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The Wisconsin Politics Group Chat got together once again to talk about all the latest in the news of the week.

The show streamed live on ’s Facebook page and YouTube channel, and now, you can watch the full show here, with and .

Among topics discussed: The Democratic primary in the race for governor, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley’s place in the race, the fourth anniversary of the Dobbs decision and the impact it continues to have, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program, and the Bucks trading Giannis Antetokounmpo (and my column about how he saved basketball in Milwaukee).

You can watch the full conversation on our YouTube Channel here.

Listen to the previous episode with the political group chat here:

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

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The Blake Matthew Mindful Memorial Foundation is an official sponsor of The Recombobulation Area, and this podcast is a sponsored episode.

To learn more about sponsorship opportunities, email: therecombobulationarea@gmail.com.

The Blake Matthew Mindful Memorial Foundation was founded in 2021 following the loss of Blake Matthew Fenwick, a beloved son, brother, friend, and young Wisconsin man whose life ended far too soon after a struggle with mental health challenges.

What began with a father’s desire to honor his son has grown into a statewide movement focused on making mental health support more accessible, personal, and effective.

The Foundation’s first program was a scholarship initiative, funded with Blake’s inheritance. As community support grew, so did the mission. Through annual fundraisers, partnerships, and grassroots community support, the Foundation has now helped more than one hundred individuals access mental health and wellness services through its innovative Tinman Coin Wellness Grant program.

Unlike traditional approaches that focus solely on crisis intervention, the Foundation embraces a broader view of mental wellness. Recipients can access a growing network of wellness partners offering services such as counseling, breathwork, yoga, support groups, retreats, mindfulness training, and holistic health coaching.

In 2026, the Foundation launched the Tinman Trail, a structured wellness pathway designed to help participants build practical skills for emotional regulation, resilience, self-awareness, and long-term wellbeing. The program combines clinical lab testing, breathwork, community support, education, and healthy lifestyle practices into an accessible, community-based experience.

Today, the Foundation serves individuals and families throughout Wisconsin and continues to expand its network of wellness providers and community partners.

To support this vision, the Foundation recently launched its most ambitious initiative yet: the 10,000 Hearts Campaign.

The idea is simple.

What could happen if 10,000 Wisconsinites each contributed just $5 per month?

Together, those small monthly gifts could create a sustainable source of funding for wellness grants, educational programming, scholarships, and community-based mental health initiatives across Wisconsin.

The campaign is built on a simple belief: meaningful change happens when ordinary people come together to support one another.

One heart can make a difference.

10,000 hearts can help transform a state.

Learn more at blakestinman.com.

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Stalking ex-partners, targeting immigrants and protesters, investigating abortion seekers: all made possible by Flock, a rapidly expanding surveillance technology that tracks the movement of vehicles through automatic license plate readers (ALPRs).

Communities across the state have pushed back against Flock — shout out to everyday people speaking out in Verona, Oshkosh, Sturgeon Bay, Fitchburg, Dane County, Monona, Grand Chute, Milwaukee, Appleton, Neenah, and many others.

Despite local success in terminating or not renewing these mass surveillance contracts, a troubling pattern has emerged. Instead of codifying policies governing procurement, transparency, and data sharing of surveillance tech, a response from many local officials — like in Oshkosh and Dane County — has simply been to propose switching vendors. In Grand Chute, for example, that new vendor is Axon Enterprises.

Let’s be real: swapping one dragnet surveillance company for another while trusting these for-profit companies to regulate themselves is a recipe for violating, not protecting, residents’ civil rights and liberties. Our freedom to organize, to dissent, and move through public life without constant government monitoring, as protected by the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution, is precisely what is at stake when local officials invite Axon’s technology into their communities.

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Axon is not a neutral technology provider. The company holds significant contracts with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), meaning its hardware and software have directly supported deportation operations in Wisconsin and across the country. Ron Vitiello, Axon’s former head of DHS Program and Strategy and Acting Director of ICE during the first Trump administration, now serves as Acting Deputy Commissioner for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Public dollars flowing to this company flow directly into an infrastructure used by abusive federal agencies to kill our neighbors, harass and racially profile people, criminalize dissent, and tear thousands of families apart.

Of significant constitutional concern is not just who Axon works with, but also what Axon sells.

The company’s “AI-era plan” product bundle centers on Fusus, a platform that integrates live feeds from government and private cameras, doorbell cameras, license plate readers, drones, and other data then applies artificial intelligence to analyze it in real time.

This is far from routine law enforcement technology — it is the architecture of a surveillance state.

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When government actors can monitor public movement continuously, integrate it with private data, and process it through predictive AI systems, the chilling effect on protected activity — attending a protest, visiting a place of worship, obtaining healthcare, knocking on a neighbor’s door — is real and legally significant. The risks posed by AI-powered surveillance are also not distributed equally. Black and brown residents bear the brunt of harms caused by algorithmic bias and inaccuracy leading to misidentification and over-policing.

In 2019, Axon’s own AI and Policing Technology Ethics Board, a group established by the company itself in 2018 to advise on ethical issues related to its policing technologies, published their second report covering ALPRs. The report found insufficient regulatory oversight for the technology, cited evidence that the impact of ALPRs falls disproportionately on low income people and people of color, and called for government and industry regulation. It warned, “Without regulatory intervention there is a risk that competition will encourage a race-to-the-bottom of more pervasive and more powerful surveillance.” Go figure.

In 2022, nine of Axon’s 12-member AI ethics board resigned in protest over the company’s plans to develop remotely-operated Taser-equipped drones. Axon is currently piloting body cameras equipped with AI facial recognition technology with a Canadian police department. Draft One, another Axon product, uses generative AI to write police reports from body cam audio. What could possibly go wrong?

The Milwaukee Police Department already uses some of these systems, such as Axon’s Fusus, and often acquires surveillance tech through no-bid sole-source contracts that bypass Common Council approval and public transparency.

Local surveillance infrastructure is actively being built around us, without us, in secret.

County and municipal governments across Wisconsin cannot afford to treat the flashy marketing materials and soothing assurances of surveillance tech PR teams as unquestioned truth. Good governance requires transparency, democratic decision-making, and accountability — not passive adoption of contracts in the face of overwhelming public outcry over legitimate harms.

Communities must adopt robust frameworks for evaluating new and existing surveillance tech — such as Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) ordinances–to ensure local leaders have answers to very basic questions about each technology used to surveil residents with their own tax dollars:

• How does the surveillance technology work?

• What is the intended purpose(s) of the technology?

• What is the fiscal impact of the technology?

• What/whose information is being collected and how is data stored?

• If the technology is not uniformly deployed or targeted throughout the jurisdiction, what factors will be used to determine where the technology is targeted?

• What potential adverse impacts does the surveillance technology have on civil rights and liberties?

• What standards must be met by government entities when sharing surveillance data with third parties, including the federal government?

The ACLU of Wisconsin will continue to scrutinize surveillance contracts that threaten the rights our Constitution guarantees. We urge Wisconsin communities to do the same, and to demand that their governments uphold transparency and democracy if considering any potential surveillance technology vendor. After all, what do they have to hide?

Amanda Merkwae is the Policy and Advocacy Director for the ACLU of Wisconsin where she leads policy and lobbying work at the state and local level. Before joining the ACLU, she served as a legislative advisor for a state agency and as a juvenile public defender in Milwaukee.

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Joel Brennan is one of now six candidates running to be the Democratic nominee for governor. He was the secretary of the Department of Administration for much of Tony Evers’ first term as governor, and before that, was the president and CEO of Discovery World for more than a decade in Milwaukee.

It was around that time that I met Brennan, when I was a reporter at the Milwaukee Business Journal, and wrote a few stories about developments happening at Discovery World, and talked to him for an interview. I find him to be a compelling individual and an intriguing candidate. Far from the flashiest or most well-known, Brennan could prove to be a dark horse in the race, as his record of experience lends itself well to the ability to take on role of governor.

In this conversation, we talked about what he’s learned over the past few months while running for governor (his first time running for elected office since losing a State Senate race in 2003), what he would want to do if elected, how he’d approach working with the state legislature, and much more.

You can watch at the video above, or on our YouTube channel here.

The Recombobulation Area podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

ICYMI:

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Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

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We didn’t even know if the Bucks were going to stay in Milwaukee.

That was the state of the NBA franchise in the city back on June 27, 2013, when the Bucks selected Giannis Antetokounmpo with the 15th overall pick in the NBA draft. The franchise’s future in the city was perilous at best after years of relocation rumors and a team stuck on the treadmill of mediocrity. Outside of their postseason run to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2001, the Bucks did not win a single playoff series in the 23 years prior to that draft. Owner Herb Kohl had retired as a U.S. Senator in 2012 after more than two decades in office, and an uncertain future loomed for the Milwaukee Bucks franchise. Arriving at a fork-in-the-road moment seemed inevitable.

