Podcasts

Zac Schultz:
Good afternoon and welcome to Chicago, host city for the Democratic National Convention. This is a special presentation of Here & Now‘s 2024 election coverage. We’re coming to you live from media row in the United Center in downtown Chicago. I’m senior political reporter Zac Schultz, and I’m joined, as always, by our political pundits: Bill McCoshen, Scot Ross. Gentlemen, thank you again for coming back for one more week of exciting talk.

Bill McCoshen:
Thanks for having us.

Scot Ross:
Fabulous to be here.

Zac Schultz:
All right, Scot.

Bill McCoshen:
Are you jazzed as hell?

Scot Ross:
Absolutely.

Zac Schultz:
First Tony Evers reference of the day. Should we put a tracker on the board?

Bill McCoshen:
Yeah.

Zac Schultz:
All right, just a few weeks ago, Scot, we were closing out the RNC in Milwaukee, and we were talking about Democrat after Democrat saying Joe Biden needed to drop out of the race. What has happened since then? What have you seen that makes the difference between there and today?

Scot Ross:
Well, I can say first and foremost, we are in the Windy City, and the wind is now at the Democrats’ back. This race has completely turned around. The enthusiasm is off the chart. The excitement is off the chart. The opportunity is off the chart, because with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, you have joy and hope coming back to the feelings of where we’re going to move this country, that maybe this eight years of national nightmare with Trump is going to be finally over once and for all. They’re going to put a stake in this once and for all, and I think that it’s going to be great for not just Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, it’s going to be great for Democrats across the board. Most importantly, it’s going to be good for the American people.

Zac Schultz:
All right, so a few weeks ago, we never saw the Republican Party more united around Donald Trump. The enthusiasm was off the charts. What do you feel today?

Bill McCoshen:
Well, I think Scot’s got some good points here. The energy on the Democratic side has changed dramatically since we were last together on July 19. Joe Biden dropped out on July 21. That is the latest of any presidential candidate in modern politics. Lyndon B. Johnson got out on March 31. So, Biden gets out with 107 days to go. Democrats quickly coalesce around Harris, so there isn’t a messy sort of mini-primary, and I give ’em credit for that. They did that very, very well. And they’ve been able to keep her out of the media and sort of set the narrative the way they want to set it. I would say with 78 days to go, there’s a lot of water that’s going to go under this political bridge. And yeah, there’s some energy on the Democratic side, but I think once America gets to see Tim Walz and Kamala Harris and how dangerously liberal they are, they’re going to say, “No.”

Zac Schultz:
Is there room for the Democrats to grow in enthusiasm or is this the peak? Are we going to see a post-convention bump like we usually do, or have we already seen it?

Scot Ross:
I think once America sees what the Democrats are offering — again, fighting for you, protecting freedom, as opposed to what we saw with the RNC, which was basically two guys who are out for themselves, and to quote Tim Walz, “Weird as heck.” So, I think that there was going to be a huge bump for the Democrats off it. But again, first rule of politics: “Set the bar low enough, you’re bound to succeed.” And so, expectations I think are, you know, I think people are excited, because it’s something we’ve not really seen before. We’re going to have the first Black woman standing as the nominee of a major party in American history, and I think that’s something that we have to honor, and I think that’s something that the American people are going to say, “It’s time.”

Bill McCoshen:
I think one thing that voters are going to see here is we now have a base-on-base election. JD Vance clearly didn’t add to what Trump was bringing as far as the MAGA base. I don’t think Tim Walz adds to Kamala Harris’s record as a hardcore progressive. I think they just sort of amplify those things. So, neither campaign tried to bring in the middle through their VP pick, so, we’re going to have a base-on-base, and then it’s going to be who can decide that sliver of undecided, independents in the middle at the end to get the victory.

Zac Schultz:
So it was last spring, which feels like years ago. Nikki Haley said, “Whichever party gets rid of their old candidate first is going to win.” Was she seeing the future? Was she right?

Bill McCoshen:
Well, she was right in the sense that they got a nice bump out of it, and they were able to go from five to seven points behind with Joe Biden at the top of the ticket to many polls now have them up one or two. Swing states are a little bit different. The polls are fluctuating, but there’s no question that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have been able to bring the Democratic base back underneath them.

Zac Schultz:
Was there any chance that Democrats would be this enthusiastic if Biden was still the nominee?

