enormous shock that this happened,” Rodriguez said. “It took me a little while to believe that these reports were erroneous, but once I was able to look within the system to look within the bank accounts, to look at the reports that were filed, it was clear that these were egregiously in error, and that she needed to be let go.” 

Rodriguez said she had had a conversation with Spencer, but did not provide details on her reaction. She said Spencer’s termination notice was addressed by a lawyer.

“I am hurt, angry and deeply disappointed by someone I trusted to run my campaign,” Rodriguez said, adding it was a breach of her trust as well as her supporters’ trust. 

Rodriguez argued that her press conference and willingness to answer questions was a show of her commitment to accountability and transparency, which makes her a good candidate for governor.

In recent weeks, momentum appeared to be building behind Rodriguez’s campaign after she finished first in a straw poll conducted at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin Convention. Last week, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley dropped out of the race and endorsed her, as did  former Wisconsin Economic Development CEO Missy Hughes, who dropped out and endorsed her in June.

“I think we still have that momentum. I think we’re still moving forward. This is a bump in the road for the campaign, but we are going to be as honest and transparent as we can be,” Rodriguez said at the press conference inside her Madison, Wisconsin, campaign headquarters Monday. “That is why I am standing here in front of all of you in front of all of these cameras in front of all of these microphones and telling you when I see something that is an error.” 

Rodriguez said the analysis of the report is still underway, but they are working to see whether there are any additional discrepancies. Her campaign has also contacted the Wisconsin Ethics Commission, which administers and enforces Wisconsin law pertaining to ethics and lobbying, to report the discrepancies and make a plan to correct the mistakes. 

The firing and revelation about her January report comes just ahead of the next campaign finance report deadline on July 15. 

Rodriguez said she will report having about $200,000 cash-on-hand and that she has raised nearly $1 million over the course of the campaign. She said she plans to continue her campaign and that her ad will go up on TV next week. During the press conference, Rodriguez surrounded herself with supporters holding signs and cheering.

“I know who gets hurt when people like me decide it’s not worth the fight. I intend to put my heart and soul into this race over the next month, and until November, every single day of it. There are people who get knocked down, and don’t get back up. I’m not one of them,” Rodriguez said. 

Democratic opponents critical

The rest of the Democratic primary candidates in the race were highly critical of Rodriguez Monday afternoon. Joel Brennan, a former head of the Wisconsin Department of Administration, was one of the first to speak out, saying in a statement ahead of the press conference that she needed to answer several questions to be transparent with Wisconsinites. 

“How is this not disqualifying?” Brennan asked.

Brennan told the Wisconsin Examiner in a phone interview Monday afternoon that the issue is one of competence and accountability and the “buck stops” with the candidate when it comes to campaign finance. 

“We are ultimately accountable for everything that’s got our name on it, and there is nothing more important in that than managing the resources we have because those resources come from voters in the state of Wisconsin, they come from family, they come from close friends, they come from networks, they come from allies and advocates and people who we need to represent,” Brennan said. “If you can’t manage several hundred thousand in a campaign account, how are you going to be able to demonstrate to people that they should trust a $110 billion budget for the state of Wisconsin?”

Brennan questioned why Rodriguez did not have the infrastructure to ensure there were checks in her finances. He said that he knows on a “day-to-day” basis how much money there is in his campaign.

Brennan said Rodriguez did not provide direct answers to key questions, but instead provided “some self congratulations for standing up in front of a bank of cameras” to address problems that were “created under her watch” and she was “expecting to be congratulated for doing that — like that somehow is courageous.”

Brennan stopped short of calling for Rodriguez to end her campaign, saying he doesn’t make that decision for anyone. However, he said Democrats should be spending time talking about issues that matter to people.

“If we are spending our time talking about missed deadlines when it comes to campaign, being unable to track down hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign contributions, we will never get to the point where we can talk about Donald Trump, about Rep. Tom Tiffany, about the harm they’ve done to Wisconsin, and what we’re going to do for people to make their lives better in our state,” Brennan said. “The stakes are high when it comes to healthcare that people can’t afford. The stakes are high related to utility costs that are out of control and housing challenges that people face, whether they’re renters or homeowners, and where we are in public education.”

The firing is not the first controversy to disrupt Rodriguez’s campaign for governor. She also faced criticism from her opponents for saying she would negotiate the state’s budget “behind closed curtains” and recently for taking corporate PAC money from WE Energies after voting for a Republican-authored tax break for the company. 

Jalen Knuteson, spokesperson for state Sen. Kelda Roys’ campaign, highlighted those instances in a statement, saying that the “public is getting far too familiar with hearing Sara Rodriguez apologize.” 

“This recurring pattern shows that Rodriguez is unprepared for the rigors of a general election or governing,” Roys said. 

Darby O’Connor, spokesperson for former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, said in a statement that Rodriguez “only noticed hundreds of thousands of dollars missing when she didn’t see her face on TV.” 

“This level of gross mismanagement of finances and staff is unheard of in professional politics,” Barnes said.

State Rep. Francesca Hong said she was “staying focused on our campaign,” but that her campaign has “shown we’re a campaign focused on transparency and accountability.”

“Especially with the next finance reports coming out this week, I think it’s vital that everyone running for this position is creating a standard of trust, honesty and accountability,” she added.

