Jul.21

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

All Politics Is Local, Part V: Wisconsin Governor

Finally (for today), there's been some recent drama in Wisconsin. We had a report from a local, E.M. in Milwaukee, WI, who is more dialed in than we are, so we thought we would lean on that:

The Wisconsin governor's race just got interesting.

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez (D) might have had the inside track on the Democratic nomination as the most establishment candidate, which one would expect to work well in a very swingy state. But then it was learned that her campaign manager was either incompetent or corrupt and had overstated campaign income by double counting some donations. The campaign was left with little cash and may be in the red overall. So, Rodriguez dropped out of the governor's race, given this evidence that she is not a great manager.

I'm not tuned into Wisconsin politics enough to be sure where this is going yet. Like the majority of Electoral-Vote.com fans, I lean (strongly) Democratic. It seems to me that there are four viable candidates on the Democratic side:

1. Mandela Barnes is a former Lieutenant Governor, state legislator, and (unsuccessful) U.S. Senate candidate. I've seen him in person, when he interviewed Stacey Abrams at an event in Milwaukee. He is quite impressive: sharp, articulate, thoughtful, relaxed. You might be surprised (not) to learn that someone with the first name "Mandela" is Black. He is progressive without being strikingly so.
   
   
2. David Crowley is the current Milwaukee County Administrator and is also Black. He is essentially a standard center-left Democrat and for my money has successfully navigated the tricky urban-vs-rural politics divide in Wisconsin, by helping negotiate a higher sales tax in the county and city with the rather hostile Republican-dominated state legislature. He had dropped out of the governor's race because he didn't have enough traction prior to Rodriguez's troubles. But now he has announced that he is returning to the race. This seems to have been done at the behest of parts of the Democratic establishment.
   
   
3. Francesca Hong is the progressive choice. She calls herself a Democratic Socialist and hails from the Madison area, which is by far the most left-wing metro area in the state. She explicitly supports universal childcare, paid family leave, higher public school funding, and Medicaid expansion.
   
   
4. Joel Brennan is a former head of the state's Department of Administration. This is an appointed position and he served under and was appointed by Gov. Tony Evers (D). I've reviewed his campaign website and I think his positions are actually quite sound. But he does come across as a wonk. His ideas are the kinds of things that are actually hard to attack for being radical. They are mostly incremental, but are likely to be effective while being difficult to sell as transformational. The little that I've read suggests that he is not an inspiring orator.

On the Republican side, the path seems to have been cleared for Rep. Tom Tiffany. Tiffany currently represents WI-07 and is a member of the House Freedom Caucus. Not surprisingly, Tiffany is pretty MAGA and has Donald Trump's endorsement. Tiffany's website is interesting for its almost complete lack of policy specifics. It lists four "solutions": "Lower Costs for Every Wisconsinite," "Restore Order and Create Opportunity," "Prepare Kids for Success," and "Protect What Makes Wisconsin Great." The text expanding on those goals does not link to anything, so it is naturally a bit hard to know what particular policy solutions Tiffany favors.

Wisconsin is actually a bit like North Carolina, though it has fewer media markets. The Milwaukee metro area is about 1.5 million people, with an urban core of 1 million that is blue without being leftist and a suburban ring that leans red. The Madison area has about 500K people and is quite left-wing. Green Bay's metro area has about 350K folks who lean purple because they are blue-collar, but socially conservative. Then there are a number of medium-sized cities (50-75K) that lean blue but are surrounded by red-leaning rural areas: Fond du Lac, Oshkosh, Stevens Point, La Crosse, Eau Claire, Racine, Kenosha, Superior.

I'm not smart enough to know where this is all going. I hate to say it, but being either Black or explicitly "socialist" is a real reach in purple Wisconsin. Still, the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court elections in Wisconsin show that arch-conservatism is not selling well these days in the Badger State. And Tiffany is not likely to get out the vote among more traditional Republicans because he's really pretty extreme.

Thanks, E.M.!

We will add that polling had given Hong a small lead over Barnes, with the other candidates trailing. But with Rodriguez out and Crowley in, and more than a third of the voters undecided, we'll have to wait for new polls. It is not impossible that the progressive vote splits two ways, while the more moderate vote coalesces around Crowley, giving him the nod. For what it's worth, hypothetical polling of the general election matchups between each of these three candidates and Tiffany says that Barnes is 2-4 points ahead of the Republican, Crowley is 1-2 points ahead, and Hong is 2-3 points behind. (Z)