Scot Ross:
I mean, there was a real challenge. And again, you’re seeing it over and over again. And I was talking to some delegate at the delegate breakfast today from Ozaukee County, and she talked about how their pre-debate turnout for a party with Joe Biden on the ticket was challenging. And after this change was made, they sold out the place, and then, again in conjunction with that, they went 50-50 on the referendums that we just passed or just were killed in the state of Wisconsin. So, I think that that sort of enthusiasm definitely works. And again, let us not forget the number one issue in this race. The number one issue in this race is abortion. And as Governor Tim Walz passed the first post-Dobbs protection of abortion rights in the entire state, Kamala Harris, who has been a nonstop champion for abortion rights, and so I think, with that being the number one issue — economy, of course, incredibly important — but abortion is about the economy, because it’s about women being able to have control of their body, so they can thrive in the workplace like men.

Zac Schultz:
Joe Biden’s supposed to speak tonight. Will this be, what kind of sendoff do you imagine is going to be in this building for him when he comes out to address the delegates?

Bill McCoshen:
Oh, I think he’s given his own eulogy tonight. This is the end of his political career. We know that the House Oversight Committee today issued a 292-page report saying that he did commit impeachable offenses as president. I’m not calling for his impeachment prior to the election, but I think it’s something that the Republicans will strongly consider in the lame-duck session. I don’t think Joe Biden’s going to ride off into the sunset with this great glow around him the way Democrats hope. I think the chickens are coming home to roost on the Biden family.

Zac Schultz:
How are Democrats going to welcome Joe Biden tonight?

Scot Ross:
They are going to give him the best reception, maybe other than of Kamala Harris in this entire convention tonight, because they know what Joe Biden did. Nobody has ever put the American people before themselves as an elected official than Joe Biden did. He saw what was happening. He saw that the threat to our democracy, the threat to women, the threat to kids was so stark if he remained on the ticket that he said, “I’m going to pass on to the next generation.” I could not be, as a Gen Xer, more excited about the fact that we are going to have our first Gen X ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz be the president and vice president. So, I think the ovation is going to be long. It’s going to be sustained. And the thing is, it’s going to be heartfelt. The guy gave 52 years in elected office and worked every day for the people, going through personal tragedies, and the results speak for themselves. Under he and Kamala Harris, 16 million more jobs created, 21 million more people have access to health care. If you’re a senior, you’re paying $35 for insulin costs. That’s 950,000 people in the state of Wisconsin. The biggest investment in student debt reduction in American history, the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years, and the best investment in, and the best gun bill we’ve gotten in 30 years.

Bill McCoshen:
We know that Joe got pushed off the stage by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, to a lesser degree or maybe to a greater degree, Barack Obama. They knew he couldn’t win. All the polling showed he couldn’t win. He was dogmatic. He and his wife were dogmatic about staying in the race. There was finally a meeting of the minds after July 19 and said, “Either you’re going to get out, or we’re going to push you out.” And so I don’t think it’s going to end as rosy as my good friend Scot has said, but they’re going to give it a try for sure.

Zac Schultz:
So when we look at the amount of enthusiasm out there, specifically on the Democratic side, Scot, with 2008 Obama being the peak, 2016 Hillary Clinton being about the nadir, where do you expect it to be this fall?

Scot Ross:
I think we could have higher than Obama numbers.

Zac Schultz:
Obama 2008.

Scot Ross:
Obama 2008. And the reason I think that is because we are doing something that America hasn’t done in its 249 years, and that is have a woman be our leader. And it’s time, and especially when we have had the attack on women that we had under the Trump Supreme Court, under the Trump administration in states all across the country, and that is why I believe that there is going to be a wave election. And again, there’s a lot going on in the state of Wisconsin. I think we’ll talk a lot about that this week, so people should tune back in all week. But I think that it’s going to bode very, very well up and down the ticket in the state of Wisconsin. And I still do think that Tammy Baldwin’s going to be at the top of the ticket, but right underneath is going to be Kamala Harris with I think the most votes ever received by a statewide candidate in Wisconsin history.