That September, before the 2013-14 season began, Adam Silver visited the city in advance of becoming the NBA’s next commissioner, and said, “We need a new arena in Milwaukee,” making it clear that the Bradley Center was no longer fit for NBA basketball, and a big decision would need to be made. About a month later, a haphazardly-constructed Bucks team would get off to a calamitous start to the season, winning just four of their first 20 games.

The team was terrible, it seemed like a very real possibility that the Bucks could leave town, but on that roster was the player who would alter Milwaukee’s fortunes forever.

We’re sad now because he’s being traded to Miami, but Giannis Antetokounmpo changed everything for the Milwaukee Bucks.

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This beleaguered sad-sack franchise mired in an eternal quest for the 8-seed took a big swing, selecting the 6’9” 18-year-old from the Greek second division, where highlights of his play were only available on grainy footage, with the 15th overall pick. You could argue now this was the single greatest draft pick in NBA history, not just because it brought someone who would turn out to be a multiple-time MVP to the team, but because Giannis would save basketball in Milwaukee.

The skinny rookie showed flashes of greatness in his first season, a tantalizing talent with size and skill and unique abilities on the court. Off the court, the wide-eyed teenager discovered smoothies and pancakes, much to our delight. In one tremendous bit of Giannis lore, he was stuck on Brady Street with no cash after wiring money home to his family in Greece at Western Union, and started running down the street toward the Bradley Center, only for a Bucks fan to see him and offer him a ride to the arena. Members of his family arriving in Milwaukee after a fraught legal process to watch him help lead a comeback victory against the New York Knicks, seated next to Kohl, was a truly special moment.

In his first season, he was already becoming a legend. His legend kept growing — and he kept literally growing — from that rookie season through twelve more, transforming the Bucks and transforming the city of Milwaukee. Just a few years after wondering whether or not there would even be an NBA team in Milwaukee, Giannis would lead the team to the mountaintop and parade through downtown to celebrate the city’s first championship in 50 years.

We went from not knowing if we’d even have a team to being the city of champions after one of the most remarkable playoff runs in NBA history. No words could ever capture what that meant for Milwaukee. It is beyond basketball.

From the archives (July 2021):

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For me, the Giannis Era for the Bucks has been the most rewarding sports fan experience of my life.

In the early 2010s, a few fellow NBA fan friends started throwing these little watch party type of events with what we called the Slam Dunk Social Club to try to get people excited about Bucks basketball and come together around our hometown team. A few of us would get overly excited about Larry Sanders or Carlos Delfino and wonder if this was going to be Ersan Ilyasova’s breakout season. But it would still take some doing to get the bar to turn the channel from the Packers or Brewers (or even from the Wisconsin Badgers or Marquette Golden Eagles) most of the time. And we’d still mostly be watching the Bucks lose.

That all started to change with Giannis. With Giannis, there was hope. It was almost a cliche, the extent to which his ascent became a type of storybook legend, but it all happened. I was there. We were there.

In 2014-15, he already emerged as starter and the Bucks bounced back into the playoffs. In 2015-16, he got the keys to the offense. In 2016-17, he became the league’s Most Improved Player, averaging nearly 23 points and nine rebounds per game, becoming an All-Star starter for the first of 10 consecutive seasons, and he would only continue to improve amid coaching changes and roster shakeups the following year. In 2018, following the hiring of Mike Budenholzer as head coach and signing Brook Lopez to play alongside Antetokounmpo in the frontcourt, the Bucks blasted out of the gate looking like bonafide title contenders, and Giannis would soar to his first of back-to-back MVPs, and the Bucks would reach the Eastern Conference Finals. For the next five years, the Bucks had the best team in the NBA, competing for a title every season, something none of us who grew up with the Bucks never even really dreamed of experiencing.

The peak arrived, of course, in 2021, when Giannis and the Bucks went on the most incredible playoff run imaginable, sweeping a Miami Heat team that dispatched them from the playoffs in the covid bubble the year before, defeating the vaunted Brooklyn Nets in an epic seven-game series, overcoming an injury to Giannis in the Eastern Conference Finals to best the Atlanta Hawks, and upon his miraculous early return, coming back from a 2-0 deficit to win four straight, capped off by a 50-point closeout performance that transcends NBA legend. There was no way Giannis was losing that game. A ferocious competitor as the league has ever seen, once the title was in his grasp, he did everything he possibly could to win that game. A true champion, in every sense of the word.

Along the way, as we watched the Bucks become champions, we saw the city transform. Before Giannis, there was no Fiserv Forum, no Deer District, no Bucks gear everywhere you turn. The team was an afterthought, and then it became the best show in town.

If you told me this all would actually happen, I never would have believed it. When I was watching those games with friends in the Slam Dunk Social Club, I never dreamed that the Milwaukee Bucks, of all teams, could ever actually win the Finals. I loved basketball and I loved Milwaukee, but a championship? That was for other fans in other cities, not for our beloved Bucks.

But that all changed with Giannis Antetokounmpo. Throughout that time, I had one guiding principle as a Bucks fan: As long as we had Giannis, I liked our chances. And just a few short years after wondering whether the team would even be able to stay in Milwaukee, we had a championship parade winding through the streets of downtown. I brought my daughters to that parade with me, and shed tears carrying them on Water Street, overcome with emotion. What the Bucks brought to this city was bigger than basketball. And none of it would have happened without Giannis Antetokounmpo.

I will be endlessly grateful for that experience, and beyond glad I savored it every step of the way. Milwaukee has only hosted two championship parades — for the Braves in 1957, and for the Bucks in 2021 (the 1971 Bucks never got a parade). It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience in a city like Milwaukee. The collective joy from the celebration on the night of Game 6 and the parade later that week is something I will cherish for the rest of my days.

Since that day in June of 2013, where I tweeted with exuberance about the “Greek dude” the Bucks drafted, I got married, became a father, moved across the country, moved back, started a business, had another child, and experienced so many wonderful things along the way. Throughout all of this, so often, Giannis and the Bucks have been there in the background — from having the game on anytime they were playing to organizing our lives around playoff runs to endless get-togethers with friends and family around Milwaukee. So many conversations and group chats and Twitter nonsense centered around our team, for years and years. The way sports can bring people together and bring a city together never felt more real than it has with Giannis and the Bucks.

The championship T-shirts the players wore for that parade spelled “EARNED” across the front. I loved that then and I love it now. Milwaukee is a tough city. Things don’t come easy for us here. But that 2021 team, like the city itself, was resilient. Bringing a championship to Milwaukee had to be earned, there could be no other way. The collective joy we experienced in this city that wonderful summer was beyond our wildest dreams.

What Giannis brought to Milwaukee is nothing short of miraculous. The end has been messy and uncomfortable and really goddamn annoying at times, as endings tend to be, but for 13 years, what he’s brought to Milwaukee and to Bucks fans around the world is well beyond what any of us could have ever hoped for. He’s the greatest player in franchise history, he brought us a championship, and flags fly forever.

What a run. What an absolutely phenomenal, unforgettable run. To quote “The Sandlot,” “Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.” In Milwaukee, Giannis Antetokounmpo is nothing short of a legend. He may play for another team now (which profoundly sucks), but he’ll always be a Milwaukee Buck, he’ll always be a champion, and he will always be the one who saved NBA basketball in the city of Milwaukee.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

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The Democratic primary in the race for governor is starting to heat up. With just 50 days to go before Aug. 11, Dan Shafer joined host Bianca Martin at City Cast Madison to talk about the state of the race.

Topics include: The big picture of the race, takeaways coming out of the state party’s convention, data centers emerging as a big issue in this year’s campaign, and much more.

You can find the podcast on City Cast Madison here. Listen on Apple Podcasts here, or stream on Spotify or YouTube embedded below.

This podcast was recorded last week, and that means it was before Missy Hughes dropped out of the race and endorsed Sara Rodriguez.

A couple quick takeaways on that development:

Hughes’ bid was always more of a longshot, but she has a strong record turning around the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation after Scott Walker left it in shambles. She was part of picking up the pieces, re-negotiating the disaster of a Foxconn deal and taking over a state agency that was in constant turmoil. There was the basis of a compelling campaign there, and being from outside of Milwaukee and Madison was always going to set her apart in a way that could be advantageous for her.

It was also an interesting move when she supported the surplus spending deal with most Democrats opposed. While that may have generated some earned media, it didn’t translate into actual support. It had become quite clear that she wouldn’t win.

Her endorsement of Rodriguez continues the positive momentum for the lieutenant governor’s campaign. Internal polling (first reported here!) showed her in the top three, and rising with an “informed” vote poll; she won the WisPolitics straw poll at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s convention; and now she’s the first candidate to be endorsed by someone who dropped out.

I also don't think Hughes suspending her campaign is necessarily a sign of moderates consolidating to take on Francesca Hong or Mandela Barnes, I think it's just the candidate polling at or near the bottom of a seven-person race recognizing reality and making the right call.

Hughes put herself out there, and will be someone to watch in Wisconsin politics going forward, but not for this primary.

