>> Democrats running for governor have less than two months to stand out in a crowded field.

How'd they do that at the state party convention?

And we run through developments and lawsuits involving voter rolls, legislative maps, and false electors.

This is inside Wisconsin politics.

I'm Shawn Johnson here with Anya van Wagtendonk and Rich Kremer in Eau Claire.

Hey, gang.

>> Hey, Shawn.

>> So I think it's fair to say that this primary campaign is not going to be won or lost based on what happened in the room at the state party convention over the weekend.

But you did have all seven candidates there.

They were under the same set of rules.

Speaking to the same group of Democratic activists.

What was it like?

>> Yeah.

You know, I say this with all due respect.

Normal people do not attend state party conventions, right?

These are like the most die hard Democrats, the most die hard Republicans who go to that convention.

And so these are the people who are like the most energized about their party and are going to be the ones to hopefully, you know, bring in their fellow, but like less excited Democrats.

And so I think that was kind of the vibe of the speeches that you were getting from the gubernatorial candidates, which is that they were trying to appeal to this base, right?

The most kind of committed Democrats possible, and also make the case not only that they should stand out in this seven person primary going into August, but that they are also most sort of best positioned to beat Tom Tiffany in November.

And so those are kind of two different arguments that you need to be making, the one that makes you most appealing to Democrats, and then the one that makes you most appealing to kind of your average wisconsinite.

lot of kind of threading of that needle while also trying to get excitement.

So it was, it was definitely a little bit of a dance going on.

But that I think was kind of the overarching theme.

>> What common threads stood out to you?

I mean, like, what was a theme that stood out in all the speeches, or at least most of them?

the Tom Tiffany theme and also by extension, Donald Trump, right?

A lot of trying to tie the two of those together.

But then affordability was kind of the the word of the day.

The theme of the convention was Reclaiming the American dream.

And, and each of the candidates talked in either broader or more specific terms, sort of depending on the candidate about what they would do to basically put more money in people's pockets, lower prices, make things more affordable in Wisconsin.

and I were not at this convention, although we had a chance to listen to these speeches later.

What stood out to you?

>> Well, Ana already mentioned it.

There was a lot of talk about Donald Trump and the chaos in Washington from his administration.

That's according to these Democratic candidates.

And it's pretty obvious why they would focus on the president and his, you know, popularity rating is pretty low in polling.

So it seems like there's they're hoping that Trump will be a liability for Tom Tiffany as they as they move forward in this campaign.

And also there, there there's only one Republican in the race.

So they're able to focus their attacks on one person.

Meanwhile, you know, Tom Tiffany doesn't have to worry about trying to stand out among Republican competitors in his primary or in a primary.

So that's what stuck out.

But there was some other things that stood out in terms of like the closest thing to criticizing other Democrats seemed to come from state Senator Kelda Roys, and she just basically said the party cannot afford to to pick a nominee that would put a Democratic trifecta.

That is the state Senate, state Assembly and the governor's office in jeopardy.

So no names were named, but people might be able to infer who or how many, you know, people she might have been talking about.

And of course, there was a number of like, pretty bold promises from some of these candidates as well.

>> Yeah.

That did that criticism did jump out to me.

There was another one, I think you could argue from Francesca Hong saying that when you go out on the campaign trail, people can detect BS.

We're not going to say the word because family show here, guys.

But she was essentially, without naming names, saying the other candidates aren't as authentic as me as the way that I heard it.

I'll tell you one other thing that kind of stood out to me, at least upon first review of the speeches, I want to think in these felt like general election speeches a little bit.

I mean, this is a primary where they're almost going to have to some of them are going to have to get negative if they want to climb the ladder and be the party's candidate.

And, you know, even the the, you know, criticisms we just mentioned, Rich weren't exactly super negative.

And the messages I could absolutely imagine them in a in a general election campaign against Tom Tiffany.

But they are Ana.

They're trying to win this Democratic primary among a smaller group of voters right now.

>> Right.

But it is this balancing act where, as Rich said, right, they are going for a trifecta.

And that was another big theme of the weekend, is this idea that Democrats really think that they could take over all three chambers of government.

And so they need to try to distinguish themselves.

And most of them don't have that kind of, you know, statewide visibility.

So they are still trying to get just like baseline name recognition, which is important for a primary, but then also not do anything to harm other Democrats because, you know, if you have sort of a 1 in 7 chance, and I know that's not exactly how statistics work, but something like that.

And so you don't move forward, you don't want to have weakened your party.

You don't want to be giving Tom Tiffany sort of free fodder for your opponent opponents.

And so I think that we will see a little bit more maybe of those veiled attacks, but in a way that's more aimed at sort of holding themselves up rather than necessarily going negative at this point.

Because Tom Tiffany as, as Rich mentioned, is sort of in a field by himself.

He technically has an opponent, but more or less he's the presumptive nominee.

And so he's not going to get weakened in a primary.

So they need to be very careful themselves.

>> It can work against you in a primary, particularly a Democratic primary, to go negative, where you have voters who have kind of that same idea that like, look, the goal is November.

