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The Democratic Party of Wisconsin held its annual convention over the weekend in Madison. And as you might expect, the Democratic primary in the race for governor was the big topic at this year’s event, with candidates hosting hospitality suites and delivering speeches and jockeying for position to be The Nominee.

of Motherhood for Good, Pat Kreitlow of UpNorth News and were all there in Madison on Saturday and Sunday, and shared stories and insights from being in the building for speeches and being there for the festivities of the convention weekend. Dan Shafer also chimed in with his takes on the state of the race, which you can find more of here.

You can also watch this full podcast on YouTube here.

Or, listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify on this feed, or on Motherhood for Good.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

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The Aug. 11 partisan primary in Wisconsin is now less than two months away, and the Democratic primary in the race for governor is about to hit crunch time.

But all things considered, this race has still been rather quiet. It made sense when the race was quiet in March and April, when candidates didn’t want to muddy the waters and make sure Chris Taylor got across the finish line in the Spring Election race for state Supreme Court, but that relative quiet has made less sense in the months since. Now, with less than two months to go before the Aug. 11 primary, this race still does not feel like the type of inescapable, ads-on-every-screen election that we’ve all grown accustomed to in the political pressure cooker that is Wisconsin.

Some thought this race might heat up a bit before the end of the school year, before some tune out in the summer months, but that hasn’t exactly happened, either. There’s been a nonstop stream of candidate forums, a whole lot of chatter in political circles about this race, but regular folks just haven’t seemed all that tuned in to this primary.

Maybe that’s about to change. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s annual convention is happening this weekend, and while I am unfortunately unable to attend this time (apologies, readers, truly!), the timing of the event offers a good opportunity to take the pulse of what’s happening and take a closer look at the state of the race.

So, let’s dive in, candidate by candidate, alphabetically by last name. Let’s recombobulate.

Former lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes

Mandela Barnes could end up being the nominee.

He has the highest name ID in the race, he’s regularly rolling out new policies and traversing the state, and his campaign is among the more well-funded in the race — at $2 million, according to Politico. It is undeniable that he is a top-tier contender in this race.

But he is not the clear frontrunner. He also seems to be running a more general election-style campaign against presumptive Republican nominee Tom Tiffany, and it has been a mistake to think he would waltz right into top candidate status and head right to the general.

It also feels like Barnes is running a remarkably safe campaign. The policies he’s rolling out are quite solid — an announcement on his “Wisconsin Way” policy platform arrived this week — but can often seem poll-tested and not particularly controversial. His media appearances might seem more disciplined than in his 2022 U.S. Senate run, but he also doesn’t come across as particularly authentic — at a moment when Democratic voters are craving more authenticity from candidates. This campaign seems a little bit scared of its own shadow.

There are also electability concerns that surround Barnes’ campaign. The chatter on that front might not be as loud as it is for Francesca Hong, but having defeated Barnes in a statewide race four years ago, Republicans don’t seem to fear the possibility of going head-to-head with him again in 2026.

Last fall, before Barnes announced he’d be running for governor, I wrote a piece revisiting his 2022 run, where I discussed why his campaign was both underrated and overrated at the same time. But, I argued, if he ran for governor, he would need to learn the lessons from that loss and run a different kind of campaign this time around, or else he’d wind up losing again.

Right now, his 2026 campaign for governor seems all too similar to his 2022 race for U.S. Senate — another too-cautious campaign that feels like it’s coming off of a Democratic campaign assembly line. It doesn’t seem built for the unique challenges facing the state or ready to seize the unique opportunity this year presents for Wisconsin.

At the same time, Barnes has the opportunity to demonstrate some evolution over the next two months. His “floor” is much higher than any other candidate, so he can afford to take some risks. If he can meet this challenge, level up, and win in August, he could be the state’s next governor. But he is going to have to earn it. Right now, I’m not sure that he is.

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Former Department of Administration secretary Joel Brennan

For a while, it has seemed like Brennan was lurking as a potential dark horse in this race. As someone who hasn’t run for office before, he’s not going to have the name ID even regionally that some other elected officials do, but he has a lot of executive experience and a strong record of accomplishment throughout his career in and out of government.

Back in a past life, when I was a reporter at the Milwaukee Business Journal, I interviewed Brennan a few times when he was running Discovery World, and found him to be intelligent and engaging. His record as the secretary of the Department of Administration, essentially the top cabinet official, in Tony Evers’ first term, is an impressive one. For a less flashy, CEO-type, more technocratic leader who understands the ins and outs of state government, you could do a whole lot worse than Joel Brennan.

But several months into this race, he still has a long way to go to become a real factor in this primary. He went up with the first statewide TV ad buy of any candidate in the race just this week, but I did not find that ad to be a particularly strong one. It seems too late in the race to be focusing on a personal introduction instead of highlighting what he would want to do as governor.

There’s been talk that Brennan’s brother-in-law, Exact Sciences CEO Kevin Conroy, could spend big in this campaign (especially after the Madison-based business sold for a reported $23 billion), and while that can’t be ruled out, the fact that it has not materialized just yet makes this purely theoretical. On policy, Brennan yet to offer proposals that truly stand out and distinguish him from the field.

He could be a good governor and would be in a compelling position in a general election against Tiffany, but Brennan’s bid right now still feels like a real longshot.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley

This campaign needs a wake-up call.

Last year, when I wrote a “too-early” preview of the race, I said Crowley had the highest upside of any candidate running, and I meant it. Perhaps that’s part of my Milwaukee bias showing through, but I’ve long thought very highly of Crowley, endorsing him for County Executive in 2020, and admiring his record of accomplishment in the role.

I’m always interested in candidates who have the potential to bring the party together, instead of being mired in the perpetual progressive vs. moderate 2016 primary-type of divide, and I thought Crowley could be that candidate in this race. When he first ran for Milwaukee County Executive, he ran as a “bridge builder,” and in many ways, that’s the mentality a leader in a purple state like Wisconsin needs to demonstrate. Having been a state representative for several terms and then going on to lead the state’s most populous county, where he was able to negotiate the landmark shared revenue and sales tax deal, seemed to bode well for his ability to navigate the complexities of state and local government. He been a rising star in Democratic politics in Wisconsin — poised to be among the top candidates, a true contender in the race for governor.

But this campaign has been entirely uninspiring. It might be the most invisible of the seven campaigns — baffling considering the young, personable candidate who is running. The hopeful, “bridge-builder” energy from his County Executive campaigns just isn’t there. At this point, it seems more likely that Crowley will drop out before the primary than wind up winning it. His campaign has been a huge disappointment.

To be fair, part of this is due to factors beyond his control. It’s not his fault that Milwaukee County experienced major flooding in April (and had federal relief for record flooding last year denied by the Trump administration). He has the most active full-time job of any candidate in the field, without a doubt, and that seems to have taken him away from the campaign trail to some degree.

But some of the news coming out of Milwaukee County in recent months has reflected poorly on a central message of his campaign — executive experience. Following an error that could have led to a lapse in health insurance coverage for thousands of County employees, Crowley fired a top official in his Department of Human Resources. The Milwaukee County Transit System, which announced an unexpected budget deficit in June 2025 that was concealed from County officials, and has since gone through a tumultuous time with changes in leadership, with a recent audit suggesting lack of financial oversight and muddled governance of the bus system. On their own, these types of stories might not be so damaging for a candidate, but pieced together, they become all the more problematic for a campaign running on competent, stable leadership.

In a recent interview with the Wisconsin State Journal, Crowley said he’s the candidate Republicans fear most in a general election, if he wins in August. There might be something to that, but right now, he’s in no position to win in August. He needs to turn things around before it’s too late. Is it already too late?

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State Rep. Francesca Hong

The buzziest of any campaign in the race, Hong has gone from wildcard curiosity to genuine contender. But reaching contender status opens her up to a whole new level of scrutiny, and we’re seeing that play out in recent weeks — to mixed results.

A CNN story about Hong’s previous tweets on defunding and abolishing police invited a conversation about those controversial public safety policy positions, but despite how inevitable such a story seemed, the campaign’s statement in response was lacking. A subsequent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story on how she’d envision a world “without prisons” drove home the reality that she is going to face some real challenges on matters of public safety, even as many voters gravitate to her economic populist message.

There was also the recent story about her being sued over credit card debts, which reminds me of stories about Mandela Barnes four years ago regarding his property taxes and college diploma. These stories of millennials encountering financial challenges might seem to have some working class relatability in a primary, but could be more of an issue in a general election where experience is questioned.