More of my most recent thoughts on the state of the race here, ICYMI:

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Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Ben Wikler, the former chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, is writing a book. It’s called “This Is The Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy.” It will be in stores on July 21.

He also just wrote a New York Times op-ed drawing on themes from the forthcoming book, and you can read that here and pre-order the book here.

Wikler is also going on tour to promote the book with a series of live conversations in 12 cities, including several right here in Wisconsin. And one of those conversations will be The Recombobulation Area’s Dan Shafer!

The event is happening on Sunday, July 26, at the Pablo Center in Eau Claire. You can reserve your spot here. The Madison event is already sold out, so be sure to act fast.

Wikler’s book tour also features conversations with some friends of The Recombobulation Area, including Kristin Brey (hosting in Green Bay), Earl Ingram (hosting in Milwaukee), and Todd Allbaugh (hosting in La Crosse). Find all the tour dates and more, over at Wikler’s Substack.

Ben Wikler

New NYT op-ed! Plus: my book tour, coming near you

Dear friends and allies…

Read more

16 days ago · 148 likes · 24 comments · Ben Wikler

Hope to see you there, Eau Claire!

From the archives:

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Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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The Democratic Party of Wisconsin held its annual convention over the weekend in Madison. And as you might expect, the Democratic primary in the race for governor was the big topic at this year’s event, with candidates hosting hospitality suites and delivering speeches and jockeying for position to be The Nominee.

of Motherhood for Good, Pat Kreitlow of UpNorth News and were all there in Madison on Saturday and Sunday, and shared stories and insights from being in the building for speeches and being there for the festivities of the convention weekend. Dan Shafer also chimed in with his takes on the state of the race, which you can find more of here.

You can also watch this full podcast on YouTube here.

Or, listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify on this feed, or on Motherhood for Good.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

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The Aug. 11 partisan primary in Wisconsin is now less than two months away, and the Democratic primary in the race for governor is about to hit crunch time.

But all things considered, this race has still been rather quiet. It made sense when the race was quiet in March and April, when candidates didn’t want to muddy the waters and make sure Chris Taylor got across the finish line in the Spring Election race for state Supreme Court, but that relative quiet has made less sense in the months since. Now, with less than two months to go before the Aug. 11 primary, this race still does not feel like the type of inescapable, ads-on-every-screen election that we’ve all grown accustomed to in the political pressure cooker that is Wisconsin.

Some thought this race might heat up a bit before the end of the school year, before some tune out in the summer months, but that hasn’t exactly happened, either. There’s been a nonstop stream of candidate forums, a whole lot of chatter in political circles about this race, but regular folks just haven’t seemed all that tuned in to this primary.

Maybe that’s about to change. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s annual convention is happening this weekend, and while I am unfortunately unable to attend this time (apologies, readers, truly!), the timing of the event offers a good opportunity to take the pulse of what’s happening and take a closer look at the state of the race.

So, let’s dive in, candidate by candidate, alphabetically by last name. Let’s recombobulate.

Former lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes

Mandela Barnes could end up being the nominee.

He has the highest name ID in the race, he’s regularly rolling out new policies and traversing the state, and his campaign is among the more well-funded in the race — at $2 million, according to Politico. It is undeniable that he is a top-tier contender in this race.

But he is not the clear frontrunner. He also seems to be running a more general election-style campaign against presumptive Republican nominee Tom Tiffany, and it has been a mistake to think he would waltz right into top candidate status and head right to the general.

It also feels like Barnes is running a remarkably safe campaign. The policies he’s rolling out are quite solid — an announcement on his “Wisconsin Way” policy platform arrived this week — but can often seem poll-tested and not particularly controversial. His media appearances might seem more disciplined than in his 2022 U.S. Senate run, but he also doesn’t come across as particularly authentic — at a moment when Democratic voters are craving more authenticity from candidates. This campaign seems a little bit scared of its own shadow.

There are also electability concerns that surround Barnes’ campaign. The chatter on that front might not be as loud as it is for Francesca Hong, but having defeated Barnes in a statewide race four years ago, Republicans don’t seem to fear the possibility of going head-to-head with him again in 2026.

Last fall, before Barnes announced he’d be running for governor, I wrote a piece revisiting his 2022 run, where I discussed why his campaign was both underrated and overrated at the same time. But, I argued, if he ran for governor, he would need to learn the lessons from that loss and run a different kind of campaign this time around, or else he’d wind up losing again.

Right now, his 2026 campaign for governor seems all too similar to his 2022 race for U.S. Senate — another too-cautious campaign that feels like it’s coming off of a Democratic campaign assembly line. It doesn’t seem built for the unique challenges facing the state or ready to seize the unique opportunity this year presents for Wisconsin.

At the same time, Barnes has the opportunity to demonstrate some evolution over the next two months. His “floor” is much higher than any other candidate, so he can afford to take some risks. If he can meet this challenge, level up, and win in August, he could be the state’s next governor. But he is going to have to earn it. Right now, I’m not sure that he is.

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Former Department of Administration secretary Joel Brennan

For a while, it has seemed like Brennan was lurking as a potential dark horse in this race. As someone who hasn’t run for office before, he’s not going to have the name ID even regionally that some other elected officials do, but he has a lot of executive experience and a strong record of accomplishment throughout his career in and out of government.

Back in a past life, when I was a reporter at the Milwaukee Business Journal, I interviewed Brennan a few times when he was running Discovery World, and found him to be intelligent and engaging. His record as the secretary of the Department of Administration, essentially the top cabinet official, in Tony Evers’ first term, is an impressive one. For a less flashy, CEO-type, more technocratic leader who understands the ins and outs of state government, you could do a whole lot worse than Joel Brennan.

But several months into this race, he still has a long way to go to become a real factor in this primary. He went up with the first statewide TV ad buy of any candidate in the race just this week, but I did not find that ad to be a particularly strong one. It seems too late in the race to be focusing on a personal introduction instead of highlighting what he would want to do as governor.

There’s been talk that Brennan’s brother-in-law, Exact Sciences CEO Kevin Conroy, could spend big in this campaign (especially after the Madison-based business sold for a reported $23 billion), and while that can’t be ruled out, the fact that it has not materialized just yet makes this purely theoretical. On policy, Brennan yet to offer proposals that truly stand out and distinguish him from the field.

He could be a good governor and would be in a compelling position in a general election against Tiffany, but Brennan’s bid right now still feels like a real longshot.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley

This campaign needs a wake-up call.

Last year, when I wrote a “too-early” preview of the race, I said Crowley had the highest upside of any candidate running, and I meant it. Perhaps that’s part of my Milwaukee bias showing through, but I’ve long thought very highly of Crowley, endorsing him for County Executive in 2020, and admiring his record of accomplishment in the role.

I’m always interested in candidates who have the potential to bring the party together, instead of being mired in the perpetual progressive vs. moderate 2016 primary-type of divide, and I thought Crowley could be that candidate in this race. When he first ran for Milwaukee County Executive, he ran as a “bridge builder,” and in many ways, that’s the mentality a leader in a purple state like Wisconsin needs to demonstrate. Having been a state representative for several terms and then going on to lead the state’s most populous county, where he was able to negotiate the landmark shared revenue and sales tax deal, seemed to bode well for his ability to navigate the complexities of state and local government. He been a rising star in Democratic politics in Wisconsin — poised to be among the top candidates, a true contender in the race for governor.

But this campaign has been entirely uninspiring. It might be the most invisible of the seven campaigns — baffling considering the young, personable candidate who is running. The hopeful, “bridge-builder” energy from his County Executive campaigns just isn’t there. At this point, it seems more likely that Crowley will drop out before the primary than wind up winning it. His campaign has been a huge disappointment.

To be fair, part of this is due to factors beyond his control. It’s not his fault that Milwaukee County experienced major flooding in April (and had federal relief for record flooding last year denied by the Trump administration). He has the most active full-time job of any candidate in the field, without a doubt, and that seems to have taken him away from the campaign trail to some degree.

But some of the news coming out of Milwaukee County in recent months has reflected poorly on a central message of his campaign — executive experience. Following an error that could have led to a lapse in health insurance coverage for thousands of County employees, Crowley fired a top official in his Department of Human Resources. The Milwaukee County Transit System, which announced an unexpected budget deficit in June 2025 that was concealed from County officials, and has since gone through a tumultuous time with changes in leadership, with a recent audit suggesting lack of financial oversight and muddled governance of the bus system. On their own, these types of stories might not be so damaging for a candidate, but pieced together, they become all the more problematic for a campaign running on competent, stable leadership.

In a recent interview with the Wisconsin State Journal, Crowley said he’s the candidate Republicans fear most in a general election, if he wins in August. There might be something to that, but right now, he’s in no position to win in August. He needs to turn things around before it’s too late. Is it already too late?

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State Rep. Francesca Hong

The buzziest of any campaign in the race, Hong has gone from wildcard curiosity to genuine contender. But reaching contender status opens her up to a whole new level of scrutiny, and we’re seeing that play out in recent weeks — to mixed results.