Bill McCoshen:
We’re going to see, I mean, voters truthfully don’t know a lot about Kamala Harris. She’s never received a vote for president in her life. She was the first one out of the 2020 race. She didn’t receive any votes this time. So, I think as voters get to know her, there’s going to be some serious concerns about whether or not that’s the progressive way we want to go forward. And I think the debate on September 10 is going to be determinative, just like the debate on June 27 was. I think people are going to get to see. I disagree with Scot — abortion’s a top-three issue. It’s number three on most polls. Economy and immigration are one and two. Trump’s got huge leads on all polling on those two issues. I think Harris made a very big mistake on Friday with her price controls for economic security plan. And the more she has to defend that plan going forward, the worse off it’s going to be for her, so I like where we sit.

Scot Ross:
Well, let’s talk about the economy for a second, because inflation has been a huge issue. I mean, we’ve talked about it on Here & Now time and time again. Let’s look at what happened. Of the G7 countries, in America we have the lowest inflation rate of all of them, around 2%. At one point, there were a couple that were higher than us. We topped out at about 10%, I think is where it was at. There were ones that were higher. We’re lower than all of them. What’s the difference between those countries and our country? We passed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s Inflation Reduction Act — that made all the difference. The investment in people, that’s what they’re going to get with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, investment in America. Tim Walz did it as governor, Kamala Harris has fought for it in the U.S. Senate and as the Vice President. What we’re going to get with Trump is the same old, same old $2 trillion in tax breaks they already passed, which gave a gazillion dollars to the richest people in the state of Wisconsin — $2 trillion, they want to pass $5 trillion more by keeping those in effect. That is money that cannot be spent on the American people. Joe Biden made all the difference. Kamala Harris made all the difference. Democrats made all the difference, and they’re going to get rewarded for it.

Bill McCoshen:
So I think voters are going to find out that Kamala Harris was uniquely involved in the increase in inflation. She was the deciding vote as the president of the, or the overseeing the United States Senate on the Inflation Reduction Act and two massive spending budget bills that kicked off inflation here in the United States. In her remarks on Friday, when she talked about her new economic plan, she herself said bread was 50% more, ground beef was 50% more than it was before the pandemic. Well, who’s been in office that term of office? It’s been her and Joe Biden. So, I don’t think she can run from her record. And inflation is cumulative. Scot and I struggle with our weight from time to time. It was 9% in year one. It was 6% in year two. It was 5% in year three, and now it’s 3% now. Well, that’s still 19 pounds heavier than you were four years ago.

Zac Schultz:
But Scot, but I want to talk about that, because when you talk about the Inflation Reduction Act, it’s one thing to say it could be a lot worse, that’s ephemeral, but it is easy for people to say, “It was a lot better.” And whether you want to give credit to anyone or blame for anyone, there is a difference between the end of the Trump era and where we are today.

Scot Ross:
But again, there was the pent-up, you know, the pandemic caused a lot of pent-up buying. And let us not kid ourselves. There are American war profiteers out there who raised their prices in food, in gas, and they gouged the American people, got record profits, got record buybacks to their stockholders at the expense of the American people, because you know what, they felt like they could do it, and so they did it. And they weren’t going to get any help from the Republicans, because the Republicans have done nothing other than say, “Let’s give more tax cuts to rich people.” That’s going to somehow reduce inflation. And our inflation rate is now, it’s the same as when it was George W. Bush.

Zac Schultz:
But when it comes to messaging, the messaging from Republicans seems to be winning in terms of the minds of the public.

Bill McCoshen:
One hundred percent, man on the street interviews, it doesn’t matter who conducts them, the average citizen thinks inflation is hurting them in their monthly pocketbook. There is no question about that. One of the several mistakes Kamala Harris made on Friday was she talked about price gouging by grocery chains. Grocery chains operate on a one to 2% margin. They make their money on volume. They don’t in inflate bread 50%-

Zac Schultz:
But … lowering some of those prices.

Bill McCoshen:
Good, and they buy their bulk purchasers. They’re one of the biggest purchasers in the country, so they might have a little extra wiggle room that a Kroger’s or a Festival Foods or even a Woodman’s may not have.

Scot Ross:
Again, I think that what the Democrats should do on this angle, is I think they need to talk about the fact that we helped bail these companies out. During COVID, all the PPP money that was spent to assist businesses, large and small, and they paid us back just like the big banks did after the economic collapse by sticking it to the taxpayers. It’s not the Democrats’ fault, it’s the Republicans’ unwillingness to come together to try and solve these problems, which has been the thing since Barack Obama took the oath — January 20, 2009. They have said no to anything related to a Democrat, the country be damned.

