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00:00What was the real message that Democrats in Wisconsin sent this week?
00:04There are two messages, and they're connected.
00:06The first is that Democrats, like most voters in general, want change.
00:11They feel like the country's not working for them.
00:13They feel like the economy's not working for them.
00:15They want a government that responds to that.
00:17And they want to win.
00:18They want to win in November.
00:19They know you can't have change unless you have someone who wins the general election.
00:23And they found someone in David Crowley who's going to do both of those two things.
00:28But the big story to me is the huge level of Democratic engagement and turnout in Wisconsin and in Michigan.
00:36Gigantic leap up from 2018, which was a very intensive year.
00:39Republican turnout went down from 2018.
00:42There were, like, more than 50 percent more Democrats voting in this primary than Republicans.
00:47And I think what you're seeing across the board is a level of kind of burgeoning energy that's going to
00:53erupt into Democratic victories at every level of the ballot,
00:56from House races to state legislature to the Wisconsin governor's race, where David Crowley is going to beat Tom Tiffany
01:01this November.
01:02Let's talk about Tom Tiffany for a moment.
01:04I actually spoke with a Republican in your state, in Congressman Brian Stile, who chairs the House Admin Committee,
01:10and he's a pretty frequent voice here on Bloomberg talking about matters financial and otherwise.
01:15When we got down to politics in your state, though, he was not moved by this Crowley versus Hong dynamic.
01:21His point was they're the same person.
01:25Ben, listen to what he said.
01:26People started to understand what Francesco Hong stands for.
01:30She became less popular.
01:32I think now people are going to focus in on David Crowley and actually recognize that they share many of
01:37the same policy goals.
01:39David Crowley raised taxes as he was county executive, in particular on the sales tax.
01:44You had Francesco Hong, who wanted to make Wisconsin the highest taxed state in the country.
01:49You have a series of mismanagement in Milwaukee County by David Crowley.
01:53We can't allow that type of mismanagement in Washington.
01:57So that's the Republican campaign against Crowley.
02:01Brian Stile was with Tom Tiffany the night before at his victory party.
02:04How do you run against that?
02:06Well, Brian Stile and Tom Tiffany have the same problem, as well as Derek Van Orden in Wisconsin.
02:11They all voted to take a trillion dollars away from health care from Americans in order to fund tax cuts
02:18for the very wealthy.
02:19In Wisconsin, hundreds of thousands of people are losing their health insurance coverage because they can't afford the premiums after
02:25these Republican cuts that Tom Tiffany and Brian Stile both voted for.
02:29David Crowley, like pretty much every Democrat and the vast majority of people in the state, they want to expand
02:35Medicaid in Wisconsin.
02:36We're one of only 10 states that hasn't done that.
02:38They want to make sure that child care is more affordable for people.
02:41They want to make sure people can get housing, which is something that David Crowley has done so well in
02:46Milwaukee County.
02:46They have the lowest rate of unhoused homelessness in Milwaukee of any major county in the United States of America.
02:52This is a guy who addressed a budget crisis, who made sure that law enforcement and public services got funding,
02:58not just in Wisconsin, but across the state by getting a bipartisan deal through the state legislature.
03:03Brian Stile and the GOP don't have an answer for that.
03:06They're running from the fact that they've made life more expensive for working people in our state, which is politically
03:11toxic in a year of affordability concerns.
03:13Well, Tom Tiffany talked about something else, voted for something else, Ben, and that was to overturn the 2020 presidential
03:21election.
03:22If he won here, he would be the first person who cast that vote to win the governorship in a
03:29major swing state like yours.
03:31I'm surprised you didn't reach for that first.
03:33Is that not part of your message to Wisconsin voters?
03:37It is absolutely.
03:38It's an urgent and it's an important message.
03:40I will say we're going to start with affordability and the concerns of folks who might not really want to
03:46tune in to the differences between Democrats and Republicans, but know that they're taking it in the pocketbook.
03:51Once we cover that, it's important to note that Tom Tiffany was part of a coup to overturn American democracy
03:57in 2020.
03:58If he's in charge of Wisconsin's government, he will be in charge of certifying the next presidential election.
04:03And we can't afford the risk of someone who tried to rip away the people's voice in 2020 to potentially
04:10try to nullify the next presidential race.
04:11With David Crowley, you have someone who, as county executive, has presided in his leadership role over multiple successful free
04:20and fair elections, elections where people from both parties have won.
04:24That is the way American democracy is supposed to work.