A CNN story about Hong’s previous tweets on defunding and abolishing police invited a conversation about those controversial public safety policy positions, but despite how inevitable such a story seemed, the campaign’s statement in response was lacking. A subsequent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story on how she’d envision a world “without prisons” drove home the reality that she is going to face some real challenges on matters of public safety, even as many voters gravitate to her economic populist message.

There was also the recent story about her being sued over credit card debts, which reminds me of stories about Mandela Barnes four years ago regarding his property taxes and college diploma. These stories of millennials encountering financial challenges might seem to have some working class relatability in a primary, but could be more of an issue in a general election where experience is questioned.

On the issues, though, there have been ways in which Hong continues to stand out from the field. Throughout this campaign, there have been numerous forums and discussions that feature many of the candidates, and a recent one showcased an issue where Hong has set herself apart — data centers.

A question from moderator JT Cestkowski, who covers labor issues at Status Coup News, asked if candidates would support a data center moratorium. Surprisingly, only Hong said yes.

So, what’s a more salient issue in 2026 — “defund the police” tweets, or data center politics? It’s probably the latter.

Nevertheless, the electability debate will continue to swirl around Hong’s campaign. There are people who think she flat out cannot win a statewide race at all, and there are people who think she can indeed defeat Tom Tiffany in the general election this fall. It’s also quite clear that Republicans would love to run against a Madison socialist who tweeted about defunding the police; they’re acting like she’s a dream candidate to go up against, and that can’t be entirely discounted as a larger factor in the campaign.

But Hong has built an impressive ground game to go with her robust digital presence. A recent Politico story highlighted a quote from Rock County Democratic leader Jim White, who said she’s the “only candidate” with any infrastructure or active canvassers in the county.

Hong’s overall ceiling might be lower than that of other candidates, and some of her policy positions are going to be controversial, and in some cases, rather unpopular. But the thing about being the wildcard in the race is that an unconventional approach can lead to some unexpected results. We’ve seen that so far in the campaign, and that could continue to be true in the coming weeks and months as this campaign heads to the home stretch, too.

Former WEDC CEO Missy Hughes

Hughes has been picking up some earned media attention with her support for the surplus spending deal made between Gov. Evers and Republican legislative leaders. That issue polled well, and her position on this separates her from the rest of the field, many of whom were very much against it.

But this surplus deal has flummoxed many in Democratic circles, and after all, most Democratic legislators voted against it. It’s a compelling approach to zag against the rest of the field, but is there any evidence to suggest this is translating into actual support? It’s unclear whether or not her campaign has any endorsements, since none are listed online.

Hughes has some strong accomplishments on her resume. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), which she led for six years, was mired in constant turmoil during the Walker years, and her ability to right the ship is no small feat. She’s the only candidate in the race not from Madison or Milwaukee, and that’s important, too.

But she entered this race with perhaps the least public profile of any candidate running, and simply hasn’t done enough to change that over the last few months. Because outside of her position on the surplus spending deal, there isn’t much about her candidacy that’s resonated.

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Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez

With Mandela Barnes’ higher profile and Francesca Hong’s surging campaign, many have wondered who of the rest of the field might be poised to make a jump. Perhaps it’s going to be Sara Rodriguez.

New polling I reported on this week suggests Rodriguez is clearly ahead of the other four candidates, and is among the only candidates on the rise (along with Hong). While these results do come from Rodriguez internal polling, it aligns with larger perceptions of the primary contest, and the numbers don’t lie. She is in a better position than many other candidates in this race, having built some separation between her and several candidates mired in single digits, and the polling suggests Rodriguez is picking up voters who may have previously supported Barnes.

With television ad buys now seeming to start, outside groups aligned with Rodriguez and Crowley, respectively, have put out ads with buys in major markets, and the lieutenant governor’s ad is a far better one — with more money behind it.

The lieutenant governor has, however, had a couple notable stumbles on the campaign trail. Leaked audio from a campaign event showed her saying she’d craft the budget “behind a curtain” if elected, and she had to walk back comments made during an interview about how she would respond to ICE’s use of administrative (not judicial) warrants. While these stories do suggest she might have a tendency to say the wrong thing, these do not present insurmountable challenges. But if her campaign continues to rise, her statements will invite more scrutiny. She’ll have to strike the right balance between improving her responses in unscripted moments without sacrificing authenticity.

Health care is an issue with a huge advantage for Democrats, and will be a salient one after funding cuts with the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which Tom Tiffany supported. Rodriguez can make a claim to that being her signature issue, given her background as a nurse and work within the health care industry.

Given the recent history of successful statewide campaigns, I wonder if Rodriguez’s run could wind up looking like that of what we’ve seen from state Supreme Court candidacies, where women at the top of the ticket perform well and deliver victories, leaning into signature issues with broad support. Being from blue-trending Waukesha County and having flipped an Assembly seat there could be another mark in Rodriguez’s favor, especially with Tiffany being from northern Wisconsin and not having the built-in WOW county notoriety that other Republicans running statewide have enjoyed.

Rodriguez could wind up as the nominee, and if she does, she would likely be the favorite to win against an extreme right-wing candidate like Tom Tiffany in a year where Democrats have the advantage, on balance.

State Sen. Kelda Roys

The most notable turn in Roys’ candidacy came when she gained the “recommendation” of the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC)’s Political Action Committee, and gaining this key backing from the state’s largest teachers union was a strong boost for her campaign.

And on the other side of the coin from Missy Hughes, Roys was the first to come out against the Evers-Vos-LeMahieu surplus spending deal, demonstrating that she’s willing to be a leader on tough issues. She’s also been putting out smart, nuanced policy proposals and has enough progressive bonafides to be in a position to pick up support should Hong or Barnes stumble. It seems like the arrow has been pointing up for the Roys campaign.

But it just hasn’t been enough. Roys is not gaining momentum in this race, and it’s not all that clear why. Perhaps Hong running cut into some of her Madison base. Perhaps Barnes running crowded out the lane for another non-socialist progressive. Perhaps her early fundraising wasn’t where it needed to be. Perhaps a WEAC endorsement doesn’t mean what it once might have. Whatever it is, the support is just not materializing in a way that’s making a meaningful impact on this race. She meets the criteria, but still isn’t being selected.

Like Crowley, Brennan and Hughes, Roys is intelligent and accomplished and more than qualified to be governor. But with less than two months to go before primary election day, a whole lot would have to change very quickly for Roys — or any of the bottom four in the race — to be in position to win.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

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Recent polling on the Democratic primary in the race for governor in Wisconsin shows some separation materializing in the seven-candidate field, with former lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes, State Rep. Francesca Hong and Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez polling ahead of the four other candidates.

Polling conducted in May shows Barnes at 26%, Hong at 22% and Rodriguez at 15%.

Among the rest of the seven-candidate field — which includes Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, former state Department of Administration secretary Joel Brennan, State Sen. Kelda Roys, and former CEO of the Wisconsin’s Economic Development Corporation Missy Hughes — no one polled above 5%.

Here is the topline breakdown from the May poll:

• Barnes: 26%

• Hong: 22%

• Rodriguez: 15%

• Crowley: 5%

• Roys: 4%

• Brennan: 3%

• Hughes: 2%

• Undecided: 18%

This May poll follows another similar poll conducted in March. The two candidates on the rise over the two-month timespan are Francesca Hong and Sara Rodriguez. Both candidates have increased their overall vote share numbers, with Hong rising from 14% to 22% and Rodriguez from 11% to 15%. At that same time, Mandela Barnes’ numbers declined from 32% to 26%. No other candidate polled above 5%, with only minor shifts for Crowley, Roys, Brennan and Hughes. The number of undecided voters also decreased from 30% in March to 18% in May.

Here is the topline breakdown from the March poll:

• Barnes: 32%

• Hong: 14%

• Rodriguez: 11%

• Crowley: 6%

• Roys: 3%

• Brennan: 2%

• Hughes: 2%

• Undecided: 30%

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These polls — commissioned by the Rodriguez campaign and an aligned organization1; obtained by The Recombobulation Area — surveyed likely Democratic primary voters in separate polls in March and May, and also included an “informed” vote where biographical information about the candidates are shared with voters being polled before they make their selection.

In the “informed vote” category, voters being surveyed are given a brief biography of each candidate2. There, Rodriguez leads the field with 33%. Next, Hong is at 21%, Barnes is at 17%, and no other candidate is above 6% — and that portion of the poll includes no undecided voters.

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Here are the May “informed” poll results:

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Federal child care bridge funding ends this month, and Wisconsin’s families are about to feel the impact. While child care providers across the state scrambled to find answers, Senator Howard Marklein and the Republican-controlled legislature had a chance to act, and chose not to.

That choice has consequences.

As a child care provider in Green County, I can tell you exactly what comes next. Centers like mine face three options, none of them good. We can pass the costs on to families by raising rates, which is what I will have to do. We can absorb the loss and hope we survive, most won’t. Or we can close our doors entirely and send families searching for care that, in many communities, simply doesn’t exist.