Stop fighting and show us how you're different.

Rich, anything that jump out at you there.

And what Annie was just mentioning.

>> Well, I wanted to, to kind of go back to when, when she mentioned the, you know, the slights and the, the, the electability and all that stuff.

One of the candidates, you know, early on, even before he announced Mandela Barnes, former lieutenant governor, former state representative, he during his speech, he I let me go back before he got on the race, some Democrats were publicly saying, well, he lost in 2022.

You know, we don't need that again.

But during his speech, I he brought that up and he said, well, that's why I'm more experienced.

I've been through this came within one point percentage point of Ron Johnson in 2022.

That's why I have the experience.

That and the other resume stuff that he's got.

So I just wanted to mention.

lot of conversation about electability, which again, I think speaks to trying to signal that they could beat Tom Tiffany in the fall.

And so you had, for example, Fran Hong pointed to the fact that she's, if not the most far left candidate, certainly among them.

And the fact that some people have have brought that up as a liability against her, as passionate as her supporters are, her opponents are sort of equally passionate.

And she talked about, well, legacy of Wisconsin progressives who were elected.

So rather than that being a liability for me, that actually makes me more electable because people are excited about someone who doesn't bring BS.

And David Crowley as well.

He pointed to the fact that there has never been a Black candidate who has won statewide office, and he says that everywhere he goes, people ask him, can a Black man become governor in Wisconsin?

And he said, well, I can for the following reasons.

And so he named that sort of elephant in the room as a way of also drawing attention to his record.

And so, again, just kind of the way that the candidates are trying to distinguish themselves, not just on their own terms, but also for what they can deliver in November.

>> And there was a straw poll at this convention.

Ana.

And I feel like, you know, it's it's kind of fun to talk about, but we should say a thousand grains of salt here for this poll, because this is not a scientific poll.

The margin of error would be, look, I'm not qualified to calculate it very high.

>> Charles Franklin would have a lot to say about this one.

attention to straw polls would be my guess.

But you had all these Democrats in the room, and if they wanted to, they could go to the booth run by WisPolitics, which does these at all the conventions.

And and you could vote for your candidate of choice among the primary field.

And how did that resolve?

>> Yeah.

Really interesting.

Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez came out first.

And again, if Fran Hong is sort of further to the left, she's a little bit further to the center.

But then Fran Hong was number two.

And so you kind of have a little bit of the polls of what the party is presenting right now, one who might be doing better in a in a primary race.

Again, given just sort of the excitement that's around her, that's Fran Hong, and then one who perhaps could appeal to a broader audience that is Sara Rodriguez, who comes from a more of a business background.

She was a health care executive and a nurse.

She won.

She flipped a Republican seat when she ran for the assembly in the Waukesha in the Waukesha suburbs.

And so you have these two different models, and it kind of looked like Democrats a little bit split among them.

>> So I want to throw some caution at the poll here that the straw poll, I was just looking back at the 2018 straw poll, when you had even more candidates running for governor, kind of depending on when you mentioned them.

You probably have are aware of this by now or have heard it or seen it recently.

But that year, Kelda Roys won the straw poll.

She went on to finish third in the primary, a distant third, but she won it overwhelmingly at convention.

Do you do you happen to know where Tony Evers placed in that straw poll?

This is the beginning of our quiz section here, guys.

So Tony Evers placed third.

He had he had 91 votes compared to Kelda Roys 184.

That year right behind him were Andy and Dana Wachs.

They have something in common.

They both dropped out of the race by the end of June that year.

So the convention was in June 2nd, I think, and they were dropped out by the 21st and 22nd.

So.

>> Right.

So again, appealing to quote unquote normal people versus appealing to the most kind of revved up Democrats who follow every kind of twist and turn about that.

So it doesn't necessarily translate to what a general voter or general audience is interested in.

>> Sure.

And there's also a certain amount of campaigning you can do in the room at these things.

You can say, hey, get over to that desk that's run by WisPolitics, and I think you should really vote for us.

>> Bring your people.

Absolutely.

And I'm sure some of that went on at this convention.

So, okay, I did want to play a little game with with you two since we have you here, would that be okay?

>> All right.

Sure.

Ready?

>> You have no choice, right?

We're recording a live show here.

So I was just looking back through these speeches and through the benefit of being able to look at the transcript and the number of times that certain words were mentioned in these things, you can see kind of who hit themes really hard.

So the first one I looked for was Trump, who said Trump the most.

Anybody want to hazard a guess?

Rich, you go first.

>> I'm gonna say Rodriguez.

>> I think it might have been Joel Brennan.

>> All right, all right, Rich, you win buddy.

You got Sara Rodriguez and Mandela Barnes were right Mentioned him six times.

Joel Brennan after them.

And then everybody mentioned Trump at least once.

But Rodriguez and Barnes kind of hitting to my ear similar themes in those messages too.

Like they sounded like maybe they were running a little bit of a November campaign or a safer message in their speeches.

Okay, how about Tiffany?