Bill McCoshen:
I think that the struggle for Democrats is the voters’ perception. Are they better off than they were four years ago? And most voters would say, “No, they’re not,” and Kamala Harris is going to have to try and overcome that, and to do that, she’s going to have to offer more details. And we’ve seen so far, she’s pretty light on details, and when she gets pushed even a little bit, she struggles to go deep into the details.

Scot Ross:
Four years ago, we were locked down in COVID, because Donald Trump said we should put bleach in our veins for God sake. We lost 3 million jobs under Trump, the largest loss in American history. Joe Biden got us 16 million jobs by the things he was doing, like the Inflation Reduction Act, like the Investment and Recovery Act — those are the things that work.

Bill McCoshen:
By the time we do the show on Wednesday, we’re going to be lowering those numbers. There will be new economic numbers out adjusting for the last three months, and it may be as much as a million fewer than what Scot just said.

Zac Schultz:
We’ll check in there, but let’s bring it back to today. And this morning, Tim Walz spoke to the Wisconsin delegation, one of the very first things he did at the start of the DNC. Scot, what does that mean in terms of Wisconsin being the battleground state, that that’s the first place he went to?

Scot Ross:
We remain the thing. We are the belle of the ball.

Bill McCoshen:
Yeah, I agree with that.

Scot Ross:
And I was in the convention room yesterday, we’re right up front. I took a little picture and put it up, like they are right there, front and center, because they recognize how important Wisconsin is, because Wisconsin got away from us in 2016, and it will not again, and see what they’re doing. Under Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic Party has raised more money than anyone could have ever expected, especially Democrats like me who used to shriek, like as Jimmy Malone said in The Untouchables from here in Chicago, “Like a stuck pig.” And the fact is, is that the Republicans are hoisted on their own petard, because Ben Wikler has found a way to raise ungodly amounts of money, that money being invested in the organization. They’ve got 47 offices around the state, well over 200 paid staffers organizing people all over the state. The candidates are going all over the place. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are going to be in Milwaukee. We’re here. They’re over there.

Bill McCoshen:
Listen, I don’t think Tim Walz is going to sell well in Wisconsin. Minnesota is one of the top states for out migration in the last four years. He’s lost $2 billion in wealth. Some people come to Wisconsin, some to Florida, or other warm locations. Nobody’s embellished his resume more than Tim Walz other than perhaps George Santos, and I don’t think it’s going to sell. The more people get to know Tim Walz, they’re going to realize he is dangerously…

Scot Ross:
Listen, as Ronald Reagan, who is a master at, you know, his team was a master at creating photos that told the story. There is no better photo than that photo of Tim Walz surrounded by school children after making not only the biggest investment in Minnesota history in public education, but giving every student free breakfast and free lunch, so that they’ve got the resources and they’ve got, you know, kids who grow up in poverty and go to school hungry, they can’t learn. He’s solving those problems. That is the most phenomenal visual, because he’s a good guy. He’s a Wisconsin kind of guy.

Bill McCoshen:
And rich kids are getting it too. Everybody gets it.

Zac Schultz:
Everyone’s getting it.

Scot Ross:
Oh, so wait. So, tax cuts for rich people are okay, but breakfast…

Bill McCoshen:
These things should be means tested.

Scot Ross:
A 95 cent meal for a kid whose parents happen to be doctors is bad?

Zac Schultz:
But Republicans in Wisconsin want to take away means testing for school vouchers — if we’re going to talk about means testing for wealthy families.

Bill McCoshen:
Yeah, I don’t know. I’m not aware that they want to do that.

Zac Schultz:
They’ve introduced bills that would’ve done that.

Bill McCoshen:
That didn’t pass Republican-controlled legislatures.

Zac Schultz:
Correct.

Scot Ross:
Well, they knew that Tony was going to, the governor was going to do it.

Zac Schultz:
I do want to go back to one thing that you just mentioned, talking about Minnesota out migration. A lot of that is going to northwest Wisconsin. St. Croix is one of the fastest growing parts of the state. Is that an indictment on Tim Walz, or is that more a reflection on housing in Minnesota versus Wisconsin? Because most of those people are still driving to Minnesota to work.