Green County is already a child care desert. We have more children who need care than we have slots to put them in. Infant spots are especially scarce. Families who lose their current provider won’t find a backup. They’ll face an impossible choice: pay more, drop out of the workforce, or leave the community altogether.

When a parent leaves the workforce to care for a child because no affordable option exists, a local business loses an employee. When families spend more on child care, they spend less at local restaurants, shops, and services. When a child care center closes, that’s a small business leaving the community, permanently.

Senator Marklein represents a rural district that depends on working families. He knows that employers in our communities are already struggling to find workers. He knows the cost of living has risen across the board. And he knows that child care is not a luxury, it is the infrastructure that makes everything else work.

The federal government provided a temporary lifeline. It ended. Senator Marklein had the opportunity to replace it with a Wisconsin solution. He didn’t take it.

I will be raising my rates to cover what I’m losing at the end of this month. For some families in my care, that will be the end. I wish Senator Marklein had to look them in the eye and explain why Wisconsin couldn’t find the will to act.

From the archives:

Jillynn Niemeier is the founder of Blue Door Daycare, which opened in August of 2020 after her family lost their childcare and were not able to find an option that fit their family’s needs.

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The future of the Stadium Freeway is something we’ve covered a whole lot here at The Recombobulation Area.

Almost exactly five years ago, I wrote a piece as part of our multi-part “Expanding the Divide” series on why we should tear down the Stadium Freeway and convert it to a boulevard, opening up opportunities for housing and development and better connection between neighborhoods.

Here’s that column, to refresh your memory:

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About a year later, change did begin to actually happen. Mayor Cavalier Johnson, County Executive David Crowley and Craig Thompson, then the secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, stood together at Washington Park to announce they would be initiating a study to reexamine the future of the Stadium Freeway.

I wrote about this at the time, too.

But that was May 2022, and since, a 1.5 to 2-year study turned into a nearly four-year study, and as Jeramey Jannene at Urban Milwaukee reported in mid-May, the determination of what’s next is that … another study is needed.

You can read his piece about this here.

Or, you can listen to our conversation in the podcast and video here. While there appears to be broad support for converting this old, hulking freeway spur into a boulevard, any concrete action on the project still seems years and years away.

Along with discussing this project, we also talked about Jeramey’s recent reporting on a number of topics, including:

• Wisconsin Center District CEO Marty Brooks (who was discussed at length in a recent podcast episode with Gary Witt of the Pabst Theater Group) now cleaning out his office as the board has considered removing him from his position

• After Congressman Bryan Steil got in some hot water over celebrating funding for lead pipes that he voted against, as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we talked about what is actually happening in the city of Milwaukee when it comes to lead pipe replacement. Milwaukee’s lead pipe replacement has become more efficient and less costly, and they’ve been able to replace more lead pipes because of it, but the program is still at risk. Read more here.

• 2026 has been dubbed the “Year of Housing” in Milwaukee by Mayor Cavalier Johnson, and we talked about a recently proposed project to use funding from downtown projects to fund housing and infrastructure west of I-43 in the King Park neighborhood. Read more about that here.

Urban Milwaukee is a terrific publication and you should really be subscribing. Do that here.

You can also watch the podcast on our YouTube Channel here:

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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During a recent interview on 620 WTMJ, Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany was asked about his views on the 2020 presidential election.

Given that Tiffany backed a State of Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn the election results in four swing states (including Wisconsin), and then came back after the riot to side with rioters by voting against certifying the election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania as a member of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021 (and said he would have rejected Biden’s victory in Wisconsin, too), it’s a more than valid inquiry.

And given recent news on President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” insurrectionist slush fund (Tiffany said he is open to Jan. 6 rioters “possibly” being owed restitution), the FBI’s inquiries into Milwaukee election workers (which Tiffany has said he backs) and former Trump attorney Jim Troupis (who led the Trump campaigns’ efforts to overturn the election in Wisconsin) seeking millions from that slush fund, it’s a timely one, too.

In his response, Tiffany launched into a series of long-debunked conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 presidential election count in the city of Green Bay, where the City Attorney eventually found “no issues affecting the integrity of the election” following a thorough review.

After listening to that segment, I reached out to Amaad Rivera-Wagner, a current Assembly representative who previously served as the chief of staff to Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich. In that role, he and his family faced harassment, vandalism and very real threats to the point where they needed police protection, he told me in 2024, when I was in Green Bay working on a story. So, I was curious if he’d heard what Tiffany had to say in that interview with Steve Scaffidi and Kristin Brey on “Point Taken.”

“Yes,” said Rivera-Wagner. “And I am pissed. It’s bullshit and it led to real people’s lives being threatened, harassed. Millions of taxpayer dollars wasted.”

Rivera-Wagner and others in Green Bay faced all sorts of wild election-related conspiracy theories, including a “Stop the Steal” rally outside Green Bay City Hall on Jan. 6, 2021, and former state Supreme Court justice Michael Gableman calling for the mayor’s arrest as part of his sprawling, multi-million dollar review of the election (which produced no evidence of widespread fraud). The city spent years rehashing the results of the election, and reviving this struck a nerve.

In a press release issued June 3 (available in full here), Rivera-Wagner said:

“Let me be clear: this has been investigated, litigated, reviewed, and debunked. No fraud was found. No issue affecting the integrity of Green Bay’s election was found. Yet these conspiracy theories continue to be repeated by people who know, or should know, better. That is not leadership. That is dangerous…

“These lies were not harmless. They cost taxpayers $2.3 million. They drew bipartisan condemnation. They fueled threats against public servants, election workers, police officers, and families. If an elected official can’t tell the difference between facts and conspiracy theories, they have no business asking to lead our state.”

Tiffany remarking on Green Bay with reheated election denier conspiracies was just a small moment at the outset of a larger conversation, but a revealing one nonetheless. Spouting nonsense like he did shows him to be a true believer of this madness.

The fact of the matter is that Tom Tiffany is completely off the deep end when it comes to 2020 election conspiracies. He’s already drawn national attention for being an election denier candidate running in a swing state — a piece in the Washington Post grouped in with the likes of conspiratorial pillow baron Mike Lindell, who is running for governor in Minnesota — and this is justifiably going to be a heavily scrutinized part of Tiffany’s record as the campaign rolls on.

Because Tiffany’s record on this matter fails to meet basic benchmark standards of American democracy. If you cannot respect the will of the people in a free and fair election, and instead seek to toss out results that go against your wishes, that is tantamount to wanting to upend our entire system of government.

From the archives:

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Some on the right like to argue that this issue is in the past, that people have moved on from what transpired in the late months of 2020 and on through Jan. 6. Donald Trump was later re-elected, after all. But the next governor will have oversight of the next presidential election in 2028, and with Trump and his party continuing to fan the flames of conspiracy and inject Jan. 6 politics back into the national dialogue, what Tiffany says on this truly does matter quite a bit.

Beyond this, though, the underpinnings of the right’s never-ending conspiratorial response to the 2020 presidential election results speaks to something larger, and perhaps more essential, about our politics, our democracy, and the very core of the American experiment.

Last week, conversations surrounding the Democratic primary in the race for governor turned to matters of police and prisons, following national media stories on previous comments made by Francesca Hong, the Madison state representative running for governor. These comments — ones on defunding and abolishing police and on envisioning a world “without prisons” — are controversial, and frankly, not ones I particularly agree with.

But I do believe it is important to have discussions like these and consider various viewpoints, and it is our very system of government that allows for such policy debates to be held in the first place. A policy to disagree with is one thing — and Tiffany has plenty of those — but threatening the very foundations of our democratic system is quite another.

This is why I will always believe that any action taken to overturn the 2020 presidential election should be considered immediately disqualifying for anyone running for public office at any level.

Put simply: Tom Tiffany is unfit for office.

He is unfit for the office he currently holds as a member of Congress representing Wisconsin’s 7th District, and he is unfit to serve in the office he is seeking as governor.

It is utterly mystifying why Wisconsin Republicans have not only accepted Tiffany as their presumptive nominee, but cleared the field for him. You would think Wisconsin Republicans would want to be done with this kind of behavior from their statewide candidates after the Michael Gableman “investigation” and the endless toxic examples of this kind of politics, but no. You’d think that after losing their right-wing majority on the state Supreme Court — where all three justices who sided with the Trump campaign in 2020 will be out of office by next year — might prompt them to seek statewide candidates with no ties to election denier absurdity, but no.

Even beyond his disqualifying election denier history, Tiffany does not project as an especially strong candidate. He is no moderate by any stretch of the imagination. He has a slew of problematic votes in a particularly unpopular Congress (and no sitting member of Congress has ever won a race for governor in Wisconsin); he’s has put zero airspace between he and Trump as the president’s favorability continues to crater and the economy continues to wobble; and his less-than-stellar record in the state legislature ties him to the worst of the Walker years (he voted for the Foxconn deal, just to name one).

It’s not as if Tiffany has other marks that lean particularly in his favor, and by making him the nominee, Republicans have chosen to elevate perhaps the most extreme election denier of any high-ranking elected official in Wisconsin to be their choice for governor.

