← Election Series · All governors races

Our verdict

LiberalMind endorses Tom Tiffany

Election Day is November 3. Governor Tony Evers is retiring voluntarily — no term limit forced this — and Wisconsin is holding its first open governor's race since 2010, in a state Donald Trump carried in 2024 by under a point. Cook and Inside Elections call it a Toss-Up; Sabato moved it to Lean D on August 12, the day after the primary, for a reason this article examines in full. Every public general-election poll located shows David Crowley ahead by three to five points — Marquette's September likely-voter read is Crowley 49, Tiffany 46 — while the money runs roughly three-to-one the other way. And on the same ballot, Question 1 asks voters to amend the constitution to curb the partial veto — the most expansive in America — after Evers used it to write a school-funding increase that runs to the year 2425. The winner's central power is being voted on alongside the winner. This is the whole race, claim by claim. LiberalMind endorses Tom Tiffany. Read the research, and see why — the other man's file is the strongest a Democrat has brought us all cycle, and we print it at full strength before we rule against it.

The race

The printed ballot carries two tickets: David Crowley (D), running mate Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski; and Tom Tiffany (R), running mate former Lancaster Mayor David Varnam. One more name completes the roster: Jamie Jo Carothers (I) is a registered write-in only — her name is not printed; she has raised and spent $782.66 (Transparency USA). The roster rests on two independent compilations built from the Wisconsin Elections Commission list (Daily Letter; Informed Ballot) plus Ballotpedia's general-election listing; a direct pull of the WEC's own list was not completed in this research and is flagged for the pre-print check. Several names sometimes listed are not candidates: the Green Party's Jill Ferguson withdrew, four independents withdrew, and independent David King was disqualified (Transparency USA).

Crowley won the August 11 Democratic primary 39.8% to Francesca Hong's 39.4% — roughly 3,200 votes — after suspending his campaign on July 8, endorsing Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, watching Rodriguez drop out in mid-July, and re-entering on July 18 with Evers's endorsement, 24 days before a primary that late polling had him losing by double digits. Hong, a Madison state representative and Democratic Socialists of America member, ran as a democratic socialist; Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez notably did not endorse her. Tiffany won his primary 95.3% after Trump's January 27, 2026 endorsement cleared the field within a day.

The money — compilations named, periods stated, never averaged: per Wisconsin Ethics Commission reports through September 23, as compiled by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Oct. 23) and the Badger Project (Oct. 13), which agree: Tiffany raised about $42 million, of which nearly $35 million — over 80% — came from the Republican Party of Wisconsin. Crowley raised a little over $12 million, about $3 million of it from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. (An October 4 account says $43 million for Tiffany; we print the $42M/$43M figures as the near-identical compilations they are and adopt the agreed Journal Sentinel/Badger figure with its date.) Underneath Tiffany's total sits the cycle's defining money fact: Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein and Diane Hendricks supplied more than 90% of all contributions to the Republican Party of Wisconsin since July 1, 2025 — nearly $60 million combined this cycle. Wisconsin law caps individual gifts to a candidate at $20,000 but places no cap on party transfers — a channel created by the 2015 campaign-finance law, discussed in Tiffany's section, because he voted for it. Crowley has outraised Tiffany slightly among individual donors, about $9 million to $8 million (Badger Project). Outside spending: $51 million total as of October 9 (Wisconsin Democracy Campaign via the Journal Sentinel), $42 million of it from four groups backing Tiffany — and of $33 million spent for Tiffany, about $29 million was negative advertising against Crowley, while only about $1 million of $11 million for Crowley was attack.

The legislature the winner faces cannot be named yet: the outgoing body is Senate 18R–15D, Assembly 54R–45D, but all 99 Assembly seats and half the Senate are on this same ballot and both chambers are rated flippable — divided government, a Democratic trifecta, and a Republican trifecta were all live outcomes in late-October forecasting. Any sentence in any article promising the winner a friendly or hostile legislature is speculation; ours is written conditionally or not at all.

The outgoing governor's shadow: Evers, the veto, and Question 1

The office itself is half this race. Evers vetoed a record 126 bills in the 2021–22 session alone — the highest veto count and rate (~32% of bills passed) in any session in Wisconsin history (Legislative Reference Bureau), then 72 more in 2023–24 and at least 15 more in 2025 through late November; the Associated Press records that he has issued more vetoes than any Wisconsin governor in history. (No final cumulative total including 2026 was located; we print the components, never an invented sum.) The legislature never overrode him — override attempts failed in the Assembly in 2020 (63–36, twice) and 2021 (59–37); the Senate alone voted to override the item below in 2023 and the Assembly never took it up. The last successful full-veto override in Wisconsin was 1981.

