Governor race: Democratic primary shakeup

On to our big story this morning, a major shake up in the race for governor. We know one candidate on the Democratic side is back in the race, and one top contender is out. Stephanie Quirk is joining us live in the newsroom, and Steph, these changes came just weeks before the primary election. Yeah, that's right. Good morning. After suspending his campaign last week, county executive, Milwaukee county executive, that is, David Crowley, announced he's jumping back in the race, and that was on Saturday. His decision to re-enter comes after Lieutenant Governor, Sarah Rodriguez, dropped out of the race following a scandal with campaign finances. Now, Governor Tony Evers also broke his one year silence on who he wants to replace him, endorsing Crowley. So there are now five candidates on the Democratic side, and among them are greater Milwaukee President, Joel Brennan, State Representative, Francesca Hong, State Senator, Kelda Royce, and former Lieutenant Governor, Mandela Barnes. Of course, Crowley is among those five candidates as well. Each candidate got a chance to share their pitch to voters yesterday on how they plan to address child care crisis. Take a listen. There's so much money that we have left on the table. States like Minnesota, Illinois, and Michigan have taken advantage of it, and they've been able to do good things for their children with those additional resources, and it is important, it is paramount that Wisconsin does not leave a single dollar on the table. Ensuring that we increase eligibility around Wisconsin shares, increasing reimbursement, those are all things that we can do, and there are resources that are available to do it. But I also believe that K-4 needs to also be universal, because that's an extremely important age before any of our children actually enter the school system. It's imperative that we look at sustainable and continuing direct provider payments that are flexible, investing in a universal program for families who are making, that it's fully subsidized for families making up to 400% of the federal poverty level. To solve the provider shortage, you have to raise wages, but to solve the affordability portion for parents, we need to make Wisconsin shares universal. And the reason that's the smartest path for doing that is because the feds are covering a huge chunk of that, right? Now on the other side of the aisle, Republican candidate for governor, Tom Tiffany, shared a statement with Fox 6 responding to the news about Crowley re-entering the race. He taking a shot at the Democratic Party, it reads in part that Crowley is, quote, their only shot at stopping Hong, of course. Derricka? All right, Steph, before you go on that note, the Democratic candidate running for governor, who seems to be polling last and are there any rubblings about that candidate potentially suspending his or her campaign? Yeah, well, just looking back to the Marquette University Law School poll in March, it found among the five candidates now, Hong is leading the race with Barnes second. Crowley was actually on the lower end of the polls as well as those two other candidates. But of course, with all these changes and that shake up and Crowley, that endorsement from Governor Tony Evers, it could shake things up. There's actually another poll coming out, I believe this week or next. All right, we'll see how things shake out. All right, Steph, thanks.