With his record on the matter — and these are not just stray comments, these are votes — Tiffany clearly does not respect the will of the people, he does not respect Wisconsin’s voters, and he’s demonstrated that he’s willing to dismantle democracy itself to get his way.

These are nightmarish qualities for anyone running for governor. The continued proliferation of this kind of politics is entirely unacceptable. It should have been over by Jan. 7, 2021. That it continues to persist in 2026 is a stain on our entire system.

As citizens of a free country, we can disagree on policy. We can disagree on priorities or strategy or so many other aspects of our politics. But what we cannot accept is a candidate who has proven himself to be willing to end our entire system of government. There is no policy proposal from any candidate that is more extreme or more un-American than Tiffany’s record of wanting to end the American experiment itself.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.

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In light of the Callais decision, the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition is firing up its demand for an Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) that empowers citizens — not political parties.

For the past year, they have been building public support for a draft proposal that aims to be transformative in how Wisconsin draws its maps. On Thursday, June 4, they are holding coordinated statewide rallies in Madison, Milwaukee, Appleton, Menomonie, Janesville, Green County (Monroe), Wausau and more. Find out more about the “Our Maps, Our Say” rallies here.

Listen to this episode featuring Organizing Director iuscely Flores and Coalition Volunteer & Relational Organizer Nicole Gabriel, where they talk about the work they’ve been doing to build a “Wisconsin model” for redistricting, how the gerrymandering arms race is impacting this debate, and what’s in store for the June 4 rallies.

From one year ago:

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This episode is sponsored by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition, which is hosting “Our Maps, Our Say” rallies in cities across the state on Thursday, June 4.

Find out more about the events and register to attend here.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Part of a group who might want to subscribe together? Get a group subscription for 30% off!

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.

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Angela Lang and I always have a lot to talk about when we get together, so for these podcast episodes, we each bring three headlines or topics to discuss.

This time, my headlines were:

• WPR: Failed surplus deal would have sent Wisconsin budget into the red, analysis finds

• NPR: Transportation Secretary Duffy filmed a reality show, funded by firms he regulates

• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Schlitz beer production ends after 175 years

And for Angela, they were:

• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Tom Tiffany says Jan. 6 defendants ‘possibly’ are owed restitution

• Fox 6: Watertown band members play LGBTQ+ history song banned by board

• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: This report says Milwaukee is the top US city for creatives. Here’s why

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You can also watch this episode on our YouTube Channel here:

Plus, if you missed our recent live podcast, you can watch that in full here:

This episode is sponsored by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition, which is hosting “Our Maps, Our Say” rallies in cities across the state on Thursday, June 4.

Find out more about the events and register to attend here.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

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Sitting down to talk with Francesca Hong, the third-term state representative from Madison now running for governor, it’s striking how normal the conversation feels.

Considering all the narratives swirling around Hong’s candidacy, “normal” might not be the first word many people would use to describe her campaign. She doesn’t come across as the firebrand leftist insurgent that her critics and political opponents have painted her as.

In person, she’s deliberate. She’s thoughtful. She demonstrates a nuanced understanding of the issues facing Wisconsin. She’s even sort of quiet, or at least soft-spoken, in her own way — not quite the brashness of her perceived persona.

We get into a discussion on policy priorities, on how she might seek to balance certain bills that have stalled for years under a Republican legislative majority with some of the more ambitious elements of the lengthy agenda her campaign has posted online, and she slices through the noise.

“Public education, shared revenue, and health care,” she says, explaining that these issues would essentially serve as the foundation of her governing agenda.

Those are hardly unusual priorities for a Wisconsin Democrat. Yet Hong herself is an undeniably unconventional candidate. The 37-year-old former chef and restaurant owner is running a campaign that looks and feels different from anything else in the Democratic primary field. And while these might not be uncommon priorities for a Democratic candidate, her approach is unabashedly bold.

People need to “feel material conditions changing in their lives within the first two years of us governing,” she said. “I see local government, public education, and healthcare as a way for us to enact both short-term, stop-the-bleeding, smaller items while keeping a big vision — moving towards a full public option and cheaper healthcare for everyone, making sure that every municipality is able to meet budgets…and that through investing in public education, we’re lowering property taxes and making sure that people are able to keep their schools open.”

Look beyond the noise — the “Democratic Socialist” label; the four-letter words she drops on social media; the endless screeching attacks from the right on matters real and imagined — and it becomes easier to understand why her campaign is gaining traction. This is not a traditional Democratic campaign, nor is it a copy-and-paste progressive movement campaign. It is something distinct.

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When I wrote a piece last year offering a “too-early” assessment of the potential field of candidates for governor following Tony Evers’ decision not to seek a third term, I characterized Hong’s campaign as a “wildcard.” Seven months later, her candidacy has grown from wildcard to contender, with the Aug. 11 primary fast approaching.

“We’ve grown confident,” Hong says. “I’m still approaching the campaign with humility and making sure that I’m out-working and out-hustling every candidate.”

The work ethic from this longtime service and hospitality industry worker has become a defining feature of her campaign.

Hong has been among the most visible candidates in the race, flooding social media feeds, hosting unconventional events, and traveling aggressively across the state.

At the same time, perhaps part of why the Hong campaign is standing out is that others have floundered or kept relatively quiet. With spending starting to ramp up — groups connected to Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, respectively, have placed television ad buys within the last week — things are not going to stay as quiet for long.

Part of the Hong campaign’s ubiquitous visibility online, though, comes from an early investment in digital outreach — “We had to meet communities where they are, and folks are online,” she said — but part of it is simply Hong’s mentality. It is not just a campaign centered on working-class politics; it is one fueled by working-class energy. The big question, then, is whether that energy can translate into electoral success.

So, how real is this? Could a Democratic Socialist who represents one of the bluest Assembly districts in Wisconsin actually win a statewide primary? Could she defeat presumptive Republican nominee Tom Tiffany in a general election?

That’s not at all clear. Early results from the Marquette University Law School Poll showed her atop the field in a pair of polls, but only with 14% of the vote in the most recent edition in March, which also showed that two-thirds of voters were undecided and about one third of voters weren’t even aware of the primary. That poll is most likely a bit of a mirage, and ascending from wildcard to contender does not mean she’s in the lead in this race.

Questions about electability will continue to hover over her candidacy. Republicans clearly seem to believe she would be an easier opponent to contend with in a general election. The Tiffany camp leaking a campaign memo saying Hong’s candidacy needs to be taken “seriously,” highlighted in a recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel feature story on Hong’s buzzy campaign, suggests the Northwoods Republican would not-so-secretly prefer to take on the Madison socialist in November.

It’s not difficult to see why. Hong has given political opponents plenty of fodder to be used in attacks — from summer of 2020 calls to “defund the police” to use of “woke” language (“birthing bodies,” being one example) to sponsoring legislation to decriminalize prostitution.

Still, a general election against Hong would not look like a typical Wisconsin governor’s race. Battlegrounds could be more centered on turnout and participation among lower-propensity voters who often feel disconnected from politics altogether than among your typical moderate swing voters.

Whatever happens in November, one thing has become increasingly clear: Hong currently has momentum.

After the April Supreme Court election, many expected the governor’s race to finally accelerate. Yet while several campaigns remained quiet or struggled to break through, Hong became the candidate everyone seemed to be talking about.

So what exactly is happening with this campaign? What would Francesca Hong seek to do as governor? Could she actually wind up winning this primary?

It’s a Saturday night, and the venue is packed. It’s an earlier start time for a Milwaukee area show, and the band is already onstage. But the headliner for this event is not one of the three cover bands set to perform that evening, the headliner is a politician and this show is a fundraiser. Toward the end of the first band’s set, the singer says the event has already raised nearly $4,000.

At X-Ray Arcade in Cudahy, volunteers circulate through the crowd collecting signatures for ballot access. Campaign merchandise sits next to tables staffed by members of Milwaukee’s Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) chapter, which has endorsed Hong’s campaign.

Toward the back of the venue, I run into a friend who I hadn’t seen in a while, and we chat and catch up for a few minutes, and then I ask if she’s there mostly for the music or there to support the campaign. She’s there because of Francesca Hong.

“I haven’t been this excited about a campaign in 15 years,” said Ryan Findley.

That enthusiasm is impossible to ignore.

Hong’s campaign has built a sizable volunteer network throughout the campaign. Harry Walton, campaign advisor who oversees volunteers, said, “We have 5,548 people who have taken part in a campaign event so far, (in) 62 of 72 Wisconsin Counties. They come from more than 350 towns, cities, and villages across Wisconsin.”

Many supporters describe Hong not simply as a candidate they agree with politically, but as someone who feels authentic in a political environment that often seems manufactured.

“I don’t normally volunteer for politicians,” said Brittney Neidhardt, a Milwaukee social worker volunteering with the campaign. “She is a very genuine person, and I think that is so rare. She really does care.”