The partial veto is the mechanism: Wisconsin's governor may strike words, digits, and punctuation in appropriation bills. Evers used it for 78 partial vetoes in the 2019 budget, 51 in 2023, and 23 in the 2025–27 budget — the last under a compromise in which he agreed not to alter agreed items, though one 2025 partial veto removed funding for four Legislative Audit Bureau auditors ($408,400), an act now central to Tiffany's transparency plank. And the "400-year veto": the 2023 legislature authorized a $325-per-pupil revenue-limit increase for 2023–24 and 2024–25 only; Evers struck digits so the end date read 2425 — the increase now runs 402 years — and in the same budget cut the Republican income-tax cut from $3.5 billion to $175 million. The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the vetoes 4–3 on April 18, 2025 (LeMieux v. Evers), with Justice Hagedorn dissenting that the governor can now "propose and enact law all on his own." Question 1 on this ballot would bar using the partial veto to create or increase any tax or fee — and would not undo the 400-year increase. Whoever wins governs under an office whose defining power the voters are simultaneously deciding whether to keep.

Tom Tiffany (Republican) — three levels of proven service, an unclosed package, and a three-donor war chest

Service: Wisconsin Assembly (2011–2013), Wisconsin Senate (2013–2020, including the Joint Finance budget committee), and the U.S. House, WI-07, since May 2020 — Freedom Caucus member, Judiciary and Natural Resources committees. Before politics: twenty years running tour boats with his wife and a quarter-century as dam tender on the Willow Flowage. His Northwoods identity is not a costume; it is the biography.

His signature state act: lead author of 2013 Senate Bill 1 / Act 1, easing environmental regulation for Gogebic Taconite's proposed open-pit iron mine. On the record, in his own words: "There are going to be some impacts to the environment above the iron ore body… it was the Legislature's intent to allow adverse [environmental] impacts." GTAC abandoned the project in 2015 as infeasible. (The $74,915 donor figure and the "Toxic Tom" label are opposition-compilation material — the authorship, the quote, and the 2015 withdrawal are corroborated; the label is not printed as fact.) In the House he voted for H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill (July 3, 2025; the vote is House Clerk record), supports the SAVE Act, and authored the Apostle Islands national park bill, advanced despite opposition from the Red Cliff Band and some local officials.

January 6 — documented fact, printed as fact, priced in neither direction: On December 10, 2020, Tiffany signed the amicus brief supporting Texas's Supreme Court suit — the only Wisconsin delegation member to sign. On January 5, 2021 he announced he would object, claiming "hundreds of thousands" of Wisconsin votes were cast illegally. On January 6, after the attack, he voted to sustain the objections to Arizona's and Pennsylvania's electoral votes — the exercise of his constitutional right as a member to object to certification — with Rep. Fitzgerald, one of two Wisconsin members to do so. The nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau's 2021 review and a ten-month Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty investigation found no evidence of widespread fraud. In 2026 he backed an FBI probe of the 2020 election (May), said he did not regret the votes (August), told Wisconsin Watch "Biden won" (September 4) while welcoming investigations, and in the October debate cited "Zuckerbucks" and Dane County's "indefinitely confined" guidance — and both candidates pledged to certify the 2028 result regardless of winner. Under this publication's standing rule, certification-objection votes are documented fact and are not priced — no flaw weight, no disqualification framing, anywhere in this article. The un-sustained "hundreds of thousands" claim is printed with its audit findings beside it, as a claim and its check, and priced no further than that.

His program: a day-one special session to end the 400-year increase, then a statewide property-tax freeze; a 10% income-tax cut for families earning under $150,000; return the entire ~$3 billion state surplus as permanent cuts ("They've overpaid into the state of Wisconsin"); no state income tax on tips and overtime; more state auditors and published spending dashboards — citing the four auditor positions Evers's 2025 partial veto removed; housing deregulation with a 30-day subdivision-approval deadline; end data-center tax incentives while protecting farmland and holding existing ratepayers harmless, opposing a statewide moratorium; medical-only marijuana. His claim that utility rates rose over $2 billion under Evers (Farm Bureau Q&A) is a campaign claim, unverified in this research, printed as such.

The math check on the package: no independent fiscal note was located showing that a full surplus return plus a 10% income-tax cut plus a property-tax freeze closes against the school and local aid he also promises to protect. That is own-promise math, unverified — unclosed, not disproven — and it is priced against the man we are endorsing, in his own section, because endorsement diligence does not bend for the endorsee.

