The Wisconsin Politics Group Chat podcast features Dr. Kristin Lyerly, Pat Kreitlow (The View from UpNorth) of UpNorthNews, Kate Duffy of Motherhood for Good, and Dan Shafer of The Recombobulation Area.
Find all of these episodes on The Recombobulation Area’s podcast feed (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, here on Substack).
There is so much happening in the Wisconsin political universe, and your friends at the “Wisconsin Politics Group Chat” podcast are here to break it all down.
This episode aired live on the Motherhood for Good YouTube Channel on Tuesday, Aug. 18, at 1:30 p.m.
For a beat-by-beat breakdown, check out our topics and timestamps below:
00:00 – Welcome Back, Kristen — Post-op recovery banter, road-trip time with kids, and Chris Taylor’s Supreme Court investiture in Madison.
04:44 – A Liberal Supreme Court Majority — Justice Karofsky’s plan to bring the court to communities, and the 5-2 liberal majority.
06:03 – Primary Post-Mortem: Who Turned Out — Why primary electorates skew fringe, the WisGOP-endorsed candidates fall flat
12:26 – Kristen’s Takes on Primary Night — Reliving election night chaos, the Crowley/Godlewski/Hong governor’s race, and the tight three-way 8th CD primary.
16:46 – Down-Ballot Races & Media Blind Spots — The 6th CD (Grothman vs. Brad Smith), vote-splitting independents, and frustration that local races get ignored by the press.
19:07 – Mapping the Crowley-Hong Results — Regional breakdown of the primary, with Waukesha and the WOW counties standing out as a Crowley stronghold.
23:00 – From Waukesha to Wausau — How do downballot races look now that we know who is on the top of the ticket?
25:24 – The Michelle Magadance Skinner Scandal — Dual-residency and cross-state voting controversy in the Chippewa Valley Senate race.
31:22 – The Fake Poll Mystery — The fake polling “experiment” revealed in the days after the Wisconsin governor’s primary.
36:37 – How Reliable Were the Polls? — State Navigate vs. Marquette, late-breaking undecided voters, and shifting midterm turnout dynamics.
45:14 – Data Centers as a Campaign Issue — Affordability vs. data centers as top voter concerns, and how the issue is being weaponized heading into the general.
52:49 – Comparing the Gubernatorial Interviews — Tiffany dodging the 2020 election question vs. Crowley’s interview style.
55:37 – Wrap-Up: Distractions Ahead — A call to stay civically engaged, a Jon Ossoff “lock in” shoutout, and sign-off.
Watch this and every episode of the “Wisconsin Politics Group Chat” on The Recombobulation Area’s YouTube Channel here:
You can find every episode of the “Wisconsin Politics Group Chat” on The Recombobulation Area’s podcast feed, available on Spotify (embedded below), Apple Podcasts (available here), and right here on Substack.
In case you’ve missed a previous episode of the Wisconsin Politics Group Chat, you can find the most recent episodes here.
Dan Shafer is an independent journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. He worked with Civic Media from 2024 to 2026. 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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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.
