Here & Now

Candidates for Governor Make Their Case to The Parties

Frederica Freyberg:
Campaigns for governor ahead of the August primary head into high gear with some Democrats in the field getting a boost after the party’s state convention. A straw poll of party activists put Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez on top with state Representative Francesca Hong in second and state Senator Kelda Roys coming in third. Here’s a glimpse of candidates’ speeches at the convention.

Sarah Rodriguez:
The job I’m asking you for starts with showing up and then standing up. Here’s what I hear out there. Our neighbors are scared. They are angry because even if they are doing everything right, they cannot make ends meet. They work hard and want a paycheck that covers the rent or mortgage before it’s gone. They need a health insurance premium that they can afford so when they get sick, they have the care that they need. They need public schools that are fully funded for their kids so they don’t have to go to referendum.

Joel Brennan:
We’ve seen this before in Wisconsin. Scott Walker ran this con for eight years. Divide and conquer, gut the public sector, hollow out schools, attack workers and treat government like the enemy. When Tony Evers asked me to serve as his top cabinet official, we inherited a mess. Depleted reserves, structural deficits, teachers, state employees, and working people who had been treated like a punching bag for eight years. So we rolled up our sleeves and we got to work. We constructed responsible budgets that returned us to Wisconsin values.

David Crowley:
I do want to be honest, because as I travel, people always ask me, David, can a Black candidate become governor?

Audience member:
Hell yeah.

David Crowley:
If it’s a candidate with a track record of delivering results and winning and not just talking about them? Yes. If it’s a candidate that has a plan that’s built on proven public policy, not whatever the latest poll says is popular, then yes. The answer is simple, y’all. Yes. And I am that candidate. I’ve built a strong coalition in the state’s largest county while earning support from our rural, suburban, urban communities alike.

Kelda Roys:
I am running for governor to raise wages, lower costs, deliver great public schools, and protect our freedoms from this authoritarian regime. We will lower the cost of the biggest ticket items, from housing to health care, child care to utilities. I don’t just have bullet points. I have bills. I don’t just have social posts. I have plans. And we know this is possible because we’ve done it before, right? As the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin, I helped pass the first pro-choice law in 30 years through an anti-choice Republican Assembly.

Mandela Barnes:
We have been failed by the status quo for far too long. And it’s not just enough to be anti-Trump. It’s not enough to just be a Democrat if you’re going to cave to corporate interests. We need a governor who rejects the Washington way of rampant corruption and corporate greed and that’s why I’m running for governor to do things the Wisconsin way. That means taxing the rich. That means freezing the rates. That means keeping our communities safe, ending the AI schemes that rig the system, fully funding our public schools, passing universal child care, and delivering health care to every single person in this state, and standing up to those monopolies that continue to bankrupt our family farms and raise our utility bills. I am asking for your support in August, and I’m asking you to organize with me all the way through November to take back.

Francesca Hong:
I am running on a platform of permanent affordability, not as a slogan. Not as a slogan, but as a practice. I am the only candidate in this race who has called for a moratorium on the construction of AI data centers. I will not meekly accept the sellout of Wisconsin to trillionaires, billionaires and big tech. I am the only candidate in this race with a plan for free childcare. I am the only candidate in this race who has even considered what AI will do, what it means for our workers and our civil rights.

Missy Hughes:
The first thing I had to do as secretary of Economic Development was clean up Foxconn. No problem. I had three children under the age of two. I know how to clean up a mess. So I cleaned up Donald Trump and Scott Walker’s mess and saved the state and Wisconsinites billions of dollars. And then Covid hit. Covid hit and let me tell you, that’s not a great time to be in charge of the state’s economy. But we rolled up our sleeves and we got to work.

Frederica Freyberg:
On the Republican side, current 7th Congressional U.S. Representative Tom Tiffany got his party’s endorsement in his run for governor at their convention.

Tom Tiffany:
We’re going to take a shovel to waste and fraud. We’re going to root out corruption. And we’re going to bring common sense back to Madison. Because I refuse to accept failure. I refuse to accept decline, and I refuse to see the state of Wisconsin fall behind.

Frederica Freyberg:
Republican Andy Manske is also running.