The gubernatorial primary is scheduled for Aug. 11 — less than a month away. The winner will face U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the presumptive Republican nominee, in November.

In his announcement dropping his bid for governor, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said Democrats will need to coalesce around a candidate who can defeat Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany in November. He provided his answer Thursday for who he thinks can win in the general election: Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez.

Crowley is the second candidate to drop out of the race in recent weeks, leaving five candidates competing for the Democratic spot on the November ballot. Along with Rodriguez the Democratic candidates who remain are state Rep. Francesca Hong, state Sen. Kelda Roys, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and Joel Brennan, former head of the Department of Administration under Gov. Tony Evers. The winner of the August primary will likely face Tiffany, who is endorsed by the state GOP and President Donald Trump.

“I’ve said all along that the next governor’s job description is simple: make this state affordable, make sure care shows up for families before a crisis hits, and build real opportunity that runs from the classroom to a good-paying job,” Crowley said in a statement Thursday. “That was the mission of my campaign, and it’s exactly what Sara Rodriguez has spent her career doing. She doesn’t just meet that job description; she’s lived it, on the front lines, for the people who need it most. That’s the governor Wisconsin needs, and that’s why I’m proud to stand with her.”

Crowley announced his decision to suspend his campaign after failing to break into the top tier of contenders in  public polling. A Marquette Law School poll showed  he had about 3% of Democratic primary voters’ support. The next Marquette Law School poll will be released on July 22.

“We share a belief that government should solve problems and put people first,” Rodriguez said about Crowley in a statement. “We may have started this race on different paths, but today we’re united in the same fight: delivering for Wisconsin families.”

It’s the latest big change in the Democratic primary field as Rodriguez has started to gain some momentum in the race, finishing first in a straw poll at the state party convention last month. Former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO Missy Hughes, who dropped out in late June, also endorsed Rodriguez. 

At a press conference Thursday morning in Milwaukee, Crowley said nobody called him to ask him to step out and there was “no establishment process” behind his decision. He was answering a question about what he would say to voters who are concerned that mainstream Democrats may be consolidating behind Rodriguez in order to stop Democratic Socialist candidate Francesca Hong.

Hong is running on a platform of universal childcare, paid family and medical leave, establishing a public grocery store and bank as well as implementing a one-year moratorium on data center construction. She has had growing support behind her over the course of the campaign including polling at the top of public polls. 

Hong came in second after Rodriguez in a straw poll of party activists conducted at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin convention.

“I think it’s extremely important that all of us as candidates start to make decisions about how we win this race and making sure that we are keeping the Democratic party, keeping the people at the center of these decisions,” Crowley said, adding that he made the decision himself.

Rodriguez, responding  to the question about whether her supporters are seeking to push out a more progressive candidate, said people should look at her campaign website: “Look at what I’ve done for the state of Wisconsin. Look at what I’m planning to do.”

Rodriguez has served with Evers as lieutenant governor since 2023 and previously served in the state Assembly for one term. Prior to that she worked as a nurse and then in leadership positions for a couple of healthcare organizations, including at Advocate Aurora Health. 

Democratic candidates seek to show strength

Crowley’s departure from the race left other candidates seeking ways to show their campaigns’ strength.

The Barnes campaign shared an internal poll with reporters that was conducted from April 17-23 with 800 likely Democratic primary voters in Wisconsin. The poll showed Barnes polling at 30% support, Hong at 23% and Rodriguez at 17%. Crowley had 5%. The campaign said the internal poll, which also asked voters about their second choice, “suggests Crowley’s exit significantly increases Mandela’s paths to victory, with the majority of his voters going to Barnes.”

The campaign also noted an internal poll from the Rodriguez campaign conducted in May that showed Barnes polling at 26%, Hong at 22% and Rodriguez at 15%. 

In a social media post after Crowley’s announcement, Barnes highlighted that both of them are from the same zip code in Milwaukee.

“David has a life experience that is far too often missing from our politics, and that life experience has driven him to deliver real results for Milwaukee County families,” Barnes said in a social media post. “I hope all those inspired by David’s campaign can find a place in our movement to end the rigged system that’s holding back Wisconsin families. It’s time for us all to come together to beat Tom Tiffany.”

Barnes also launched a six-figure ad buy Thursday that will run in the Milwaukee in the run-up to the primary. An outside group backing Barnes, Impossible Until It’s Done, has also started a $500,000 TV ad for him.

Ahead of next week’s campaign finance filing deadline, Roys’ campaign announced that she raised over $1.2 million for the June 30 filing deadline. The campaign said the money ensures Roys will be able to communicate with voters ahead of the Aug. 11 primary.

Roys spokesperson Jalen Knuteson said in a statement that the campaign’s internal polling shows that her “message performs the best of all the candidates’, and she doesn’t need the most money to win — she just needs enough to get her message out.”

According to the campaign, her second ad will launch next week.

Responding to questions from the Examiner about the state of the race and Roys’ path forward, Knuteson said in a written statement that “voters should decide who the Democratic nominee for governor is, and we would be failing to learn lessons of past elections if we try to crown a candidate without an earnest primary.”

Update: This story has been updated to include additional comment from the Roys campaign.