On the issues, though, there have been ways in which Hong continues to stand out from the field. Throughout this campaign, there have been numerous forums and discussions that feature many of the candidates, and a recent one showcased an issue where Hong has set herself apart — data centers.

A question from moderator JT Cestkowski, who covers labor issues at Status Coup News, asked if candidates would support a data center moratorium. Surprisingly, only Hong said yes.

So, what’s a more salient issue in 2026 — “defund the police” tweets, or data center politics? It’s probably the latter.

Nevertheless, the electability debate will continue to swirl around Hong’s campaign. There are people who think she flat out cannot win a statewide race at all, and there are people who think she can indeed defeat Tom Tiffany in the general election this fall. It’s also quite clear that Republicans would love to run against a Madison socialist who tweeted about defunding the police; they’re acting like she’s a dream candidate to go up against, and that can’t be entirely discounted as a larger factor in the campaign.

But Hong has built an impressive ground game to go with her robust digital presence. A recent Politico story highlighted a quote from Rock County Democratic leader Jim White, who said she’s the “only candidate” with any infrastructure or active canvassers in the county.

Hong’s overall ceiling might be lower than that of other candidates, and some of her policy positions are going to be controversial, and in some cases, rather unpopular. But the thing about being the wildcard in the race is that an unconventional approach can lead to some unexpected results. We’ve seen that so far in the campaign, and that could continue to be true in the coming weeks and months as this campaign heads to the home stretch, too.

Former WEDC CEO Missy Hughes

Hughes has been picking up some earned media attention with her support for the surplus spending deal made between Gov. Evers and Republican legislative leaders. That issue polled well, and her position on this separates her from the rest of the field, many of whom were very much against it.

But this surplus deal has flummoxed many in Democratic circles, and after all, most Democratic legislators voted against it. It’s a compelling approach to zag against the rest of the field, but is there any evidence to suggest this is translating into actual support? It’s unclear whether or not her campaign has any endorsements, since none are listed online.

Hughes has some strong accomplishments on her resume. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), which she led for six years, was mired in constant turmoil during the Walker years, and her ability to right the ship is no small feat. She’s the only candidate in the race not from Madison or Milwaukee, and that’s important, too.

But she entered this race with perhaps the least public profile of any candidate running, and simply hasn’t done enough to change that over the last few months. Because outside of her position on the surplus spending deal, there isn’t much about her candidacy that’s resonated.

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Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez

With Mandela Barnes’ higher profile and Francesca Hong’s surging campaign, many have wondered who of the rest of the field might be poised to make a jump. Perhaps it’s going to be Sara Rodriguez.

New polling I reported on this week suggests Rodriguez is clearly ahead of the other four candidates, and is among the only candidates on the rise (along with Hong). While these results do come from Rodriguez internal polling, it aligns with larger perceptions of the primary contest, and the numbers don’t lie. She is in a better position than many other candidates in this race, having built some separation between her and several candidates mired in single digits, and the polling suggests Rodriguez is picking up voters who may have previously supported Barnes.

With television ad buys now seeming to start, outside groups aligned with Rodriguez and Crowley, respectively, have put out ads with buys in major markets, and the lieutenant governor’s ad is a far better one — with more money behind it.

The lieutenant governor has, however, had a couple notable stumbles on the campaign trail. Leaked audio from a campaign event showed her saying she’d craft the budget “behind a curtain” if elected, and she had to walk back comments made during an interview about how she would respond to ICE’s use of administrative (not judicial) warrants. While these stories do suggest she might have a tendency to say the wrong thing, these do not present insurmountable challenges. But if her campaign continues to rise, her statements will invite more scrutiny. She’ll have to strike the right balance between improving her responses in unscripted moments without sacrificing authenticity.

Health care is an issue with a huge advantage for Democrats, and will be a salient one after funding cuts with the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which Tom Tiffany supported. Rodriguez can make a claim to that being her signature issue, given her background as a nurse and work within the health care industry.

Given the recent history of successful statewide campaigns, I wonder if Rodriguez’s run could wind up looking like that of what we’ve seen from state Supreme Court candidacies, where women at the top of the ticket perform well and deliver victories, leaning into signature issues with broad support. Being from blue-trending Waukesha County and having flipped an Assembly seat there could be another mark in Rodriguez’s favor, especially with Tiffany being from northern Wisconsin and not having the built-in WOW county notoriety that other Republicans running statewide have enjoyed.

Rodriguez could wind up as the nominee, and if she does, she would likely be the favorite to win against an extreme right-wing candidate like Tom Tiffany in a year where Democrats have the advantage, on balance.

State Sen. Kelda Roys

The most notable turn in Roys’ candidacy came when she gained the “recommendation” of the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC)’s Political Action Committee, and gaining this key backing from the state’s largest teachers union was a strong boost for her campaign.

And on the other side of the coin from Missy Hughes, Roys was the first to come out against the Evers-Vos-LeMahieu surplus spending deal, demonstrating that she’s willing to be a leader on tough issues. She’s also been putting out smart, nuanced policy proposals and has enough progressive bonafides to be in a position to pick up support should Hong or Barnes stumble. It seems like the arrow has been pointing up for the Roys campaign.

But it just hasn’t been enough. Roys is not gaining momentum in this race, and it’s not all that clear why. Perhaps Hong running cut into some of her Madison base. Perhaps Barnes running crowded out the lane for another non-socialist progressive. Perhaps her early fundraising wasn’t where it needed to be. Perhaps a WEAC endorsement doesn’t mean what it once might have. Whatever it is, the support is just not materializing in a way that’s making a meaningful impact on this race. She meets the criteria, but still isn’t being selected.

Like Crowley, Brennan and Hughes, Roys is intelligent and accomplished and more than qualified to be governor. But with less than two months to go before primary election day, a whole lot would have to change very quickly for Roys — or any of the bottom four in the race — to be in position to win.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.

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Recent polling on the Democratic primary in the race for governor in Wisconsin shows some separation materializing in the seven-candidate field, with former lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes, State Rep. Francesca Hong and Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez polling ahead of the four other candidates.

Polling conducted in May shows Barnes at 26%, Hong at 22% and Rodriguez at 15%.

Among the rest of the seven-candidate field — which includes Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, former state Department of Administration secretary Joel Brennan, State Sen. Kelda Roys, and former CEO of the Wisconsin’s Economic Development Corporation Missy Hughes — no one polled above 5%.

Here is the topline breakdown from the May poll:

• Barnes: 26%

• Hong: 22%

• Rodriguez: 15%

• Crowley: 5%

• Roys: 4%

• Brennan: 3%

• Hughes: 2%

• Undecided: 18%

This May poll follows another similar poll conducted in March. The two candidates on the rise over the two-month timespan are Francesca Hong and Sara Rodriguez. Both candidates have increased their overall vote share numbers, with Hong rising from 14% to 22% and Rodriguez from 11% to 15%. At that same time, Mandela Barnes’ numbers declined from 32% to 26%. No other candidate polled above 5%, with only minor shifts for Crowley, Roys, Brennan and Hughes. The number of undecided voters also decreased from 30% in March to 18% in May.

Here is the topline breakdown from the March poll:

• Barnes: 32%

• Hong: 14%

• Rodriguez: 11%

• Crowley: 6%

• Roys: 3%

• Brennan: 2%

• Hughes: 2%

• Undecided: 30%

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These polls — commissioned by the Rodriguez campaign and an aligned organization1; obtained by The Recombobulation Area — surveyed likely Democratic primary voters in separate polls in March and May, and also included an “informed” vote where biographical information about the candidates are shared with voters being polled before they make their selection.

In the “informed vote” category, voters being surveyed are given a brief biography of each candidate2. There, Rodriguez leads the field with 33%. Next, Hong is at 21%, Barnes is at 17%, and no other candidate is above 6% — and that portion of the poll includes no undecided voters.

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Here are the May “informed” poll results:

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Federal child care bridge funding ends this month, and Wisconsin’s families are about to feel the impact. While child care providers across the state scrambled to find answers, Senator Howard Marklein and the Republican-controlled legislature had a chance to act, and chose not to.

That choice has consequences.

As a child care provider in Green County, I can tell you exactly what comes next. Centers like mine face three options, none of them good. We can pass the costs on to families by raising rates, which is what I will have to do. We can absorb the loss and hope we survive, most won’t. Or we can close our doors entirely and send families searching for care that, in many communities, simply doesn’t exist.

Green County is already a child care desert. We have more children who need care than we have slots to put them in. Infant spots are especially scarce. Families who lose their current provider won’t find a backup. They’ll face an impossible choice: pay more, drop out of the workforce, or leave the community altogether.

