While much attention has been given to a gubernatorial race that turned rapidly from sleepy to tumultuous in its final weeks, Democrats emerged from Tuesday’s nailbiter primary election with a continued focus on flipping enough legislative seats to wield political power they’ve lacked for more than 15 years in Wisconsin.
Tuesday’s Democratic gubernatorial primary win by David Crowley was a big surprise.
The Milwaukee County Executive narrowly defeated democratic socialist Francesca Hong. Crowley will face Republican Tom Tiffany Nov. 3.
Hong had a groundswell of grassroots support, while Crowley dropped out of the race in July. At that time, Crowley was behind in the polls.
He jumped back in a week later, after Sara Rodriguez dropped out due financial mismanagement by a campaign staffer.
UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden spoke with WUWM’s Ann-Elise Henzl about Crowley’s turnaround.
iffany faces his own headwinds. For one, the party that holds the White House historically struggles in midterm election cycles.
“Tiffany is going to be hampered by that, and Trump is even more unpopular now,” said UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden.
Hong caught flak from national media about years-old social media posts about defunding the police and canceling Thanksgiving. Some of the posts were dredged up by Republicans, UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said, as part of their strategy to define Hong as being too liberal. It might have backfired, Burden added, giving moderate voters a reason to look elsewhere and prevent Hong from being their nominee.
In the latest roll out of its 2027-29 budget priorities, the Universities of Wisconsin unveiled two plans it says would affect career training, skill building and business formation.
The programs are Tech for Tomorrow to advance new technologies from universities to the world of commerce, and Accelerate Wisconsin to assist entrepreneurs and aid product development.
According to a report in the Wisconsin State Journal, the UW System says the initiatives would train 300,000 workers for careers and create 2,500 new businesses.