Later in the evening, Hong takes the stage and delivers a speech. She’s also joined by the band onstage, where she sings Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” This is becoming her go-to karaoke song to sing on the campaign trail.

“Songs about perseverance and moving forward are always fun for everyone,” she said, and the song choice feels fitting.

Hong’s campaign events are intentionally unconventional, and the campaign is hosting all kinds of different events all over the state — more than 230, to date.

“We have to be organizing in spaces that we don’t think about as political organizing,” Hong said.

They’re all part of a “community building” emphasis that’s central to her campaign strategy. These events are designed not only to promote their message, but to offer a “gateway into being involved politically” for those who might be disengaged from the process.

“Building community is what authoritarians don’t want us to do,” she said. “And (we host) these types of events where people can have fun, can bring their families, can bring new friends who maybe haven’t heard of our campaign or just don’t want anything to do with politics.”

The approach extends online as well. Hong’s campaign has worked to rapidly increase her name recognition while cultivating a style that’s “more accessible, transparent and fun” than traditional political messaging, Hong said.

“We knew we had to spark curiosity,” she said. “It’s hard to make people curious about a campaign from just reading about it in the paper.”

Perhaps part of Hong’s nontraditional and unconventional campaign approach stems from her own unique path to politics.

Born and raised in Madison, Hong is the daughter of Korean immigrants who came to Wisconsin in the late 1980s to pursue educational opportunities. Her father is a sociologist and researcher at the Waisman Center, and her mother is a music teacher.

“In her first year of student teaching, that was Act 10, and that was our first protest together,” she said. “For me, being interested in politics is with your family, with your community.”

After graduating from Madison West High School, she went to college initially intending to be a sports journalist — “following the Erin Andrews path, if you will.” But around that time, she also started working part-time in restaurants, and “fell in love with it.”

“I think the chaos and camaraderie is what drew me,” she said.

Eventually, she dropped out of college to cook full-time. Beginning in 2009, Hong began working “as many part time cooking jobs as I could,” she said, mostly at restaurants in downtown Madison, and also moonlighting at Red Light Ramen and Ardent in Milwaukee. She eventually became the executive chef at 43 North in Madison, and then in 2016, she and then-husband Matt Morris opened Morris Ramen in Madison.

Politics became part of the restaurant’s ethos early on. One of their first events was a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood, and Hong got involved with organizations and events around Madison through the restaurant.

“I learned that organizing looks like bringing people together around a table,” she said.

From the archives:

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It was in March of 2020 when I was first introduced to Francesca Hong. I was working on a piece on Wisconsin’s restaurant industry dealing with the initial onset of the covid-19 pandemic. Restaurants and bars around the state were beginning to speak out about what they would need to navigate this crisis, and Hong was among those leading the charge, posting a letter addressed to Gov. Evers on the Morris Ramen Facebook page, eventually having the letter co-signed by more than 50 restaurant industry leaders in Madison.

Not long afterward, she decided to run for State Assembly in the 76th District. Her campaign’s theme was “Share the Table.” Running for political office was not something she had ever planned to do, but her response to the pandemic prompted others to encourage her to run for the open seat.

“Spite and crisis and exhaustion can spark some crazy decisions,” Hong said. “And one of mine was to run for office.”

She won a crowded Democratic primary in August 2020 and would become the first Asian American elected to the Wisconsin State Legislature when she took office in January of the following year.

Her years in the restaurant industry continue to shape how she talks about politics.

“Being in service industry work means that you always put other people first,” she said. “Every public servant should come with that mentality.”

Morris Ramen ultimately closed in 2024 amid rising rents and costs, an experience Hong says reinforced her belief that economic pressures are squeezing working-class people from every direction. This helped shape her view of the working class in Wisconsin, too.

“I think working-class people right now have to make tougher and tougher choices,” she said. “In restaurants, you work so hard and it doesn’t feel like enough. And right now, everyone is feeling that…I don’t think folks realize that the working class right now is basically everyone who isn’t a multimillionaire.”

While Hong did not originally run for office explicitly as a Democratic Socialist, she had been a DSA member in Madison prior to running and does not shy away from the label, eventually joining the Assembly’s Socialist Caucus, which was revived in 2023.

“Democratic socialism is democracy, fairness, and human rights,” she said. “I want policies that I prioritize to be working towards more democratic control of the economy. Because the economy right now is controlled by corporations, billionaires, and oligarchs. I want the economy to be controlled by people — and actually work for working class people.”

Hong sees Republicans like President Donald Trump or Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to be the true “villains” in the larger context of national and state politics, but has been frustrated by a “problem of elitism” within the Democratic Party.

“We appealed to the college educated, the folks who are our donor base, and we lost working class people,” she said. “We didn’t diversify — and I’m not just talking about ethnic or racial backgrounds — I don’t think we diversified in how we were approaching voters to talk about and engage them in politics. When I say elitism, you can’t have a party feel like a special club, even though in politics, your job with voters is to make them feel special. And I think we only made a certain group of voters feel special.”

While the Democratic Party might be in an advantageous position going into this year’s midterm elections — the latest poll of the generic ballot from The New York Times shows a Democrat +10 environment — voters still do not hold the Democratic Party in particularly high regard. This same poll showing Democrats in good position for the midterms also showed just 26% of voters are satisfied with the Democratic Party.

Similar numbers have appeared in Wisconsin, too, where the latest Marquette poll showed that only 35% of voters have a favorable view of the Democratic Party. That dissatisfaction with the Democratic establishment has manifested in certain primaries and elections across the country, like in Maine, where Graham Platner has become the presumptive nominee in a key U.S. Senate race, and Zohran Mamdani, also a Democratic Socialist, toppled Andrew Cuomo on his way to becoming mayor of New York City.

“This is a movement moment that demands taking on the establishment, talking about everyday cost of living issues that move people and standing up for human rights unapologetically,” Hong said, praising Platner’s campaign. “Like me and our campaign, dude is trying to talk to everyone everywhere and building organizing infrastructure that brings in new people to the movement.”

The comparisons to the New York mayor are inevitable for someone running as a Democratic Socialist in 2026, and Hong has good things to say about Mamdani’s campaign, too, particularly his “accessibility” approach to social media, saying they’re using it to show “why it’s important to have a government that is a force for good.”

But New York City is not exactly Wisconsin, and the “Socialist” label still carries enormous baggage for a statewide election — even as progressives like Hong will often remind you that Bernie Sanders won 71 of 72 counties in Wisconsin during the 2016 primary. Hong also wants to change the perceptions associated with the label.

“Right now, I’m running as a Democratic Socialist on the Democratic ticket because it signals to people that I am ready for change and for Democratic socialism not to be seen as something that’s scary or radical,” she said. “I think it’s radical that we have kids who are hungry in schools and can’t learn. I think it’s unacceptable that we have small businesses that are paying more in taxes than some of the largest corporations that know how to access loopholes, and that it’s easier to get a corporate subsidy (than) it is for a working mom to get food share benefits to feed her kids, that there’s more bureaucracy in lessening suffering than there is in the wealthiest gaining more wealth.”

Not all issues cut along traditional political lines or fit neatly into the labels of “socialist” or “liberal” or “moderate” or “conservative.” One issue she’s found significant traction on is in her opposition to large-scale AI data centers. In January, her campaign called for a moratorium on new data centers until stronger ratepayer protections and environmental regulations are in place. This position landed her on the cover of TIME magazine, which featured her alongside other activists and elected officials pushing back against these developments.

In Wisconsin, this has become a burgeoning issue where both liberals and conservatives have shown significant opposition to AI data centers. As comedian Charlie Berens has put it in his own advocacy against data centers, “This is the most bipartisan issue since beer.”

This could serve as an example of where the Hong campaign could find traction and trust with voters in unforeseen ways. Because a traditional approach would not work for this campaign — and might not be what voters want right now.

This is part of why people need to start viewing her campaign through a different lens.

In a gathering space tucked away at the West Bend Community Memorial Library, Francesca Hong sits listening to a group of students, parents and supporters as part of a roundtable discussion campaign event. This is not Hong on stage for a raucous crowd at a concert fundraiser or going direct-to-camera on social media with a fired-up take. But the candidate’s authenticity shines through here, too. At a fundamental level, the message is the same — Hong is the same.

“I’m running for governor for working class people to have a say and more control of their government,” she said. “But I’m also running because I truly love this state and all that it has provided my family.”

She’s at this library in Washington County to discuss mental health. The group is not large, but she’s taking this just as seriously as being on stage in front of hundreds at a candidate forum.

She talks about her own experience dealing with mental health challenges and being in therapy, and how the personal becomes political when “people don’t have their basic needs met” and epidemics of loneliness and isolation are being exacerbated by Big Tech.

She talks about what the state government could do to better fund mental health care, prioritize incorporating it into public institutions, and govern the issue differently. She talks about using her platform to “destigmatize” mental health, answers questions on the impacts of recent public policy decisions on health care, and has conversations about the way technology has warped experiences and eroded connections in younger generations. Beyond the purely political, she talks about connection and community and wanting to rebuild what’s been lost.