When a parent leaves the workforce to care for a child because no affordable option exists, a local business loses an employee. When families spend more on child care, they spend less at local restaurants, shops, and services. When a child care center closes, that’s a small business leaving the community, permanently.

Senator Marklein represents a rural district that depends on working families. He knows that employers in our communities are already struggling to find workers. He knows the cost of living has risen across the board. And he knows that child care is not a luxury, it is the infrastructure that makes everything else work.

The federal government provided a temporary lifeline. It ended. Senator Marklein had the opportunity to replace it with a Wisconsin solution. He didn’t take it.

I will be raising my rates to cover what I’m losing at the end of this month. For some families in my care, that will be the end. I wish Senator Marklein had to look them in the eye and explain why Wisconsin couldn’t find the will to act.

From the archives:

Jillynn Niemeier is the founder of Blue Door Daycare, which opened in August of 2020 after her family lost their childcare and were not able to find an option that fit their family’s needs.

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The future of the Stadium Freeway is something we’ve covered a whole lot here at The Recombobulation Area.

Almost exactly five years ago, I wrote a piece as part of our multi-part “Expanding the Divide” series on why we should tear down the Stadium Freeway and convert it to a boulevard, opening up opportunities for housing and development and better connection between neighborhoods.

Here’s that column, to refresh your memory:

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About a year later, change did begin to actually happen. Mayor Cavalier Johnson, County Executive David Crowley and Craig Thompson, then the secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, stood together at Washington Park to announce they would be initiating a study to reexamine the future of the Stadium Freeway.

I wrote about this at the time, too.

But that was May 2022, and since, a 1.5 to 2-year study turned into a nearly four-year study, and as Jeramey Jannene at Urban Milwaukee reported in mid-May, the determination of what’s next is that … another study is needed.

You can read his piece about this here.

Or, you can listen to our conversation in the podcast and video here. While there appears to be broad support for converting this old, hulking freeway spur into a boulevard, any concrete action on the project still seems years and years away.

Along with discussing this project, we also talked about Jeramey’s recent reporting on a number of topics, including:

• Wisconsin Center District CEO Marty Brooks (who was discussed at length in a recent podcast episode with Gary Witt of the Pabst Theater Group) now cleaning out his office as the board has considered removing him from his position

• After Congressman Bryan Steil got in some hot water over celebrating funding for lead pipes that he voted against, as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we talked about what is actually happening in the city of Milwaukee when it comes to lead pipe replacement. Milwaukee’s lead pipe replacement has become more efficient and less costly, and they’ve been able to replace more lead pipes because of it, but the program is still at risk. Read more here.

• 2026 has been dubbed the “Year of Housing” in Milwaukee by Mayor Cavalier Johnson, and we talked about a recently proposed project to use funding from downtown projects to fund housing and infrastructure west of I-43 in the King Park neighborhood. Read more about that here.

Urban Milwaukee is a terrific publication and you should really be subscribing. Do that here.

You can also watch the podcast on our YouTube Channel here:

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Part of a group who might want to subscribe together? Get a group subscription for 30% off!

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.

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During a recent interview on 620 WTMJ, Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany was asked about his views on the 2020 presidential election.

Given that Tiffany backed a State of Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn the election results in four swing states (including Wisconsin), and then came back after the riot to side with rioters by voting against certifying the election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania as a member of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021 (and said he would have rejected Biden’s victory in Wisconsin, too), it’s a more than valid inquiry.

And given recent news on President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” insurrectionist slush fund (Tiffany said he is open to Jan. 6 rioters “possibly” being owed restitution), the FBI’s inquiries into Milwaukee election workers (which Tiffany has said he backs) and former Trump attorney Jim Troupis (who led the Trump campaigns’ efforts to overturn the election in Wisconsin) seeking millions from that slush fund, it’s a timely one, too.

In his response, Tiffany launched into a series of long-debunked conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 presidential election count in the city of Green Bay, where the City Attorney eventually found “no issues affecting the integrity of the election” following a thorough review.

After listening to that segment, I reached out to Amaad Rivera-Wagner, a current Assembly representative who previously served as the chief of staff to Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich. In that role, he and his family faced harassment, vandalism and very real threats to the point where they needed police protection, he told me in 2024, when I was in Green Bay working on a story. So, I was curious if he’d heard what Tiffany had to say in that interview with Steve Scaffidi and Kristin Brey on “Point Taken.”

“Yes,” said Rivera-Wagner. “And I am pissed. It’s bullshit and it led to real people’s lives being threatened, harassed. Millions of taxpayer dollars wasted.”

Rivera-Wagner and others in Green Bay faced all sorts of wild election-related conspiracy theories, including a “Stop the Steal” rally outside Green Bay City Hall on Jan. 6, 2021, and former state Supreme Court justice Michael Gableman calling for the mayor’s arrest as part of his sprawling, multi-million dollar review of the election (which produced no evidence of widespread fraud). The city spent years rehashing the results of the election, and reviving this struck a nerve.

In a press release issued June 3 (available in full here), Rivera-Wagner said:

“Let me be clear: this has been investigated, litigated, reviewed, and debunked. No fraud was found. No issue affecting the integrity of Green Bay’s election was found. Yet these conspiracy theories continue to be repeated by people who know, or should know, better. That is not leadership. That is dangerous…

“These lies were not harmless. They cost taxpayers $2.3 million. They drew bipartisan condemnation. They fueled threats against public servants, election workers, police officers, and families. If an elected official can’t tell the difference between facts and conspiracy theories, they have no business asking to lead our state.”

Tiffany remarking on Green Bay with reheated election denier conspiracies was just a small moment at the outset of a larger conversation, but a revealing one nonetheless. Spouting nonsense like he did shows him to be a true believer of this madness.

The fact of the matter is that Tom Tiffany is completely off the deep end when it comes to 2020 election conspiracies. He’s already drawn national attention for being an election denier candidate running in a swing state — a piece in the Washington Post grouped in with the likes of conspiratorial pillow baron Mike Lindell, who is running for governor in Minnesota — and this is justifiably going to be a heavily scrutinized part of Tiffany’s record as the campaign rolls on.

Because Tiffany’s record on this matter fails to meet basic benchmark standards of American democracy. If you cannot respect the will of the people in a free and fair election, and instead seek to toss out results that go against your wishes, that is tantamount to wanting to upend our entire system of government.

From the archives:

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Some on the right like to argue that this issue is in the past, that people have moved on from what transpired in the late months of 2020 and on through Jan. 6. Donald Trump was later re-elected, after all. But the next governor will have oversight of the next presidential election in 2028, and with Trump and his party continuing to fan the flames of conspiracy and inject Jan. 6 politics back into the national dialogue, what Tiffany says on this truly does matter quite a bit.

Beyond this, though, the underpinnings of the right’s never-ending conspiratorial response to the 2020 presidential election results speaks to something larger, and perhaps more essential, about our politics, our democracy, and the very core of the American experiment.

Last week, conversations surrounding the Democratic primary in the race for governor turned to matters of police and prisons, following national media stories on previous comments made by Francesca Hong, the Madison state representative running for governor. These comments — ones on defunding and abolishing police and on envisioning a world “without prisons” — are controversial, and frankly, not ones I particularly agree with.

But I do believe it is important to have discussions like these and consider various viewpoints, and it is our very system of government that allows for such policy debates to be held in the first place. A policy to disagree with is one thing — and Tiffany has plenty of those — but threatening the very foundations of our democratic system is quite another.

This is why I will always believe that any action taken to overturn the 2020 presidential election should be considered immediately disqualifying for anyone running for public office at any level.

Put simply: Tom Tiffany is unfit for office.

He is unfit for the office he currently holds as a member of Congress representing Wisconsin’s 7th District, and he is unfit to serve in the office he is seeking as governor.

It is utterly mystifying why Wisconsin Republicans have not only accepted Tiffany as their presumptive nominee, but cleared the field for him. You would think Wisconsin Republicans would want to be done with this kind of behavior from their statewide candidates after the Michael Gableman “investigation” and the endless toxic examples of this kind of politics, but no. You’d think that after losing their right-wing majority on the state Supreme Court — where all three justices who sided with the Trump campaign in 2020 will be out of office by next year — might prompt them to seek statewide candidates with no ties to election denier absurdity, but no.

Even beyond his disqualifying election denier history, Tiffany does not project as an especially strong candidate. He is no moderate by any stretch of the imagination. He has a slew of problematic votes in a particularly unpopular Congress (and no sitting member of Congress has ever won a race for governor in Wisconsin); he’s has put zero airspace between he and Trump as the president’s favorability continues to crater and the economy continues to wobble; and his less-than-stellar record in the state legislature ties him to the worst of the Walker years (he voted for the Foxconn deal, just to name one).

