David Crowley won Wisconsin’s 2026 Democratic nomination for governor just more than a month after he dropped out of the race — “Here & Now” political panelists Bill McCoshen and Scot Ross spoke about Crowley’s matchup with Tom Tiffany, the winner of the Republican primary. Alexander Shur, a reporter with Votebeat, recounted an error made at the city of Milwaukee’s central count on election night that delayed the reporting of primary results.

Bill McCoshen and Scot Ross
Republican and Democratic political panelists

• Wisconsin’s Aug. 11 primary vote set the 2026 field in the state’s race for governor, with David Crowley winning by a very narrow margin in a tumultuous Democratic race and Tom Tiffany winning the Republican nomination over minimal opposition. McCoshen and Ross talked about whether Crowley and Tiffany would be able to raise enough money to compete in the general election.
• McCoshen: ”I think he’s going to raise more money than any candidate in history, and that includes the self-funders that we’ve had in the last couple of cycles on the Republican side — I don’t think money’s going to be an issue for Tom Tiffany. I think they’re going to do even more on the low-dollar side. That’s out there. It’s called low-hanging fruit in politics. They can easily go get that, but Tom Tiffany will not have a resource issue.”
• Ross: “They have $5 million less to spend, of course, because the Republicans, what they wanted to accomplish was that Fran Hong not be the next governor of the great state of Wisconsin, and with their $5 million of spending have achieved their goal. I’m sure they’re popping champagne bottles over that one. It’s, you know, this is going to be a wide-open race. Clearly, as you pointed out, Tom Tiffany has raised $10 million of his money in 2026 from three billionaires — you know, the two Uihleins and Diane Hendricks. And on the day he got his last transfer, he promised on the radio he was not going to raise taxes on billionaires, so that was nice timing for that.”

Alexander Shur
Reporter, Votebeat

• A human error during the processing of ballots several hours after polls closed on Aug. 11 at the city of Milwaukee’s Central Count location delayed the reporting of primary results by at least an hour into the morning of Aug. 12. Shur said the mistake by election officials will increase the amount of scrutiny the city will face during the Nov. 3 election.
• Shur: “No matter what Milwaukee does, even if they run a flawless operation, they’re going to be scrutinized. If they make a single mistake and they know this, it’s gonna just lead to an absolute blow up in conspiracy theories, especially if Crowley emerges as the candidate. So I think all of the pressure is on them to run this flawlessly in November.”

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