Bill McCoshen:
No, I think it is a reflection on the policies of Minnesota and people voting with their feet and moving to Wisconsin.

Zac Schultz:
But it’s been booming long before Tim Walz was governor.

Bill McCoshen:
St. Croix County is growing faster now than it was five years ago. It’s one of the top-five fastest growing counties in the state. That’s the Hudson area, Pepin County, where River Falls is also growing quite a bit. [Editor’s note: River Falls is located in Pierce County.] Even into Dunn County — 60 miles in — is growing, and that’s people saying, “You know what, I could probably still work in the Twin Cities metro area, but I don’t have to live there, I don’t have to deal with all those policies.” I think they went too far when they got both houses to legislature.

Scot Ross:
I think the growth happened because of retired Representative Ron Kind, who I used to work for, getting the Stillwater Bridge, let’s not kid ourselves. That was why the growth happened there. But again, as a former liberal advocate, we used to kill ourselves about how do we penetrate that Minnesota market with Wisconsin stories, because it is dominated, you know, the closest TV station, you’ve got Superior, you’ve got Eau Claire, you’ve got La Crosse. How do you get TV to the people who get their news from TV? The people who are most likely to vote are older Wisconsinites. What they’ve been getting is they’ve been getting all the good news and all the good pictures of Tim Walz and the stuff he’s doing, like gun safety legislation, like the investments in voting, like the investments in kids, like tax cuts.

Bill McCoshen:
Abortion until the moment of birth.

Scot Ross:
That’s just not even, you know…

Bill McCoshen:
It’s true, it’s true. He’s far too liberal for Wisconsin. He’s not going to be the hunter dad, the coach that they think he’s going to be in northwest Wisconsin where I grew up or in the rural areas. He’s not going to cut into any of MAGA…

Scot Ross:
See, I happen to think, you know, he was in Nebraska the other day and he said this, which I think is so insightful, and I say this, you know, I went to a state school, I went to the University of Pittsburgh. Up the street is Carnegie Mellon, which is a very Tory school. They used to refer to us as, “Grade 13.” Tim Walz is in Nebraska the other day. He’s like, “Listen, here in the heartland, we don’t have to hear from a Yale-educated, philosophy graduate who’s financed and bankrolled by billionaire venture capitalists to know what we know, we know what we know,” and that’s the thing.

Zac Schultz:
So, let’s talk about JD Vance for a minute, ’cause coming out of the RNC, you were mild on what he could bring to the ticket.

Bill McCoshen:
Yeah.

Zac Schultz:
What have you seen since then, specifically, as he almost appears to be following Democrats around Wisconsin. He is going to be in Kenosha again this week.

Bill McCoshen:
Tomorrow. Listen, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I think he’s been outstanding on the stump for Trump. I think he’s been way more disciplined than Trump has been, stayed on the key issues of the economy and immigration, and that’s what voters want to hear about. I think he has helped so far. Is he attracting more independents like a Nikki Haley or a Glenn Youngkin would? No, but I think when he gets on stage with Tim Walz, and I’m sorry that it’s not until the first week of October, people are going to say, “Wow, one of those guys “is really smart, and the other guy’s got a lot of hot air.”

Scot Ross:
I mean, he could only go up, and I’m not saying he necessarily went up, but this is a guy who referred to Trump as America’s Hitler. Again, we’ve got a ticket with a guy with 34 felonies, and he brings on JD Vance, who has the least amount of experience that any vice president will have ever had if they were to win the election.

Bill McCoshen:
Which can be said about the same amount of experience as Obama had when he won the presidency.

Zac Schultz:
That’s a big comparison though.

Bill McCoshen:
Neither one had run a company. Barack Obama was elected president. JD Vance may be elected vice president.

Scot Ross:
Listen, if running a company and having five bankruptcies is the standard for what….

Bill McCoshen:
Or run a government like a governor.

Scot Ross:
So, I mean, the fact is, is that JD Vance has no experience. The things that he has said on abortion are literally disqualifying, everything from like, “There should be no exceptions for rape and incest, that they’re an inconvenience.” The things he said about single parents, and or I’m sorry, about non-parents, childless adults. I mean, just over and over again, he’s the definition of why Tim Walz got so much traction with the, “They’re just weird.”