It’s not as if Tiffany has other marks that lean particularly in his favor, and by making him the nominee, Republicans have chosen to elevate perhaps the most extreme election denier of any high-ranking elected official in Wisconsin to be their choice for governor.

With his record on the matter — and these are not just stray comments, these are votes — Tiffany clearly does not respect the will of the people, he does not respect Wisconsin’s voters, and he’s demonstrated that he’s willing to dismantle democracy itself to get his way.

These are nightmarish qualities for anyone running for governor. The continued proliferation of this kind of politics is entirely unacceptable. It should have been over by Jan. 7, 2021. That it continues to persist in 2026 is a stain on our entire system.

As citizens of a free country, we can disagree on policy. We can disagree on priorities or strategy or so many other aspects of our politics. But what we cannot accept is a candidate who has proven himself to be willing to end our entire system of government. There is no policy proposal from any candidate that is more extreme or more un-American than Tiffany’s record of wanting to end the American experiment itself.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

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In light of the Callais decision, the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition is firing up its demand for an Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) that empowers citizens — not political parties.

For the past year, they have been building public support for a draft proposal that aims to be transformative in how Wisconsin draws its maps. On Thursday, June 4, they are holding coordinated statewide rallies in Madison, Milwaukee, Appleton, Menomonie, Janesville, Green County (Monroe), Wausau and more. Find out more about the “Our Maps, Our Say” rallies here.

Listen to this episode featuring Organizing Director iuscely Flores and Coalition Volunteer & Relational Organizer Nicole Gabriel, where they talk about the work they’ve been doing to build a “Wisconsin model” for redistricting, how the gerrymandering arms race is impacting this debate, and what’s in store for the June 4 rallies.

From one year ago:

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This episode is sponsored by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition, which is hosting “Our Maps, Our Say” rallies in cities across the state on Thursday, June 4.

Find out more about the events and register to attend here.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Angela Lang and I always have a lot to talk about when we get together, so for these podcast episodes, we each bring three headlines or topics to discuss.

This time, my headlines were:

• WPR: Failed surplus deal would have sent Wisconsin budget into the red, analysis finds

• NPR: Transportation Secretary Duffy filmed a reality show, funded by firms he regulates

• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Schlitz beer production ends after 175 years

And for Angela, they were:

• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Tom Tiffany says Jan. 6 defendants ‘possibly’ are owed restitution

• Fox 6: Watertown band members play LGBTQ+ history song banned by board

• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: This report says Milwaukee is the top US city for creatives. Here’s why

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You can also watch this episode on our YouTube Channel here:

Plus, if you missed our recent live podcast, you can watch that in full here:

This episode is sponsored by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition, which is hosting “Our Maps, Our Say” rallies in cities across the state on Thursday, June 4.

Find out more about the events and register to attend here.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

Already subscribe? Get a gift subscription for a friend.

Give a gift subscription

Part of a group who might want to subscribe together? Get a group subscription for 30% off!

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.

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Sitting down to talk with Francesca Hong, the third-term state representative from Madison now running for governor, it’s striking how normal the conversation feels.

Considering all the narratives swirling around Hong’s candidacy, “normal” might not be the first word many people would use to describe her campaign. She doesn’t come across as the firebrand leftist insurgent that her critics and political opponents have painted her as.

In person, she’s deliberate. She’s thoughtful. She demonstrates a nuanced understanding of the issues facing Wisconsin. She’s even sort of quiet, or at least soft-spoken, in her own way — not quite the brashness of her perceived persona.

We get into a discussion on policy priorities, on how she might seek to balance certain bills that have stalled for years under a Republican legislative majority with some of the more ambitious elements of the lengthy agenda her campaign has posted online, and she slices through the noise.

“Public education, shared revenue, and health care,” she says, explaining that these issues would essentially serve as the foundation of her governing agenda.

Those are hardly unusual priorities for a Wisconsin Democrat. Yet Hong herself is an undeniably unconventional candidate. The 37-year-old former chef and restaurant owner is running a campaign that looks and feels different from anything else in the Democratic primary field. And while these might not be uncommon priorities for a Democratic candidate, her approach is unabashedly bold.

People need to “feel material conditions changing in their lives within the first two years of us governing,” she said. “I see local government, public education, and healthcare as a way for us to enact both short-term, stop-the-bleeding, smaller items while keeping a big vision — moving towards a full public option and cheaper healthcare for everyone, making sure that every municipality is able to meet budgets…and that through investing in public education, we’re lowering property taxes and making sure that people are able to keep their schools open.”

Look beyond the noise — the “Democratic Socialist” label; the four-letter words she drops on social media; the endless screeching attacks from the right on matters real and imagined — and it becomes easier to understand why her campaign is gaining traction. This is not a traditional Democratic campaign, nor is it a copy-and-paste progressive movement campaign. It is something distinct.

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When I wrote a piece last year offering a “too-early” assessment of the potential field of candidates for governor following Tony Evers’ decision not to seek a third term, I characterized Hong’s campaign as a “wildcard.” Seven months later, her candidacy has grown from wildcard to contender, with the Aug. 11 primary fast approaching.

“We’ve grown confident,” Hong says. “I’m still approaching the campaign with humility and making sure that I’m out-working and out-hustling every candidate.”

The work ethic from this longtime service and hospitality industry worker has become a defining feature of her campaign.

Hong has been among the most visible candidates in the race, flooding social media feeds, hosting unconventional events, and traveling aggressively across the state.

At the same time, perhaps part of why the Hong campaign is standing out is that others have floundered or kept relatively quiet. With spending starting to ramp up — groups connected to Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, respectively, have placed television ad buys within the last week — things are not going to stay as quiet for long.

Part of the Hong campaign’s ubiquitous visibility online, though, comes from an early investment in digital outreach — “We had to meet communities where they are, and folks are online,” she said — but part of it is simply Hong’s mentality. It is not just a campaign centered on working-class politics; it is one fueled by working-class energy. The big question, then, is whether that energy can translate into electoral success.

So, how real is this? Could a Democratic Socialist who represents one of the bluest Assembly districts in Wisconsin actually win a statewide primary? Could she defeat presumptive Republican nominee Tom Tiffany in a general election?

That’s not at all clear. Early results from the Marquette University Law School Poll showed her atop the field in a pair of polls, but only with 14% of the vote in the most recent edition in March, which also showed that two-thirds of voters were undecided and about one third of voters weren’t even aware of the primary. That poll is most likely a bit of a mirage, and ascending from wildcard to contender does not mean she’s in the lead in this race.

Questions about electability will continue to hover over her candidacy. Republicans clearly seem to believe she would be an easier opponent to contend with in a general election. The Tiffany camp leaking a campaign memo saying Hong’s candidacy needs to be taken “seriously,” highlighted in a recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel feature story on Hong’s buzzy campaign, suggests the Northwoods Republican would not-so-secretly prefer to take on the Madison socialist in November.

It’s not difficult to see why. Hong has given political opponents plenty of fodder to be used in attacks — from summer of 2020 calls to “defund the police” to use of “woke” language (“birthing bodies,” being one example) to sponsoring legislation to decriminalize prostitution.

Still, a general election against Hong would not look like a typical Wisconsin governor’s race. Battlegrounds could be more centered on turnout and participation among lower-propensity voters who often feel disconnected from politics altogether than among your typical moderate swing voters.

Whatever happens in November, one thing has become increasingly clear: Hong currently has momentum.

After the April Supreme Court election, many expected the governor’s race to finally accelerate. Yet while several campaigns remained quiet or struggled to break through, Hong became the candidate everyone seemed to be talking about.

So what exactly is happening with this campaign? What would Francesca Hong seek to do as governor? Could she actually wind up winning this primary?

It’s a Saturday night, and the venue is packed. It’s an earlier start time for a Milwaukee area show, and the band is already onstage. But the headliner for this event is not one of the three cover bands set to perform that evening, the headliner is a politician and this show is a fundraiser. Toward the end of the first band’s set, the singer says the event has already raised nearly $4,000.

At X-Ray Arcade in Cudahy, volunteers circulate through the crowd collecting signatures for ballot access. Campaign merchandise sits next to tables staffed by members of Milwaukee’s Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) chapter, which has endorsed Hong’s campaign.

Toward the back of the venue, I run into a friend who I hadn’t seen in a while, and we chat and catch up for a few minutes, and then I ask if she’s there mostly for the music or there to support the campaign. She’s there because of Francesca Hong.

