Wisconsin elections: Top of the ticket, what's at stake?

You know, before we talk more about that, because I know we have a lot of time tonight leading up to 9 o'clock, where we can talk about that, I want to bring in this gentleman who just sat down beside me. We have Mordecai Lee here, our political analyst. I want to talk to you about this governor's race, because we've seen some polling from Marquette that shows David Crowley in the lead so far, but do you anticipate that poll will be reflected in what we see tonight? No. No. How so? You know, we're so used to looking at, let's say, a Packers score. Let's say Packers beat the Bears 47-46. We know who won. But when you've got a poll that's 49-46 or whatever it might be, that's not a number. It's a range. Because whenever they talk about the margin of error, they're saying plus or minus 5%. So let's say Crowley is at... 49. That's really not 49. It's 49 plus 5 or it's 49 minus 5. And then you do the same thing for Tiffany. And for all we know, Tiffany is ahead. Or it's a wipeout in terms of somebody winning. I think the best way to approach tonight is to assume that it's a 50-50 race. Which is very familiar in Wisconsin when it comes to these general elections in November. Exactly. And in other words, all of the blather we're hearing from the national news media. It's going to be a Democratic tsunami. It's going to be a Democratic wave. For all we know, it's going to be a Democratic ripple. Or it's going to be a Republican ripple. Because after all, what you've got going for a Republican, we know what Democrats have got going for them. Everybody's been talking about that for weeks. But I think in Wisconsin, Republicans have got a lot going for them. Tiffany has run a very good race. He's positioned himself as a moderate, not as a MAGA extremist. He's been talking about issues that relate to people in the same way that Crowley is talking about the same issues. And we've had a Democratic governor for two terms. Before that, we had a Republican governor for two terms. Before that, we had a Democratic governor for two terms. You could almost say that there's a kind of a secular cycle of Wisconsin politics that every eight years, the executive mansion changes parties. And so I think Tiffany is sitting as well as one would expect, even though President Trump is in the mid-30s or lower. Well, he's certainly going into headwinds, which is whenever you're in a midterm election and the president who's in the White House is of one party, we know that the other party typically does well in the midterm. So there's already that momentum for Democrats. Then there's concerns potentially about Trump fatigue in his second term in office. You're saying, you see, that it may not be the tsunami that some are predicting. I wonder, this is a question that I have to ask close to the top here. Is there any impact we've had in the last couple of weeks with everyone being distracted, other than the ads on your phone and your television, by the World Series? Because nobody's really been talking all that much about this race. They've been talking about the Milwaukee Brewers. But it's hard to miss the political ads, right? You know, you can make an argument that the World Series was in Crowley's favor. But you can also make an argument that the World Series was in Tiffany's favor. Why? Because we weren't talking about President Trump. President Trump did not try to nominate the World Series games. You notice he didn't come to any games, even though sometimes he goes to an NFL game or whatever it might be. So I'm not sure that this was a good thing from Crowley's perspective. I think the other response is that people might have taken a vacation from politics. You know, spent a good three weeks just loving not caring about politics and trying not to pay attention to all of the ads, because that's what I heard from everyone today in line who was voting when they left. What they said was, do I get to stop getting the ads now? Right. And I've been getting a ton of texts. So it's even the airplane that was flying over Summerfest was an effort at advertising. But for a typical Wisconsinite. It seems to me that they had a sabbatical from politics, but it didn't necessarily mean anything politically. In other words, okay, we won the World Series, we went to the parade, we went to Summerfest, now we're back into politics. Oh, yeah, I'll pick up from where I left off. I was liking... Fill in the blank. I'm really not sure that the World Series breaks for anybody in particular. You know, one thing I've heard discussed an awful lot on various media is whether this is a referendum on Donald Trump and his performance and his approval ratings right now. Do you think that reflects down the ballot or are there certain lawmakers who are insulated from that kind of thing? You know, I'm so glad you're mentioning this because I think as a generalization about the United States tonight. That's true. In other words, there's Trump fatigue. There are some people who are viewing the midterms as a referendum on Trump. But I'm not sure that's happening in Wisconsin. The best example is that in the last Marquette poll, Trump's approval rating was in the mid 30s. You know, I think it was 34, 35, 36. So if Wisconsinites were thinking of this election, both for the governorship and all the way down the ballot as a referendum on Trump, Then why wasn't Tiffany at 34, 35, 36? He was at 44, 45, 46. So in other words, there are 10% of the people who answered the Marquette poll who said... I disapprove of what President Trump is doing. Next question, who are you going to vote for for governor? Tiffany. Now, that's a very significant result. We've had the Marquette poll and other polls around for a very long time. What we haven't had as much of until more recently is these widely accessible betting markets where just about anybody can get in and make bets. You talk about Kalshi and Polymarket and things like that. If I look at that, if you say betting markets, people with their money, they tend to know where this is going to go. They've got Crowley with an 86% to 88% chance of winning. Doesn't sound like what you're saying right there. The people who are putting their money on this right now are putting their money on David Crowley. I have to tell you, Brian, I'm just so skeptical that they have any particular insight. You know, you go to a casino, you go play blackjack, you think you're going to beat the house, you think you know something, you have some inside information. I really don't think that that is an indication of what's going to happen. Now. Crawley might win 50.1% to 49.9%, but I'm really skeptical that there's an 80-20 chance that he's going to win. I was going to ask, because these races have gone so late before, it sounds like you think it's going to be a very close race for governor. I think in the last race, we were here till one in the morning, and the governor's race before that, we were here past one in the morning when the speeches were being made. Do you think we're facing that again tonight? So much, because I think the best example is the 2020 presidential election. So President Trump is running for re-election to a second term, a consecutive term. And Joe Biden is his Democratic opponent. And we had this enormous turnout. God, what was it? 3 and 1 half million people. And Biden beats Trump by? 20,000 votes. You know, that's not even a percent. I don't think that was even half a percent. And so... Similar for Trump against Harris the last time around. Perfect. What, 20-something thousand votes? So... So... We as Wisconsinites know something that the national news media doesn't know. And we sort of refuse to conform to what they have their expectations about. To a certain extent, that's why we're a battleground state, because Wisconsin has such a political culture of being independent and undecided that that's sort of a kind of a legitimate place to be, in part because we don't have party registration when people register to vote.