Shawn Johnson:
So that big budget deal that got voted down in the Wisconsin Legislature — turns out it's really popular. What can we make of that finding in the latest poll by Marquette University? And Tom Tiffany has the Republican field largely to himself as he runs for governor. We talk about his approach. This is Inside Wisconsin Politics. I'm Shawn Johnson here with my colleagues Zac Schultz, Anya van Wagtendonk and Rich Kremer in Eau Claire. Hey, everyone!

Zac Schultz:
Hello.

Anya van Wagtendonk:
Hi Shawn.

Rick Kremer:
Hey Shawn.

Shawn Johnson:
So we have used the word "rare" to describe this budget surplus deal more than once in the last few weeks. I mean, it's rare to see a Democratic governor and Republican leaders come together to negotiate something like this in an election year. Rare to see this kind of bipartisan opposition, kind of backstabbing after the vote. Rich, I'd say it's rare to see this kind of a poll from Marquette University, where you have such lopsided support in favor of any issue. What did Marquette find?

Rich Kremer:
So they found that among the 454 Wisconsin residents that they surveyed, 80% said that the Legislature should have passed the surplus spending deal. And what's really striking, to your point, is that when you break that down by partisanship, the numbers don't vary that much. Among Republicans, it was 77% who said that it should have passed, independents 81%, Democrats 80%. So that is, I mean, that's a strong majority of people cutting across all partisan demographics who wanted to see this thing get passed. And the poll also asked questions about, you know, are you going to remember this in the fall, et cetera, et cetera? And some people said they will, and it's just really fascinating. I talked to Charles Franklin, who's Marquette's pollster, and he said he wanted to do this poll, which is different than others, because it was really interesting to him to see the bipartisan birth of this legislation and the bipartisan death of it. So he wanted to see where the public stood.

Shawn Johnson:
When you saw those numbers come out — Zac, Anya — what stood out to you? I mean, to me, I think the obvious top line number, 4 or 5, is sort of eye-popping. I would not have imagined that level of support for any bill that comes out of the Wisconsin Legislature.

Zac Schultz:
I would think there are two things that jumped out at me. The first is we talked about it from the very beginning. This was the definition of a bipartisan bill that the public has repeatedly said they want their lawmakers to do. And two, this is why we do not legislate by referendum. The public will always support something that gives them money, no matter the fiscal complications down the road. And they hate nuance. Most people in the state just want things done in a sane fashion. They don't like to get into the details of what will it mean for the structural deficit in two years — they're worried about their gas tank today. So it's not, if anything, it's surprising there weren't more people that wanted this deal done — closer to 90% — because it looked like a win-win for everybody. But it is those little nitty details that the Democrats and some Republicans jumped on to say why this didn't get passed.

Shawn Johnson:
Anya, how about you? I mean, to me, this finding sort of puts the way that people reacted to this bill in kind of a new light. You know, I remember asking you last week, why would some Democrats not want to come out against this when other Democrats are. Well, maybe we have a pretty good answer here.

Anya van Wagtendonk:
Well, yeah, I think, you know, we've talked about it as a messaging tool as well. And there is, to Zac's point, there's like the nuanced messaging and the unnuanced messaging. One of those is easier to resonate with voters. And so you can kind of say, do you want money in your pocket or not? Do you want money for your schools or not? And most people, I think, are going to say, yes, I would like money in my pocket. I would like money in my schools. Having the more complicated messaging — the opponents of the deal are the ones who are going to really have their work cut out for them, because they have to kind of prove a negative and say, "Well, but if we had done this, there would have been this deficit, we would have had to live under, you know, austerity measures going forward." That's a much more complicated thing than, do you want 300 bucks in your bank account or not.

Shawn Johnson:
Yeah, I will say that when I saw this poll, my immediate thought was, well, you didn't tell them about the other side of this. That is, if you do this thing, you're going to blow a $2.9 billion hole in the budget. Actually, Marquette did ask about that, Rich. They said, in so many words, you know, that this could create budget issues down the road, and, you know, do you really want to do this now? And the public said?

Rich Kremer:
They said, we don't care. I mean, they might care, but they said that we still think that it would be better to get this money to schools and to ourselves in the form of property tax relief and rebate checks — $300 for single adults and tax filers, and $600 for married couples. So they said it'd be better now than next year, even considering the potential for nearly a $3 billion budget deficit going into the next state budget. And I also wanted to mention that it has been really interesting seeing the opposition. Almost every major candidate in the race for governor was against it. Tom Tiffany on the Republican side, and on the Democratic side, the only Democrat who came out and said we should be supporting this is former Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation Director/CEO Missy Hughes. And so after the vote failed, and especially after this poll came out, she said: See, you know, this is why, you know, I want to get things done, people want to get things done. So it's going to be interesting to see what, if any, ads — campaign attack ads — come from this, because essentially, you know, Tiffany would have to say they didn't pass the thing that I didn't support, or vice versa, you know? So it'll be really interesting to see if it plays into the campaigns much.