“I haven’t been this excited about a campaign in 15 years,” said Ryan Findley.

That enthusiasm is impossible to ignore.

Hong’s campaign has built a sizable volunteer network throughout the campaign. Harry Walton, campaign advisor who oversees volunteers, said, “We have 5,548 people who have taken part in a campaign event so far, (in) 62 of 72 Wisconsin Counties. They come from more than 350 towns, cities, and villages across Wisconsin.”

Many supporters describe Hong not simply as a candidate they agree with politically, but as someone who feels authentic in a political environment that often seems manufactured.

“I don’t normally volunteer for politicians,” said Brittney Neidhardt, a Milwaukee social worker volunteering with the campaign. “She is a very genuine person, and I think that is so rare. She really does care.”

Later in the evening, Hong takes the stage and delivers a speech. She’s also joined by the band onstage, where she sings Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” This is becoming her go-to karaoke song to sing on the campaign trail.

“Songs about perseverance and moving forward are always fun for everyone,” she said, and the song choice feels fitting.

Hong’s campaign events are intentionally unconventional, and the campaign is hosting all kinds of different events all over the state — more than 230, to date.

“We have to be organizing in spaces that we don’t think about as political organizing,” Hong said.

They’re all part of a “community building” emphasis that’s central to her campaign strategy. These events are designed not only to promote their message, but to offer a “gateway into being involved politically” for those who might be disengaged from the process.

“Building community is what authoritarians don’t want us to do,” she said. “And (we host) these types of events where people can have fun, can bring their families, can bring new friends who maybe haven’t heard of our campaign or just don’t want anything to do with politics.”

The approach extends online as well. Hong’s campaign has worked to rapidly increase her name recognition while cultivating a style that’s “more accessible, transparent and fun” than traditional political messaging, Hong said.

“We knew we had to spark curiosity,” she said. “It’s hard to make people curious about a campaign from just reading about it in the paper.”

Perhaps part of Hong’s nontraditional and unconventional campaign approach stems from her own unique path to politics.

Born and raised in Madison, Hong is the daughter of Korean immigrants who came to Wisconsin in the late 1980s to pursue educational opportunities. Her father is a sociologist and researcher at the Waisman Center, and her mother is a music teacher.

“In her first year of student teaching, that was Act 10, and that was our first protest together,” she said. “For me, being interested in politics is with your family, with your community.”

After graduating from Madison West High School, she went to college initially intending to be a sports journalist — “following the Erin Andrews path, if you will.” But around that time, she also started working part-time in restaurants, and “fell in love with it.”

“I think the chaos and camaraderie is what drew me,” she said.

Eventually, she dropped out of college to cook full-time. Beginning in 2009, Hong began working “as many part time cooking jobs as I could,” she said, mostly at restaurants in downtown Madison, and also moonlighting at Red Light Ramen and Ardent in Milwaukee. She eventually became the executive chef at 43 North in Madison, and then in 2016, she and then-husband Matt Morris opened Morris Ramen in Madison.

Politics became part of the restaurant’s ethos early on. One of their first events was a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood, and Hong got involved with organizations and events around Madison through the restaurant.

“I learned that organizing looks like bringing people together around a table,” she said.

From the archives:

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It was in March of 2020 when I was first introduced to Francesca Hong. I was working on a piece on Wisconsin’s restaurant industry dealing with the initial onset of the covid-19 pandemic. Restaurants and bars around the state were beginning to speak out about what they would need to navigate this crisis, and Hong was among those leading the charge, posting a letter addressed to Gov. Evers on the Morris Ramen Facebook page, eventually having the letter co-signed by more than 50 restaurant industry leaders in Madison.

Not long afterward, she decided to run for State Assembly in the 76th District. Her campaign’s theme was “Share the Table.” Running for political office was not something she had ever planned to do, but her response to the pandemic prompted others to encourage her to run for the open seat.

“Spite and crisis and exhaustion can spark some crazy decisions,” Hong said. “And one of mine was to run for office.”

She won a crowded Democratic primary in August 2020 and would become the first Asian American elected to the Wisconsin State Legislature when she took office in January of the following year.

Her years in the restaurant industry continue to shape how she talks about politics.

“Being in service industry work means that you always put other people first,” she said. “Every public servant should come with that mentality.”

Morris Ramen ultimately closed in 2024 amid rising rents and costs, an experience Hong says reinforced her belief that economic pressures are squeezing working-class people from every direction. This helped shape her view of the working class in Wisconsin, too.

“I think working-class people right now have to make tougher and tougher choices,” she said. “In restaurants, you work so hard and it doesn’t feel like enough. And right now, everyone is feeling that…I don’t think folks realize that the working class right now is basically everyone who isn’t a multimillionaire.”

While Hong did not originally run for office explicitly as a Democratic Socialist, she had been a DSA member in Madison prior to running and does not shy away from the label, eventually joining the Assembly’s Socialist Caucus, which was revived in 2023.

“Democratic socialism is democracy, fairness, and human rights,” she said. “I want policies that I prioritize to be working towards more democratic control of the economy. Because the economy right now is controlled by corporations, billionaires, and oligarchs. I want the economy to be controlled by people — and actually work for working class people.”

Hong sees Republicans like President Donald Trump or Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to be the true “villains” in the larger context of national and state politics, but has been frustrated by a “problem of elitism” within the Democratic Party.

“We appealed to the college educated, the folks who are our donor base, and we lost working class people,” she said. “We didn’t diversify — and I’m not just talking about ethnic or racial backgrounds — I don’t think we diversified in how we were approaching voters to talk about and engage them in politics. When I say elitism, you can’t have a party feel like a special club, even though in politics, your job with voters is to make them feel special. And I think we only made a certain group of voters feel special.”

While the Democratic Party might be in an advantageous position going into this year’s midterm elections — the latest poll of the generic ballot from The New York Times shows a Democrat +10 environment — voters still do not hold the Democratic Party in particularly high regard. This same poll showing Democrats in good position for the midterms also showed just 26% of voters are satisfied with the Democratic Party.

Similar numbers have appeared in Wisconsin, too, where the latest Marquette poll showed that only 35% of voters have a favorable view of the Democratic Party. That dissatisfaction with the Democratic establishment has manifested in certain primaries and elections across the country, like in Maine, where Graham Platner has become the presumptive nominee in a key U.S. Senate race, and Zohran Mamdani, also a Democratic Socialist, toppled Andrew Cuomo on his way to becoming mayor of New York City.

“This is a movement moment that demands taking on the establishment, talking about everyday cost of living issues that move people and standing up for human rights unapologetically,” Hong said, praising Platner’s campaign. “Like me and our campaign, dude is trying to talk to everyone everywhere and building organizing infrastructure that brings in new people to the movement.”

The comparisons to the New York mayor are inevitable for someone running as a Democratic Socialist in 2026, and Hong has good things to say about Mamdani’s campaign, too, particularly his “accessibility” approach to social media, saying they’re using it to show “why it’s important to have a government that is a force for good.”

But New York City is not exactly Wisconsin, and the “Socialist” label still carries enormous baggage for a statewide election — even as progressives like Hong will often remind you that Bernie Sanders won 71 of 72 counties in Wisconsin during the 2016 primary. Hong also wants to change the perceptions associated with the label.

“Right now, I’m running as a Democratic Socialist on the Democratic ticket because it signals to people that I am ready for change and for Democratic socialism not to be seen as something that’s scary or radical,” she said. “I think it’s radical that we have kids who are hungry in schools and can’t learn. I think it’s unacceptable that we have small businesses that are paying more in taxes than some of the largest corporations that know how to access loopholes, and that it’s easier to get a corporate subsidy (than) it is for a working mom to get food share benefits to feed her kids, that there’s more bureaucracy in lessening suffering than there is in the wealthiest gaining more wealth.”

Not all issues cut along traditional political lines or fit neatly into the labels of “socialist” or “liberal” or “moderate” or “conservative.” One issue she’s found significant traction on is in her opposition to large-scale AI data centers. In January, her campaign called for a moratorium on new data centers until stronger ratepayer protections and environmental regulations are in place. This position landed her on the cover of TIME magazine, which featured her alongside other activists and elected officials pushing back against these developments.

In Wisconsin, this has become a burgeoning issue where both liberals and conservatives have shown significant opposition to AI data centers. As comedian Charlie Berens has put it in his own advocacy against data centers, “This is the most bipartisan issue since beer.”

This could serve as an example of where the Hong campaign could find traction and trust with voters in unforeseen ways. Because a traditional approach would not work for this campaign — and might not be what voters want right now.