Zac Schultz:
So, I do want to switch back and look a little bit to the back again, and that’s the constitutional amendments that were just passed [Editor’s note: Two proposed state constitutional amendments on Wisconsin’s 2024 partisan primary ballot on Aug. 13 failed to pass]. You referenced those earlier when we were talking about this. Are they reflective of what we’re going to see in the fall, or are they a one-off or a relatively, I mean, a high turnout for an August primary, but still low turnout compared to the fall.

Scot Ross:
There’s been about two dozen statewide elections in Wisconsin since Trump got Wisconsin’s electoral votes in 2016, and I think Republicans have only lost three, or have only won three of those. Republicans have only won three of those out of like two dozen. And this, I think, is an extension of that because again, what I said, the Democratic Party has people, they’re active, they understand it, they’re fundraising to give their organizers the resources. They’re spending the money to talk to people with communications. They’re doing everything right. And plus, the enthusiasm, again, if you want a sign that there’s an enthusiasm, the Republicans try to pull a fast one on the Wisconsin people twice. A constitutional amendment in an August primary’s never been done before. And then on top of that, the odd wording of it, designed to specifically be confusing, and they got their butts whipped. Again, I was talking to a friend in Ozaukee…

Zac Schultz:
Vos says he wants to come back and do it again.

Scot Ross:
Well, you know.

Bill McCoshen:
Well there is one on the November ballot.

Scot Ross:
Seventeen points, in Ozaukee, the thing we lost by, between the two things — I mean, that’s a play, or I’m sorry, you know, that’s, or I’m sorry, they lost statewide. They were tied 50-50 in Ozaukee. I don’t know why I’m fixated on Ozaukee. My wife lives in Washington County. I guess I should talk about Washington County a little bit more, maybe for tomorrow.

Bill McCoshen:
So, I’d say this, the thing to look at were Dane and Milwaukee counties. The referenda failed by 180,000 votes. They failed by 175,000 in Dane and Milwaukee alone. So, I would say Republicans have had their work cut out for them in Dane and Milwaukee County for a long time. This reinforces that, in my opinion. But having said that, I mean, Scot’s right. Ben Wikler raised a pile of money, and they outspent Republicans at least four to one, maybe five to one, getting their message out, encouraging people to vote no. It’s always easier to get people to vote no on referenda, especially when they’re confusing.

Zac Schultz:
But they don’t lose very often in Wisconsin history.

Bill McCoshen:
Yeah, and I don’t think we’ll lose in November when we have a referendum about only U.S. citizens can vote in Wisconsin elections. I think Republicans will win that handily. So, I don’t think there’s anything to read in an August primary about what might be, what may come in November, because there’s 78 days. It’s really going to be about the top of the ticket between Harris and Trump, to a lesser degree in Wisconsin between Baldwin and Hovde, and that’s what’s going to drive turnout.

Scot Ross:
Money’s momentum. Money’s momentum.

Zac Schultz:
Do you think if Robin Vos brings these back again, they’re going to go down again?

Scot Ross:
I don’t know that Robin Vos is going to get the opportunity to do that come January. I think there is an entirely decent possibility that the house could flip, that the Assembly could flip after this election. Now, would they come back in the lame duck? Absolutely. They tried and did it before. They did it with voting rights. They did it with Walker. They took away a bunch of the powers that Governor Evers and Josh Kaul, that they would have had. They were fine to have Republicans use and such, so.

Bill McCoshen:
It’s tricky. A constitutional amendment has to pass two successive legislative sessions, so the only thing they could do is do one in lame duck and the other one in January. But I’m not sure this one’s coming back.

Zac Schultz:
So, Tony Evers did say today that he expects to flip the Assembly. He thinks that Robin Vos is out as Speaker. Is that pie in the sky? Does that fire up the voters, or is that actually a real possibility right now?

Scot Ross:
Well, it’s taking a thought back to 2008, because that was the last time the Assembly was flipped. And in fact, the two years from 2009 and ’10 — I moved to Wisconsin in 1997. Those are the only two years Democrats have had the Assembly in all of my time here. And so I took a look and like those… a wave election is the kind of thing in competitive seats where you win, it’s as simple as that, and that’s why I feel that the Assembly is definitely in play. I think the Senate could be in play. It’s a lot tougher. It’s a lot tougher.

Zac Schultz:
There would be a big money stretch for the Senate to be in play.