Hong does not talk in soundbytes. She is bold without being preachy. She’s more interested in the dialogue of the event than it being another campaign soapbox. She seems more comfortable listening than speaking. The assembled group comes away impressed, and people find her refreshing, authentic and genuine. One of the students says she has a “presence” that’s almost like a “quiet gravity.”

The question lingers, though — especially as we sit in the middle of one of the state’s most conservative counties: Can she win?

There’s a pause in the room when I ask that question to those in attendance, after Hong has left to go to her next campaign event. There’s optimism, but uncertainty. Hope, but caution. A desire to stand aside an unconventional candidate who wants to go big and bold and do things differently, but a tacit acknowledgement that such an approach might not be successful.

It’s that very tension that will define this particularly unique campaign as the Democratic field hurtles toward the Aug. 11 primary.

Electing Hong to be the Democratic nominee for the first open governor’s race in 16 years would carry a great deal of risk. Going from being an Assembly representative in a safe blue district to a statewide candidate is a massive jump, one that she might not be able to land.

But this campaign has earned the right to be taken seriously, and — perhaps more importantly — to be considered on its merits and on the issues and policies it is advocating for, and not simply by the labels or narratives assigned to it.

This campaign is succeeding in ways others are not. There’s something to be learned from a campaign that eschews message-testing and might be grasping the authenticity that voters are craving. Because Francesca Hong and her campaign have worked their way into contention in an unconventional and genuinely compelling manner, and now we’ll see if this wildcard can play a winning hand.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Emily Mills recently won a Milwaukee Press Club GOLD award for their column, “How AI is harming Wisconsin’s path to renewable energy.” So, they joined the podcast to talk about that prescient piece, how the politics of AI and data centers has taken off as a major issue over the past year, and how this is an issue that does not cut along traditional political lines.

We talked about that piece, along with Emily’s latest column, on “habitual drama king” Kirk Bangstad, and his run for governor.

You can also watch this episode on our YouTube channel here.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.

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On Monday morning, Gov. Tony Evers announced a “blockbuster” deal had been struck with Republican legislative leadership, but less than 72 hours later, the bill failed in the state Senate by a 15-18 vote, with all Democrats and three Republicans voting against the deal.

The $1.8 billion deal would have spent $850 million in rebate checks for some Wisconsinites, increased special education funding by raising the reimbursement rate to 50%, eliminated taxes on cash tips and overtime income, and provided some property tax relief (find more details on the proposal in this release from the governor’s office).

In failing at the finish line, this puts a spotlight on some of the more fraught elements of state government that have been lurking beneath the surface, particularly as it pertains to the state Senate.

First, there’s the fracturing Republican caucus in the state Senate, which has been a bit of an underexplored story under Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, particularly in this current session. The GOP holds a 18-15 majority, but as we’ve seen repeatedly in the 2025-26 session — including in the state budget vote in July 2025 — Senate Republicans are not all on the same page. Three of the four Republican senators who voted against the final version of the state budget — Steve Nass, Chris Kapenga and Rob Hutton — also voted against this deal.

But unlike with the state budget, this time, there were no Senate Democrats who voted in favor of the deal. All 15 voted against, and during comments on the Senate floor that preceded the vote — including from Democratic senators Jamie Wall and Kristin Dassler-Alfheim, who voted in favor of the budget last year —many sounded the alarm on claims of fiscal irresponsibility of the deal.

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Thanks so much to everyone who came out for our LIVE PODCAST event at Anodyne Coffee’s Walker’s Point Roastery in Milwaukee! It might not have been April 14, but we still showed up for the 4-1-4! Turns out you can celebrate Milwaukee Day on May 7, after all.

Our guests for the podcast included Angela Lang and Kristin Brey, and we were also joined by Milwaukee Day founder Andy Silverman and 414 Day Executive Director Mocha Harris, as well as Carmen Murguia, sales director at the Milwaukee Courier, another publication that, like The Recombobulation Area, has recently come under the umbrella of Civic Media.

If you missed the audio version of the podcast, you can listen to that (and see a bonus photo gallery) here:

You can also watch on our YouTube Channel here:

It will always be of the utmost importance to us at The Recombobulation Area to build community, and that community would not be possible without the city we call home: Milwaukee.

Thanks again, y’all!

Video credits:

• Video Editor, Tony Zimmerman

• Audio Recording Engineer, Chris Kasper

• Video Producer/Audio Editor, Aaron Zommers

• Additional Editing, Jennie Brand

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.

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Contributor Emily Mills is the winner of a GOLD honor from the Milwaukee Press Club’s 2025 Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism awards, winning for “Best Single Editorial, Statement of Editorial Position or Opinion” for the column, “How AI is harming Wisconsin’s path to renewable energy.” Congratulations, Emily!

I’m so tired of loud white “liberal” men who think they’re the only ones who can save us.

Current example/reason for my deep, Marge Simpson-like groans: Minocqua Brewing Company owner and habitual drama king Kirk Bangstad. He’s just announced that he’s running for the soon-to-be-open governor’s seat in Wisconsin, in an increasingly crowded Democratic primary.

Why? He swears, using the very official medium of Facebook posts, that he reached out to other candidates to see if they met his rigorous standards, only to be met with disappointment. There was no recourse, then, but for him to throw his hat into the ring. He is the man who can save us all, you see, from Tom Tiffany and the Trump regime’s influence here.

After exhausting his list of people he wanted to see run — all white men, for the record — Bangstad said he began reaching out to the people already running for the post to ask, specifically, if they had an “election protection plan” as part of their platform. Bangstad’s number one concern, apparently eclipsing all other issues facing Wisconsinites to the point of being the only thing worth his time, is his fear that the Trump regime intends to rig/steal the midterms.

This is where he shows his hand, yet again, as inherently nothing but a concern troll and misogynist. State Rep. Francesca Hong, Bangstad says, may be a “true progressive,” but she’s simply too “politically naive and unelectable” to win. Then, State Sen. Kelda Roys has “been in office so long that she thinks more about which coalition of voters she’ll piss off before checking in with her heart to saying what she believes.”

Alas and alack, these poor, overwhelmed, directionless women clearly need Bangstad to take care of business for them.

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Meanwhile, he’s on his Facebook page openly encouraging his followers to harass a reporter with the local Fox News station who had the audacity to…ask him questions about his campaign for governor.

He’s got a history of resorting to childish name-calling and outright slander when it comes to people with whom he disagrees, including having to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars in a case where he falsely accused the co-owner of the Lakeland Times of intentionally allowing his own brother to die in order to take over the paper. Of course, he leans heavily on cries of “free speech!” whenever faced with consequences for his behvior.

And then there’s his SuperPAC, which has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars mostly to put up obnoxious billboards and otherwise fail to disclose where any of that money is actually going.

But Bangstad is just one of far too many self-aggrandizing white men who call themselves liberal and use big public stunts and shitty language to make a name for themselves while failing to do anything to meaningfully build coalitions or create policies that actually improve people’s lives. They’re simply using people’s very real fears and anxieties about our present moment in order to raise their own profiles (and often money).

But it seems their only real issue is that they’ve ever been held even a little accountable for their actions, and now have to make it everyone’s problem as they seek to use the battle cry of “free speech” to win power and freedom from responsibility. It’s easy to spot, because the “free speech” of these blueanon types very often veers directly into paranoia, racism, sexism, fatphobia, homophobia, transphobia, and classism to make its alleged point. Yes, you should have the right to say what you want without the government coming for you, but everyone else gets to tell you you’re being an asshole.

In the end, I’m neither surprised by or particularly mad at Bangstad for deciding to run. He wants to talk about being “politically naive and unelectable?” Pot, meet kettle (or Brett Hulsey).

In addition, it’s always up to the other candidates to do the work to rise above the noise and make the case for why people should support their campaign. We also have to make sure the Democratic Party doesn’t throw its weight around in order to tip the scales toward a candidate the internal (reactionary centrist) machine likes more, and that we then coalesce behind the eventual primary winner in order to beat the actually fascist Republican Party come November.

The way to do that isn’t with fear and shouting and simply saying “Trump/Tiffany/Republicans are bad.” Or by saying “every other Democratic candidate sucks but me.” You don’t do that by doxxing reporters, patronizing the women in the race, or name-calling in lieu of actually making your case.

You do that by showing us a compelling vision for a possible, better future for all of us — yes, even those folks still voting Republican — one based in reality, with a dash of dreaming. It’s by demonstrating a whole lot of grit and willingness to set your ego aside and do the hard work of building real coalitions, passing meaningful policy, and shifting the culture to one of kindness and cooperation.

This column was originally published at “Grist from the Mills,” Emily Mills’ newsletter, which you can find and subscribe to here.

Emily Mills is a longtime freelance writer/reporter based in Madison. They previously served as Editor of Our Lives, Wisconsin’s only LGBTQ+ media outlet, and as an opinion columnist in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. You can currently find Emily’s work at tonemadison.com and at their own newsletter, Grist From the Mills.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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