04:26So there are national stakes for democracy and also the U.S. Senate race and House maps.
04:32There's also stakes for people's pocketbooks, even if they hate politics.
04:36And we want to make sure voters know about both of those.
04:37Let's widen the aperture here, because there are questions about whether the DSA insurgency is overstated.
04:44A week earlier, we were talking about Abdul al-Sayed and the remarkable margin in which he beat Congresswoman Haley
04:51Stevens with.
04:53Very different scenario here, as he enjoyed the backing of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC.
05:00We didn't see that with Francesca Hong.
05:02To what extent is this a national trend, Ben, or a statewide one?
05:07I think that these are very different races.
05:09And as much as the kind of national lens is pitting two factions against each other, here in Wisconsin, David
05:15Crowley is a pragmatic progressive.
05:17He is somebody who has very clear positions about raising the minimum wage, addressing economic concerns that people have.
05:24And also, he's very focused on how you bring folks together to actually pass laws.
05:28I think that for Wisconsin voters, you can see the unity immediately after the primary, with Francesca Hong and two
05:35other candidates in the primary joining David Crowley.
05:37They're all going to barnstorm the state, because they all know the stakes in beating Tom Tiffany this fall for
05:41people's pocketbooks and for democracy itself.
05:43Well, when you look more broadly at the map, to what extent will Democratic Socialists be carrying the torch here
05:52for the party?
05:54Everyone in my business is trying to connect the dots, from Mamdani in New York, straight through Michigan, even Texas.
06:00We saw this trend bubble up into Colorado, Ben.
06:04Is this the theme of this election, or is that push and pull between moderates and progressives going to be
06:10an asset in what we all refer to as a Big Ten party?
06:14I think the most striking thing in this election cycle is that Democrats have a shot to win in states
06:20that Trump carried by double digits.
06:22I'm talking about Rob Sand and Josh Turek in Iowa and House races and the Attorney General's race in Alaska,
06:29Mary Peltola and the Democrats in the House race.
06:32We've got a shot in Texas.
06:33We've got a shot in North Carolina, Ohio, all these different places.
06:37In Wisconsin, we're a 50-50 purple state.
06:39And we've got David Crowley, who's a uniter for the broadest spectrum of Democrats, who can carry Democrats to victory
06:45in state legislative districts that Trump won.
06:48And that means there's a possibility of a Democratic trifecta in 2026.
06:53You know, as much as it's fun to talk about kind of intra-Democratic squabbling, often most prominent in the
06:59bluest parts of the country,
07:00the big question is who has majority control of state legislative chambers and congressional chambers.
07:05And all those things are on the table for Democrats in 2026.
07:08Your track record, and we should note that you ran the Democratic Party in Wisconsin from 2019 to 2025, pretty
07:13important period of time,
07:15when you won seven of the past ten statewide races, and of course the state, as you mentioned, considered to
07:22be 50-50.
07:23I don't know if is Wisconsin purple now, I guess we call it, but it brings us to your book.
07:29This is the plan and the roadmap that you put in place in Madison.
07:35How do you make that a national strategy?
07:39Well, the first core insight is that it's often the least kind of publicized races that have the biggest effect
07:46on the path for American democracy.
07:48I opened the book with Elon Musk coming to Wisconsin, standing on a stage in Green Bay,
07:53putting on a cheese head and saying that our state Supreme Court race affects the entire destiny of humanity.
07:58And of course, we blew him and his candidate out of the water by 10 percentage points two days later.
08:03But he's kind of right.
08:05The state Supreme Court races, state legislative races, they wind up writing the rules that affect how presidents are elected,
08:10how congressional majorities are determined.
08:13And those are the super low-profile, super high-impact races across the country in 2026 that will shape the
08:19long-term future.
08:20The current moment of political crisis started not when Trump descended the golden escalator,
08:25but when Republicans swept state houses in 2010, including Wisconsin's,
08:30and then redrew congressional maps and started kind of rigging the system to make sure they'd never lose power,
08:34we're unwinding that in my state.
08:36In my book, I argue for a strategy in each state to unrig the political system
08:41and then ladder up to national reforms like term limits on the U.S. Supreme Court
08:44that could help to create a free and fair democracy for everyone.
08:48This is a battle where if you throw some money, some volunteer time into a state legislative race near you,
08:55that could be the tipping point thing that really changes the whole future of American politics.
08:59And to know that roadmap is to have far more power as an individual, as a group of folks, than
09:03you would otherwise.
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