This is part of why people need to start viewing her campaign through a different lens.

In a gathering space tucked away at the West Bend Community Memorial Library, Francesca Hong sits listening to a group of students, parents and supporters as part of a roundtable discussion campaign event. This is not Hong on stage for a raucous crowd at a concert fundraiser or going direct-to-camera on social media with a fired-up take. But the candidate’s authenticity shines through here, too. At a fundamental level, the message is the same — Hong is the same.

“I’m running for governor for working class people to have a say and more control of their government,” she said. “But I’m also running because I truly love this state and all that it has provided my family.”

She’s at this library in Washington County to discuss mental health. The group is not large, but she’s taking this just as seriously as being on stage in front of hundreds at a candidate forum.

She talks about her own experience dealing with mental health challenges and being in therapy, and how the personal becomes political when “people don’t have their basic needs met” and epidemics of loneliness and isolation are being exacerbated by Big Tech.

She talks about what the state government could do to better fund mental health care, prioritize incorporating it into public institutions, and govern the issue differently. She talks about using her platform to “destigmatize” mental health, answers questions on the impacts of recent public policy decisions on health care, and has conversations about the way technology has warped experiences and eroded connections in younger generations. Beyond the purely political, she talks about connection and community and wanting to rebuild what’s been lost.

Hong does not talk in soundbytes. She is bold without being preachy. She’s more interested in the dialogue of the event than it being another campaign soapbox. She seems more comfortable listening than speaking. The assembled group comes away impressed, and people find her refreshing, authentic and genuine. One of the students says she has a “presence” that’s almost like a “quiet gravity.”

The question lingers, though — especially as we sit in the middle of one of the state’s most conservative counties: Can she win?

There’s a pause in the room when I ask that question to those in attendance, after Hong has left to go to her next campaign event. There’s optimism, but uncertainty. Hope, but caution. A desire to stand aside an unconventional candidate who wants to go big and bold and do things differently, but a tacit acknowledgement that such an approach might not be successful.

It’s that very tension that will define this particularly unique campaign as the Democratic field hurtles toward the Aug. 11 primary.

Electing Hong to be the Democratic nominee for the first open governor’s race in 16 years would carry a great deal of risk. Going from being an Assembly representative in a safe blue district to a statewide candidate is a massive jump, one that she might not be able to land.

But this campaign has earned the right to be taken seriously, and — perhaps more importantly — to be considered on its merits and on the issues and policies it is advocating for, and not simply by the labels or narratives assigned to it.

This campaign is succeeding in ways others are not. There’s something to be learned from a campaign that eschews message-testing and might be grasping the authenticity that voters are craving. Because Francesca Hong and her campaign have worked their way into contention in an unconventional and genuinely compelling manner, and now we’ll see if this wildcard can play a winning hand.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.

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Emily Mills recently won a Milwaukee Press Club GOLD award for their column, “How AI is harming Wisconsin’s path to renewable energy.” So, they joined the podcast to talk about that prescient piece, how the politics of AI and data centers has taken off as a major issue over the past year, and how this is an issue that does not cut along traditional political lines.

We talked about that piece, along with Emily’s latest column, on “habitual drama king” Kirk Bangstad, and his run for governor.

You can also watch this episode on our YouTube channel here.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Part of a group who might want to subscribe together? Get a group subscription for 30% off!

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.

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On Monday morning, Gov. Tony Evers announced a “blockbuster” deal had been struck with Republican legislative leadership, but less than 72 hours later, the bill failed in the state Senate by a 15-18 vote, with all Democrats and three Republicans voting against the deal.

The $1.8 billion deal would have spent $850 million in rebate checks for some Wisconsinites, increased special education funding by raising the reimbursement rate to 50%, eliminated taxes on cash tips and overtime income, and provided some property tax relief (find more details on the proposal in this release from the governor’s office).

In failing at the finish line, this puts a spotlight on some of the more fraught elements of state government that have been lurking beneath the surface, particularly as it pertains to the state Senate.

First, there’s the fracturing Republican caucus in the state Senate, which has been a bit of an underexplored story under Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, particularly in this current session. The GOP holds a 18-15 majority, but as we’ve seen repeatedly in the 2025-26 session — including in the state budget vote in July 2025 — Senate Republicans are not all on the same page. Three of the four Republican senators who voted against the final version of the state budget — Steve Nass, Chris Kapenga and Rob Hutton — also voted against this deal.

But unlike with the state budget, this time, there were no Senate Democrats who voted in favor of the deal. All 15 voted against, and during comments on the Senate floor that preceded the vote — including from Democratic senators Jamie Wall and Kristin Dassler-Alfheim, who voted in favor of the budget last year —many sounded the alarm on claims of fiscal irresponsibility of the deal.

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Thanks so much to everyone who came out for our LIVE PODCAST event at Anodyne Coffee’s Walker’s Point Roastery in Milwaukee! It might not have been April 14, but we still showed up for the 4-1-4! Turns out you can celebrate Milwaukee Day on May 7, after all.

Our guests for the podcast included Angela Lang and Kristin Brey, and we were also joined by Milwaukee Day founder Andy Silverman and 414 Day Executive Director Mocha Harris, as well as Carmen Murguia, sales director at the Milwaukee Courier, another publication that, like The Recombobulation Area, has recently come under the umbrella of Civic Media.

If you missed the audio version of the podcast, you can listen to that (and see a bonus photo gallery) here:

You can also watch on our YouTube Channel here:

It will always be of the utmost importance to us at The Recombobulation Area to build community, and that community would not be possible without the city we call home: Milwaukee.

Thanks again, y’all!

Video credits:

• Video Editor, Tony Zimmerman

• Audio Recording Engineer, Chris Kasper

• Video Producer/Audio Editor, Aaron Zommers

• Additional Editing, Jennie Brand

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.

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Contributor Emily Mills is the winner of a GOLD honor from the Milwaukee Press Club’s 2025 Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism awards, winning for “Best Single Editorial, Statement of Editorial Position or Opinion” for the column, “How AI is harming Wisconsin’s path to renewable energy.” Congratulations, Emily!

I’m so tired of loud white “liberal” men who think they’re the only ones who can save us.

Current example/reason for my deep, Marge Simpson-like groans: Minocqua Brewing Company owner and habitual drama king Kirk Bangstad. He’s just announced that he’s running for the soon-to-be-open governor’s seat in Wisconsin, in an increasingly crowded Democratic primary.

Why? He swears, using the very official medium of Facebook posts, that he reached out to other candidates to see if they met his rigorous standards, only to be met with disappointment. There was no recourse, then, but for him to throw his hat into the ring. He is the man who can save us all, you see, from Tom Tiffany and the Trump regime’s influence here.

After exhausting his list of people he wanted to see run — all white men, for the record — Bangstad said he began reaching out to the people already running for the post to ask, specifically, if they had an “election protection plan” as part of their platform. Bangstad’s number one concern, apparently eclipsing all other issues facing Wisconsinites to the point of being the only thing worth his time, is his fear that the Trump regime intends to rig/steal the midterms.

This is where he shows his hand, yet again, as inherently nothing but a concern troll and misogynist. State Rep. Francesca Hong, Bangstad says, may be a “true progressive,” but she’s simply too “politically naive and unelectable” to win. Then, State Sen. Kelda Roys has “been in office so long that she thinks more about which coalition of voters she’ll piss off before checking in with her heart to saying what she believes.”

Alas and alack, these poor, overwhelmed, directionless women clearly need Bangstad to take care of business for them.

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Meanwhile, he’s on his Facebook page openly encouraging his followers to harass a reporter with the local Fox News station who had the audacity to…ask him questions about his campaign for governor.

He’s got a history of resorting to childish name-calling and outright slander when it comes to people with whom he disagrees, including having to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars in a case where he falsely accused the co-owner of the Lakeland Times of intentionally allowing his own brother to die in order to take over the paper. Of course, he leans heavily on cries of “free speech!” whenever faced with consequences for his behvior.

And then there’s his SuperPAC, which has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars mostly to put up obnoxious billboards and otherwise fail to disclose where any of that money is actually going.

But Bangstad is just one of far too many self-aggrandizing white men who call themselves liberal and use big public stunts and shitty language to make a name for themselves while failing to do anything to meaningfully build coalitions or create policies that actually improve people’s lives. They’re simply using people’s very real fears and anxieties about our present moment in order to raise their own profiles (and often money).