And to be clear, nobody mentioned the the Truman Capote book that was adapted into a movie and later, you know, celebrated in a song.

Who mentioned Tiffany, Tom, Tiffany the most?

>> Gosh, I'm just stuck on that dad joke now.

>> I was I'm proud of that one.

>> You know.

>> That song, by the way, in my head all the time.

And I hated it when it came out.

But the beauty of nostalgia Roe v. Wade.

>> I'm gonna vote Roys well for this.

>> There you go.

There you go.

>> We got you.

Kelda Roys.

How about you?

Who mentioned Tiffany the most?

>> Missy Hughes.

>> All right.

Good.

Good guesses everybody.

Sara Rodriguez was tops and Tiffany mentions followed by Joel Brennan Mandela Barnes and Kelda.

Roys mentioned.

And once David Crowley, Missy Hughes and Francesca Hong didn't even mention Tom Tiffany.

>> In this thing, was I there at all?

It was kind of interesting.

it's the kind of thing you assume that you heard a bunch of people say, and then you go back and look and realize, well, they didn't actually mention predict whoever wins this primary, though, will mention him a lot in TV ads between now and November.

Okay, how about this?

We've got we've got a Democratic governor right now, and a lot of these people have worked with or for this Democratic governor.

Who do you think might have mentioned Evers a few times?

Rich, what do you think?

>> I would say it'd have to be someone that worked within the administration or alongside him.

So that narrows it down to four people, I would say.

Brennan.

>> Yeah.

Okay.

Anya.

>> I think it was also Brennan.

He also made a point of saying fix the darn roads.

And so he seemed to be really tying himself.

Yeah, yeah.

Evers.

>> It was.

Mandela Barnes Tony Evers, former lieutenant governor, followed by Joel Brennan, his former secretary, followed by Sara Rodriguez, his current lieutenant governor, and Missy Hughes, his former WEAC CEO.

No mention of Tony Evers by Francesca Hong Kelda Roys or David Crowley.

>> So no big surprise.

>> Tony was back there taking notes like, I see you, I see you.

Okay, one more, one more, I promise.

And this is a little different.

You got a chance at this convention to differentiate yourself.

One way is you can just tell these delegates I'm different.

Who said only candidate?

As in I'm the only candidate.

>> Oh, I know this one.

>> Okay.

the only candidate who proposes a moratorium on data centers.

>> And free childcare.

And you are correct, Anya.

She mentioned it four times.

This was interesting to me.

Rich Kelda Roys was there.

She mentioned it a couple times.

Her message was, I'm the only candidate who's been a legislator.

I got I got bills, as was basically what she was saying.

And then David Crowley, the only candidate who has executive experience and nobody else used that turn of phrase, big grain of salt for that one too, which is very unscientific, but I find it fun to run through that stuff through that stuff unscientific.

>> But you probably made a spreadsheet.

You're darn right.

Yeah, I made it a lot easier for me to list those things real quick.

So we want to move on real quick to some legal developments this week, a few small legal developments in big cases.

Rich.

First, let's start with there was this decision by the state Supreme Court to hear an appeal in a redistricting case, congressional redistricting case?

Is this a big deal or an incremental step?

>> It's pretty incremental.

So these are about the congressional maps.

There's two of them that have been two of these appeals of these cases challenging the congressional map as gerrymandered for various reasons, various types of gerrymandering.

And it sounds exciting that it's made it to the Supreme Court, but all they're doing in both situations is they will be deciding whether or not these three judge panels they appointed were correct in how they dismissed these challenges.

And those panels essentially said they dismissed them because they don't have the authority to overturn the maps, which were put in place by the Supreme Court.

And a lower court cannot overrule a higher court like that.

So what I've been told is that that probably means these will go back through the court system, back to the lower courts and work their way up.

But the Supreme Court justices will have to decide whether or not these gerrymandering claims can even move forward.

So that's a big question.

But in short, it doesn't mean there's likely doesn't mean that there's going to be any new map before the 2026 election.

There's just not enough time.

>> Okay.

And lightning round here, you had a case you covered on voter rolls.

What happened there?

>> So the federal government, the Department of Justice, wants to get unredacted voter registration information from Wisconsin.

And that includes, you know, driver's license numbers and Social Security numbers, the last four digits.

The Elections Commission hasn't provided that they've given a different list that's publicly available.

But essentially, the case was dismissed last month in federal court.

It's being appealed.

The DOJ is appealing it to the Seventh Circuit.

But again, it will take a while.

And there's been other examples of this around the nation where the DOJ has been losing these cases.

>> One of those will have to keep an eye on and then Ana the false electors case in Wisconsin.

What happened there?

>> They pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of felony forgery, including Wisconsin's own Jim Troupis.

Well, he's also trying to get the case moved out of Dane County Circuit Court.

And so that case continues to unfold.

>> All right.

Thank you both for keeping an eye on those.

That's all the time we have for today.

Thanks for joining us.

Our colleague Zac Schultz will be back in a few weeks.

This has been inside Wisconsin politics.

Be sure to follow us on PBS, wisconsin.org, WPR.org, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.