Scot Ross:
Maybe if it happens, we can bring Al Michaels in to talk about how miracles do happen.

Bill McCoshen:
The seats aren’t up for the Senate to flip this time.

Zac Schultz:
It’s going to take two sessions.

Scot Ross:
But they’re definitely going to pick up without a doubt.

Bill McCoshen:
They’re going to pick up seats for sure. On the Assembly side, I thought one of the big winners on Tuesday night was Robin Vos. He was able to beat back sort of the hard-right flank, some of which tried to recall him twice this summer and then ran a primary against him, and he defeated all that and got most of his incumbents through the primary against some people that wanted to go to Madison to burn the Capitol down, so I’d say he was one of the big winners on Tuesday night.

Scot Ross:
But those were seats that Republicans were going to probably keep anyhow, so it didn’t matter, so yes, he has less of a hassle, he has less of a hassle…

Bill McCoshen:
Yes, but…

Scot Ross:
But overall…

Bill McCoshen:
He loses those in a primary, then he doesn’t have a governing majority, so it’s a big deal.

Zac Schultz:
And it’s a big deal for the Legislature overall, just in terms of being functional, right?

Bill McCoshen:
Yes.

Zac Schultz:
If nothing else, no matter who runs the majority, to have people that want government to work.

Bill McCoshen:
Well, yeah, I mean, is the call coming from inside the house? That was what he was worried about is, do five or six of these people knock off his incumbents and then he can’t pass a budget or a major bill.

Zac Schultz:
Well, he may not be speaker either.

Bill McCoshen:
Well, I think that’s a little rosy thinking on the Democrats’ part.

Zac Schultz:
Well, not necessarily from losing the majority, but whether he can find enough Republicans within his own majority.

Bill McCoshen:
Oh, I think so, I think he can.

Zac Schultz:
So, talking about the election deniers, what does that mean in terms of questioning the election this fall? Were they still going to be vocal or if they don’t have that platform of being an elected official, does that change some of those calls?

Scot Ross:
I think it reinforces a lot of, again, what’s the message up at the top of the ticket, which is the existential crisis to democracy. We have a president — or an ex-president — who is on the ticket who tried to overturn the results of a democratically decided election. And that has continued with the election denialism and the culpability and the unindicted Ron Johnson, Derrick Van Orden, who is a terrorist insurrectionist…

Zac Schultz:
We’re going to get to it.

Scot Ross:
Over and over again.

Zac Schultz:
We’ve got three more days.

Scot Ross:
My point is that the party has been taken over by the election deniers, whether Janel Brandtjen and Ramthun didn’t get back in or got kicked out, it’s still a party of that. If you put a microphone in front of any of the candidates, they’re going to say, “There were problems with 2020,” when every independent analysis, including a Republican one, said, “That’s nonsense.”

Bill McCoshen:
I’d say it’s good for the party. It’s time to stop looking backwards and start looking forward. Voters want to hear about what you’re going to do for them in the future. They don’t care about 2020 anymore. Some in our party may still, but it’s not a deciding issue. And the more time we spend on that means the less time we spend comparing and contrasting with our vision for the future versus the Democrat’s vision.

Scot Ross:
I agree. They should listen to Bill McCoshen. He’s been around a long time.

Bill McCoshen:
Look at the gray hair. I got through it.

Zac Schultz:
We have a few seconds left — very quickly summarize, quickly — Scot, what is the goal for the Dems this week? What’s a good week for them?

Scot Ross:
The Dems is to show that they are the party that’s going to move this country forward. It’s time to move forward.

Zac Schultz:
What are the Republicans hoping comes out of this week?

Bill McCoshen:
Well, that people get to see who Kamala Harris is. I don’t know that they will. I don’t know that she’s going to get a big bounce. But we want America to get to know Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in a very personal way.

Scot Ross:
We’re in agreement.

Zac Schultz:
All right, Bill, Scot, thank you for your insights. We will see you back here tomorrow. Thank you for watching this special presentation of Here & Now‘s 2024 election coverage. Be sure to come back tomorrow. You’ll find us here each day this week. Tune into PBS’s evening coverage of the convention where Here & Now will have another update on the day’s events. And finally, join us on Friday to wrap up the week with a special one-hour presentation of Here & Now starting at 7 p.m. I’m Zac Schultz. Thanks so much for joining us. Have a great day.