But it seems their only real issue is that they’ve ever been held even a little accountable for their actions, and now have to make it everyone’s problem as they seek to use the battle cry of “free speech” to win power and freedom from responsibility. It’s easy to spot, because the “free speech” of these blueanon types very often veers directly into paranoia, racism, sexism, fatphobia, homophobia, transphobia, and classism to make its alleged point. Yes, you should have the right to say what you want without the government coming for you, but everyone else gets to tell you you’re being an asshole.

In the end, I’m neither surprised by or particularly mad at Bangstad for deciding to run. He wants to talk about being “politically naive and unelectable?” Pot, meet kettle (or Brett Hulsey).

In addition, it’s always up to the other candidates to do the work to rise above the noise and make the case for why people should support their campaign. We also have to make sure the Democratic Party doesn’t throw its weight around in order to tip the scales toward a candidate the internal (reactionary centrist) machine likes more, and that we then coalesce behind the eventual primary winner in order to beat the actually fascist Republican Party come November.

The way to do that isn’t with fear and shouting and simply saying “Trump/Tiffany/Republicans are bad.” Or by saying “every other Democratic candidate sucks but me.” You don’t do that by doxxing reporters, patronizing the women in the race, or name-calling in lieu of actually making your case.

You do that by showing us a compelling vision for a possible, better future for all of us — yes, even those folks still voting Republican — one based in reality, with a dash of dreaming. It’s by demonstrating a whole lot of grit and willingness to set your ego aside and do the hard work of building real coalitions, passing meaningful policy, and shifting the culture to one of kindness and cooperation.

This column was originally published at “Grist from the Mills,” Emily Mills’ newsletter, which you can find and subscribe to here.

Emily Mills is a longtime freelance writer/reporter based in Madison. They previously served as Editor of Our Lives, Wisconsin’s only LGBTQ+ media outlet, and as an opinion columnist in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. You can currently find Emily’s work at tonemadison.com and at their own newsletter, Grist From the Mills.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Last week, a key state representative in a swing district announced she would be retiring from the Assembly. This is a big deal — and it’s a signal of what could be happening downballot for Republicans in 2026.

Republican Jessie Rodriguez has represented the 21st Assembly District since winning a special election in 2013. Though the lines have changed a few times while she’s been in office, this district has largely included the southeastern portion of Milwaukee County, including the city of Oak Creek. Throughout this time, Rodriguez — an immigrant born in El Salvador, the first Hispanic Republican elected to the legislature — has been a strong candidate, consistently out-running the top of the ticket. In 2022, she won by a nine-point margin in a district Trump won by 5% in 2020. In 2024, as the newly redrawn 21st went for Kamala Harris by a four-point margin and Tammy Baldwin by a nearly seven-point margin, Rodriguez won again, by about 3%.

Here in 2026, the top Democrat running in the 21st is Dan Bukiewicz, who has served as the mayor of Oak Creek since 2018, and has been the elected President of the Milwaukee Building and Construction Trades Council since 2014. He was also just endorsed by Sen. Tammy Baldwin1. He had a very good chance of flipping this district even before Rodriguez’s retirement news, and with first-time candidate Dylan Pfaffenbach announcing a run as a Republican in the district, Bukiewicz should now be seen as the favorite here in a distinct flip opportunity for Democrats.

The impact of Rodriguez’s decision not to run for re-election will reverberate far beyond the 21st. This, along with other retirements and a political environment looking increasingly challenging for Republicans heading into the midterms, is a significant blow to the GOP’s chances of keeping the Assembly in their control after the fall election.

Republicans currently hold 54 of the 99 seats in the Assembly, meaning Democrats will need to flip at least2 five seats in order to win a majority. Given how important incumbency can be in downballot races, even in what projects to be an advantageous midterm election year for Democrats, I have been of the mindset that Republicans are still the favorites to win control of the Assembly come November.

But after this announcement from Rodriguez, the Assembly is looking like much more of a toss-up. Democrats winning control of the Senate has already been looking like an increasingly likely scenario — given some recent retirement announcements from Rob Hutton, Van Wanggaard and Jesse James — and now the first Democratic trifecta in more than 15 years is legitimately in play.

That’s made all the more clear in polling recently released by A Better Wisconsin Together, conducted by Public Policy Polling (PPP), which looked at five potentially flippable Assembly districts, including the 21st. Even with Rodriguez on the ballot, polling showed a generic “Democratic candidate” leading by a nine-point margin.

This poll also measured the favorability of both Rodriguez and President Donald Trump. Rodriguez’s favorability is a net even (32% favorable - 32% unfavorable, 35% not sure), while Trump’s is far underwater, a net minus-18 (38% favorable - 56% unfavorable, 5% not sure). If midterm elections are a referendum on the party in power, Trump’s dismal favorability in many of these districts is going to make for some tough conversations for Republicans out canvassing and talking to voters in downballot races like this.

This poll also showed that only 8% of voters in the 21st said the state legislature “has done enough to address rising costs,” with more than 80% saying they “have not done enough.” Similar numbers bear out in the four other districts polled, which includes districts 30, 51, 61, and 85. Incumbency will come with its own set of challenges for Republicans this year.

In each of those districts, the generic Democrat holds a lead in head-to-head polling against the Republican incumbent. The closest of those is in the 30th District — the one district of these five won by both Donald Trump and Eric Hovde in 2024 — which is currently represented by Republican Shannon Zimmerman.

The polling shows that Trump is wildly unpopular. In each of these five districts, he has a double-digit net-negative favorability rating. His unfavorable number is also over 50% in each district.

Of these five districts, three were won by both Kamala Harris and Tammy Baldwin in 2024 — the 21st, 51st and 61st.

In the 51st, in southwestern Wisconsin, Republican Todd Novak — who has won many close races over the years — is running for a seventh term. He’s likely to face Democrat Ben Gruber, former president of the Conservation Wardens Local 1215, in the general election. Novak is polling behind the “generic Democrat” in the district, and Gruber might have better name ID than other candidates, after he was part of a noteworthy case where the Wisconsin Employment Relations Council ruled that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources retaliated against Gruber and other DNR wardens. "I feel it's just vindicating what we've been saying for 2½ years that our management operates unchecked, and was really abusing their authority to retaliate and discriminate," Gruber told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an interview.

In the 61st, in Milwaukee’s southwestern suburbs, Republican Bob Donovan is running for re-election, he announced last week, and several Democrats — Brian Bock, Ben Brist, Lawanda Chambers — will compete in a primary to take him on in the general election. Donovan has far more name recognition than your typical state representative, so this district will still be a challenge for Democrats, but his poll numbers suggest the opportunity to unseat him is there.

Also included in these polling numbers is the 85th, which has the distinction of being the only district in the state won by both Donald Trump and Tammy Baldwin. There, Patrick Snyder is running again, after winning by a more than 6% margin in 2024. He is likely to face Marathon County Board Supervisor John Kroll, who is running as a Democrat.

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Along with these five districts included in the PPP/A Better Wisconsin Together poll, there are three other districts that will be important to watch.

One is the 88th, in Brown County, currently represented by Republican Benjamin Franklin. The race for this seat was the closest race in the entire Assembly in 2024, decided by just over 200 votes. Franklin is running again, likely to face De Pere School Board member Brandy Tollefson.

Another is the 94th, north of La Crosse, currently represented by Steve Doyle, the Assembly’s lone Democrat to win in a Trump-won district in 2024. Doyle is running again, he recently told WIZM. No Republican challenger has announced a bid as of yet, but a campaign committee for Keith Purnell has recently been registered in the district. Doyle should be the favorite here.

And then there is the 53rd, located in the Fox Valley, including the cities of Neenah and Menasha. This district is represented by Republican Dean Kaufert, the former mayor of Neenah, who was recently in the news following a Heartland Signal inquiry into a sexual harassment investigation that occurred in 2019, where “multiple employees of the city pool confirmed hearing Kaufert say he couldn’t be trusted around 16-year-old girls.”

Days after this report was published, Kaufert announced he is not running for re-election. The Democrat running in this district — the second-closest Assembly race in the state in 2024 — is Lauri Asbury, who has served on the Neenah School Board for 10 years, and is involved in a variety of area organizations in the Fox Valley region.

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While Democrats might have advantageous opportunities in each of these districts, Republicans will still inevitably play hardball in these races — and we’re already seeing some evidence of this. As Wisconsin Watch recently reported, the lobbying group the Jobs First Coalition, led by Michelle Litjens, a former state legislator who is now married to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, has released ads backing Donovan, Franklin, Novak, and Snyder, highlighting their support of bills expanding postpartum Medicaid coverage for new moms, and for breast cancer screening bill known as “Gail’s Law.”

You may recall that Assembly Republicans left the Capitol during debate over those bills to meet with — you guessed it! — Jobs First Wisconsin, for a fundraiser.