Shawn Johnson:
I also wonder if this was just another window into an issue that we already know is big, and that is the cost of living. People feel that cost of living, and when you ask them, would you like a little help — might sound like a little in terms of the state budget, and 300 bucks, you know, you can say that's not going to solve all their problems — but the answer is a resounding yes when you ask that question.

Zac Schultz:
Well, it's the number one issue that people have been talking about for more than a year now. Affordability has been an issue — it was an issue in the '24 presidential campaign. So in some ways, it's surprising that all these major candidates dropped the ball. And, Shawn, I'll turn around, the point that Rich brought back to you, which is it seems like a lot of these major candidates — other than Missy Hughes — have flubbed their chance to have themselves a really nice issue to campaign on in the fall. If there's anyone that would take back their opposition, do you think there's one or two candidates that would be better off if they'd been supportive?

Shawn Johnson:
Maybe? Maybe. I think for Democrats, they have to focus on winning that primary. And so in the moments after this thing was made public, they had to decide what is the left position and how close do I want to get to that? And they made those calculations, you know. I think in hindsight, seeing an 80% issue, maybe you would want to be on the side of the 80%, especially when Democrats and independents basically feel the same way about that stuff. I think it's an open question, though, about whether or not — we've talked about this before — but whether or not they'll pay the price for this in November. We should say, you know, voters were asked about that, Rich, and whether or not they'll be thinking about this as they vote in November. How important is it to them? What did they say there?

Rich Kremer:
So 73% of the respondents said that this, you know, where candidates stood on this — them opposing this legislation — will be either somewhat or very important to them come November. And I asked Charles Franklin about this, you know, because in our world, November might as well be three years away in terms of how fast things can change on the campaign trail. And he said, well, people might not remember individual votes on this specific bill, but to Zac's point, Franklin said that cost of living, affordability, property taxes, school funding have been and will likely continue to be top of mind for them.

Shawn Johnson:
Yeah, I'm tempted to say, I don't believe you, voters. You know, something else is going to come along between now and November. But still, that is a pretty overwhelming finding from people right now saying, yeah, I'm going to remember this. How about the candidates for governor specifically, though? Because that was one where I thought the findings were a little squishier — more, this is more the Wisconsin I know — when people are presented with this idea of whether or not they thought it was wrong for Tom Tiffany to take a stand against this, or for other Democratic candidates to take a stand against this, as more, as closer to 50/50, right. You had, it seems like Democrats and Republicans may be willing to give their candidate the benefit of the doubt if you hear the right messaging between now and November, Anya.

Anya van Wagtendonk:
Yeah. You know, one of the sort of upsetting truths for those of us who really care about facts and details in the public media world, is that voters don't really care about those things, right? They care about sort of feeling heard and feeling considered. And so, one of the things that candidates need to do right now is present that they take people's concerns seriously — they take the affordability concerns seriously, they take the school funding concerns seriously. And the kind of details of it are a lot less important to your everyday voter. And so how do you kind of message that in a way that makes people feel heard and understood enough to want to check that box at the ballot box, rather than kind of getting into some of this infighting around the Capitol, by which it could have or could not have occurred?

Zac Schultz:
I think you've brought up a really important element, and that is that feeds into the cynicism of some people out there. And the question for every midterm is turnout. Presidential elections will always have high turnout just because there's so much attention. Midterms, the candidate success rises and falls with who shows up and which party can get their people out. So if there are voters, independents or moderates on either side, who feel like they're not being heard by their politicians — because both sides, all the candidates in front of them, said, no, I'd rather do it my way later on, you don't need anything right now, you can just wait — that may feed into them saying, well, forget it, I'm just going to tune out, none of you deserve my vote. And that could impact turnout. Who were those voters more likely to be persuadable by? Which side could they have gone to if they vote at all? That is a big factor when you see the potential of this midterm with wave elections and people feeling upset and angry. Some of them just tune out, and they are votes that are not even counted at all because they never show up.

Shawn Johnson:
So let's talk about some of the candidates for governor in a little more detail here. Tom Tiffany had a forum in Madison on the day that this poll came out. So it was a few hours after the poll had been out there. Essentially, he'd seen the answers to the test by then, and he knew where the public stood on this issue. Tom Tiffany was asked, Anya, at this forum, you know, do you stand by your comments earlier that you oppose this deal? What did he have to say?

Anya van Wagtendonk:
He stands by those. But again, you know, needing to thread that needle of yes, I want to fund schools, yes I think that people need more money in their pockets, I just don't think that this was the right deal for that. And so again, he got kind of squishy on details. So he talked about, he believes basically every penny of the surplus needs to go back into people's pockets. This would have obviously split the surplus between school funding and some of those rebates, and then things like no tax on tips. He then didn't really have a proposal for how he would return that money to the taxpayers, and he didn't really have details on how he would then boost school funding, because of course that is the other kind of half of the deal. But he said he really cares about that, and stay tuned for his first budget as governor. So it was a way of, I think, trying to thread that needle of, I didn't support it because it didn't do enough for you, the voter — vote for me and I'll make it happen, I will find a way to balance the budget and find a way to put money in your pockets.