Several of these electorally vulnerable lawmakers were trotted out in a late-night press conference to support these bills — bills that Democrats had been advocating for for years, and had maneuvered to force a vote on in this final day of the legislative session — in an attempt to take credit for them passing. The shamelessness of all of this is just unfathomable (see: this reel, from our friend at Motherhood for Good).

But with Robin Vos still reportedly involved in the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee (RACC) despite his own retirement from the Assembly, you can expect many more shenanigans like this, especially with the Uihlein-Hendricks billionaire bucks backing them.

Bottom line, though? There are many opportunities for Democrats to flip seats in the Assembly, and between key retirements and polling suggesting a bleak electoral environment for Republicans headed into the midterms, the most difficult piece of winning a Democratic trifecta is more likely than ever.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

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The Recombobulation Area and Civic Media have won two awards at the Milwaukee Press Club’s 2025 Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism Awards.

Contributor Emily Mills won Gold for “Best Single Editorial, Statement of Editorial Position or Opinion” for the column, “How AI is harming Wisconsin’s path to renewable energy.”

Founding Editor Dan Shafer won Bronze for “Best Columnist.” Each of these awards came in the “Online” section. This is the sixth consecutive year in which The Recombobulation Area has won a Milwaukee Press Club award, and the fifth consecutive year to win Gold. Previous Gold honorees include Shafer, and contributors Angela Lang and Philip Rocco.

This year’s awards dinner featured Sacred Cat Award Honoree Astead Herndon, a host and editorial director at Vox, and 2026 Headliners community service awardees Ken-David Masur, music director and conductor with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; and Mary McCormick, executive director at Rotary Club of Milwaukee.

A full list of winners is available here.

The Recombobulation Area has now earned 21 honors from the Milwaukee Press Club in six years. Dan Shafer has now won 17 awards as part of The Recombobulation Area, which launched in 2019, and 24 awards overall, including for work at the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and ThirdCoast Digest, between 2011 and 2017.

These honors would not be possible without the incredible support of our readers, followers and subscribers. Being a reader-funded publication, it’s been those subscribers — it’s been you — who have powered these achievements.

Consider becoming a paid subscriber today. It is the best way to support what we do.

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We are endlessly grateful for your support of The Recombobulation Area, and we’re looking forward to producing more award-winning work in 2026.

Take a look back at previous winners here:

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Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Thanks so much to everyone who came out for our LIVE PODCAST event at Anodyne Coffee’s Walker’s Point Roastery in Milwaukee! It might not have been April 14, but we still showed up for the 4-1-4!

Our guests for the podcast included Angela Lang and Kristin Brey, and we were also joined by Milwaukee Day founder Andy Silverman and 414 Day Executive Director Mocha Harris, as well as Carmen Murguia, sales director at the Milwaukee Courier, another publication that, like The Recombobulation Area, has recently come under the umbrella of Civic Media.

It will always be of the utmost importance to us at The Recombobulation Area to build community, and that community would not be possible without the city we call home: Milwaukee.

Thanks again, y’all!

Production and engineering for this episode by Chris Kasper and Aaron Sommers.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.

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Today is the day!

Our live podcast event is happening in just a few hours, and we are so excited to see you all and share in the community we have here at The Recombobulation Area.

The event will feature Angela Lang, Kristin Brey and several special guests. While we won’t be celebrating on Milwaukee Day (4/14) like we originally planned, we’re still showing up for the 4-1-4. Milwaukee Day can also be on May 7, right?!?

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Here are the event details:

• WHERE: Anodyne Walker’s Point, 224 W. Bruce St., Milwaukee, WI 53204

• WHEN: 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

  • Podcast is scheduled to start at 6 p.m.

• COST: Free!

• RSVP: Here, on Facebook

Let’s hope this time, we don’t run into any surprise tornado warnings or anything like that. Ope, hope we didn’t just jinx anything.

Anyway, we HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!

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Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagramat @ therecombobulationarea.

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.

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The Wisconsin Department of Transportation recently held a pair of Public Involvement Meetings about the future of the Lake Interchange in Milwaukee, otherwise known as 794.

This stretch of interstate highway between the Marquette Interchange and the Hoan Bridge has been a topic of debate for several years, since it was identified that it would need to be replaced, with a price tag well into the hundreds of millions of dollars. In the years since, many have argued that this stretch of highway would be better off being significantly reconfigured, or perhaps even torn down entirely.

The meetings that have been held over the past week are part of the the third round of public involvement meetings that have been held on this project, with the first being in August 2023, another in November 2025, and now yet another here in the Spring of 2026.

You can see the latest materials released as part of the public meeting here. BizTimes also has a good breakdown of the various proposals here.

Rethink 794, which has advocated for removal of the freeway, had its own reaction to the latest here.

You can also watch this episode on our YouTube channel here:

And here’s what we had to say about the project in 2023:

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Well, this is pretty wild. The Recombobulation Area is nominated for the Milwaukee Magazine - 2026 Best of Milwaukee Readers’ Choice for “Local Social Media Follow.”

We’re honored to be in the mix with so many talented local voices helping tell Milwaukee’s story. If you think we’ve earned your vote, we’d be grateful for it.

Voting is open now through June 5. Find us in Culture, Arts & Entertainment → Local Social Media Follow and cast your vote.

Vote here!

And yes, it is quite something to be nominated for award, 10 years after I was on staff at Milwaukee Magazine. Life is funny, isn’t it?

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Before you head off to vote — vote here! — I want to give a special shoutout to , who has been helping lead The Recombobulation Area’s social media in recent months. If you’ve noticed that our Facebook and Instagram, in particular, have gotten considerably better as of late, that’s all thanks to Jennie! So, she shares this award, too. Congrats, Jennie!

REMINDER: We are hosting our LIVE PODCAST event on Thursday, May 7, at 5:30 p.m. at Anodyne Coffee’s Walker’s Point Roastery. It is FREE to attend, it is family friendly, and you should be there.

Details here:

We originally set out for this event to be held on Milwaukee Day (4/14), but tornado warnings had other ideas. But, we’re still showing up for the 4-1-4 — and for our extraordinary community that we all share with The Recombobulation Area.

The event will now feature Kristin Brey, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist and 620 WTMJ radio host — who is also up for this very same Milwaukee Magazine award! — along with Angela Lang, co-executive director of BLOC and an award-winning contributor to The Recombobulation Area, and special guests.

RSVP on Facebook to let us know you’re coming.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Part of a group who might want to subscribe together? Get a group subscription for 30% off!

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.

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An event hosted by the “Living Wage Coalition” was held in Milwaukee on the morning of May Day 2026, as part of the effort to raise the minimum wage to $20 per hour.

The event was hosted by The Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Organization (MASH) and Citizen Action of Wisconsin, and featured three Democratic candidates for governor — State Sen. Kelda Roys, State Rep. Francesca Hong, and former lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes. Per a press release, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley also supports raising the minimum wage to $20 per hour, but was “unable to attend.”

You can see what each of the candidates had to say at the event here.

Remarks from Kelda Roys:

Remarks from Francesca Hong:

Remarks from Mandela Barnes:

After the event, I spoke with the candidates.

Roys spoke about how she is the “lead author” on legislation to raise the minimum wage, saying, “I am the progressive who can not only win the election, but actually has a track record of delivering on important progressive issues.”

Barnes talked about his working class upbringing, and said that “when it comes to experience, that’s where I lead the pack.”

Several of the speakers at the event were in the food service and hospitality industry. An issue that has come up frequently in recent years pertaining to those kinds of roles is about proposals to eliminate taxes on tips. I asked the candidates about those proposals and here’s what they said.

Barnes: “Eliminating taxes on tips would go a long way to help working people. I do think that’s something we should consider.”

Roys: “I think (eliminating taxes on tips) is really a false promise. We don’t discriminate against people based on how they earn their money. If someone pays you in cash versus direct deposit, you shouldn’t be paying more or less in taxes because of it.”

Hong: “I oppose the policy to have no tax on tips. I think that it distracts us from increasing wages and abolishing a tipped minimum wage. I think it is a way that actually keeps some of our lowest income earners in a certain income bracket by not working toward fair wages, and it’s a revenue loss for the state.”

Tony Evers recently vetoed a bill on no tax on tips, saying it was because the GOP-passed bill included a measure that would sunset the tax in 2028. Evers has advocated for a permanent change. Roys voted against the bill, and Hong abstained, because she is a “tipped worker,” she said. Find more on that from the Wisconsin Examiner here.

More from our May Day coverage:

REMINDER:

More details here:

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.