Shawn Johnson:
What did he say about the projected surplus as at this forum?

Anya van Wagtendonk:
I believe he said it was "Madison math" to try to, if there was going to be a deficit because of how you spend money, that that is Madison math, and he's going to do sort of family checkbook math, which is how you balance a budget. So again, a lot of sort of talking points, not a lot of specifics.

Shawn Johnson:
In terms of the "Madison math" versus the "family math," it is basically like assuming your family is not going to get a raise in the next couple of years, and this is what would happen if you didn't — you would run out of money. At this forum hosted by WisPolitics in Madison, Tom Tiffany was also given an open invitation to show where he disagrees with President Donald Trump. One of those questions was about whether he'd support this $1.8 billion pot of money that Trump's administration has dubbed the "anti-weaponization" fund. That's the one the Democrats worry could be used to compensate people like the January 6 defendants. Here's what Tom Tiffany had to say.

Tom Tiffany:
So I'm still studying the details in regards to that. I haven't — I'm asking the administration to give us more as far as how exactly they expect to implement this. I'd say, one of, just one thought that I have in regards to it is that, maybe some people are due compensation.

Shawn Johnson:
So, Zac, this is a 50-50 state, and Tom Tiffany has the luxury of not running in a big competitive Republican primary right now. One could argue that this would be a chance for him to say, this is where I differ from the president. Why didn't we hear that from him?

Zac Schultz:
Because he really hasn't differed from the president on most issues since the president has come into power and since Tom Tiffany's been in Congress. They've been very closely associated. And that's not just Tom Tiffany's personal belief, that's him representing his congressional district. The 7th is the most MAGA red of all the Republican districts throughout the state. So, yes, there's a political logic that comes with, well, he doesn't have a Republican primary to worry about, so he already has Trump's endorsement, the party's endorsement, so he can afford to split from Trump. It's not the same as some of these primaries we've seen around the country, where everyone's desperately clinging to try and get Trump to give them their blessing so they can win a primary. He's already got that. So I think this clearly shows — and his prior statements in a lot of these similar issues about the 2020 election and election fraud and conspiracies clearly shows — this is who he is, and this has been who he is all along in Congress. This really isn't any different from the Tom Tiffany we've been covering for all these years. I think there may be some Republicans who wish it was different, because now he's in a more widespread political spotlight and the little higher stakes with the gubernatorial election. But it's not really a change from who he's always been.

Shawn Johnson:
Rich, we've had the benefit of a few days since that forum, and he covered a lot there in this forum by WisPolitics. What were some people in his own party saying about how that went for him, and kind of how he maneuvered around these questions?

Rich Kremer:
So through my trolling of social media — trawling?

Shawn Johnson:
Research, it's research.

Rich Kremer:
Trolling is something else. That's right, research. I saw a few conservatives, Republicans, and even one conservative website say this was an unforced error, he shouldn't be talking about 2020, he needs to talk about the future and what he's going to do. And also to the surplus bill and his opposition to that — a lot of people said that was another unforced error. And, you know, there's this race on for every candidate to define themselves before they're defined by the other party, so some Republicans think that Tiffany needs to do a better job of that.

Shawn Johnson:
Anya, one thing that stood out to you — I remember when we were talking about what went on at this forum — is you said he basically covered a lot of ground and said very little about the details. Would that be an accurate summation of what you saw?

Anya van Wagtendonk:
I think that's right. And you know, to be clear, it's not unusual for a politician in an election year to kind of go broad strokes, big picture and not necessarily settle on the details. But I think, again, it speaks to this thing that we've been talking about this whole show, about how do you kind of land a message without getting caught up in these details? And I wonder to what extent — because he doesn't have to distinguish himself in a primary the way that the Democratic candidates do — whether he just kind of wants to appeal to people who just want a more conservative person in office, people for whom his sort of North Woods background is more appealing, and is maybe relying on some level of infighting from the Democrats. And therefore, he doesn't really need to make a case in that traditional sense, he doesn't need to explain in great detail how he would balance that budget. He can kind of go a little bit on vibes and hope that that'll carry him through November.

Shawn Johnson:
Maybe at a forum in Madison he has that luxury. I did check before we recorded today, and he has a couple campaign ads on YouTube, Zac — 7 million views and 4 million views — where he talks about basically being a Wisconsin guy and a dam tender. It seems like that may reach more people.

Zac Schultz:
And that is his background. He started out running a small business, he's tended the dam, And that's what he's going to run on is that folksy Northwoods attitude — widespread. The Inside Wisconsin Politics — that's the "Madison math" he's not worried about.

Shawn Johnson:
Well, that's all the time we have for today. Thanks for joining us. This has been Inside Wisconsin Politics. Be sure to follow us on pbswisconsin.org, wpr.org, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.