On abortion, he has moved to the state's existing compromise: uphold the current 20-week law "which I voted for," sign rape/incest exceptions, and — told to the Journal Sentinel — he would not sign a heartbeat bill as governor, though his congressional record includes sponsoring a federal heartbeat bill. Both halves are printed; the movement is his to explain and voters' to weigh.

On enforcement: "I will make sure that local, county and state law enforcement coordinate with federal law enforcement," and, asked whether he would mandate it by law: "Yes, I believe we should. They should honor detainers." His campaign pledges to "ban sanctuary policies." Twenty Wisconsin county agencies already participate in ICE's 287(g) program. We back the agency and its job; his position is our position, stated plainly.

The donor structure — proven as filings, priced as exposure: The filings are not in dispute: over 80% of his money arrived as party transfers, and over 90% of his party's money came from three people. As a state senator in 2015, Tiffany voted for the law that removed the caps creating this channel; a single Substack source reports he criticized the resulting "billionaire loophole" in December 2025 — that criticism is single-sourced and printed at that weight. A candidate whose war chest is a three-donor structure built by a law he voted for carries a documented independence question into office. It is not a corruption finding — no quid pro quo was sourced, and we print none — but it is a proven filing fact, and it is the heaviest non-policy item in his file.

Pros: The most conventionally experienced candidate in the race — three levels of office including the budget committee; a concrete affordability program aimed at the state's documented pain points (his "400-year" attack describes a real, court-upheld act); a field cleared in January and conserved for the general; an enforcement position stated without hedging.

Cons: The tax-and-surplus package has no located fiscal closure. The donor structure is a three-person story flowing through his own 2015 vote. He runs tied to a president at 38% approval in Wisconsin (Marquette, September) and trails narrowly in every public poll despite outspending his opponent roughly three-to-one outside. His mining record hands Democrats a Northwoods-environment attack in his own geography.

The flaw, plainly: Own-promise math, unverified — plus donor-structure exposure proven as a filing fact. The January 6 record is printed above as documented fact and is not priced, per the standing rule.

David Crowley (Democratic) — the strongest Democratic file of the cycle, and where it stops

Service and biography — verified: Born in Milwaukee in 1986; his parents struggled with addiction, the family lost its home when he was ten and was evicted twice more before he graduated. Community organizer, Assembly member (2017–2020), and Milwaukee County Executive since May 4, 2020 — won at 33 by about half a point, the youngest and first Black person to hold the office, then re-elected in 2024 by the widest margin in the office's history. He finished his UW–Milwaukee degree in 2024, eighteen years after first enrolling, while in office.

Act 12 — his signature achievement, documented end-to-end, and we steelman it at full strength: Milwaukee County's pension system, scarred by the 2001 scandal, consumed roughly $92–100 million of a ~$300 million levy when he took office, with a structural deficit projected at $109 million by 2028. Crowley and Mayor Cavalier Johnson spent years lobbying a Republican legislature and closed 2023 Wisconsin Act 12: the County Board approved a +0.4% sales tax (0.5% → 0.9%), 15–3, dedicated largely to pensions; the county moved all new employees into the Wisconsin Retirement System from January 1, 2025 and surrendered its own pension system permanently. The system is now on track to be fully funded by about 2040. A panel member's assessment, on the record: Crowley and Johnson did "something that everyone thought was impossible." In the Assembly, Republican Speaker Vos credited Crowley — then a minority Democrat — with kickstarting the Lincoln Hills youth-prison closure process. This is proven, in-service, cross-party governing. It is real, and it is the core of his case.

The other half of the county ledger, same sources: Act 12 "has not been enough." The 2026 budget opened with a $47 million shortfall (Crowley: it "could have ballooned to about $160 million" without Act 12); the Comptroller projects structural deficits of $70 million in 2027 rising to $172 million by 2030 (a Tiffany-allied forecast puts 2027 at $50.8 million and 2031 at $168.7 million — different vintages; neither is printed as "the" number). Crowley conceded in 2025 that "the sales tax was not going to fix all of our problems."

His signature claim — verified end-to-end, both halves: Crowley's ad claim is a balanced budget with "the largest property tax cut in Milwaukee County history." The cut is real: the 2024 budget cut the levy by roughly $24 million, and the county tax rate has fallen every year of his tenure. What the claim omits, from Wisconsin Watch's own levy table: the levy went $304.8M (2020) → $310.3M → $313.8M → $292.3M in 2023 (the cut — a 6.9% drop) → $299.6M (+2.5%) → $309.9M (+3.4%), alongside the near-doubling of the county sales-tax component; Wisconsin Watch's verdict on whether major county taxes rose under Crowley was "Yes." Tiffany allies add that the adopted 2026 budget raised the levy 4.1%, described by the Wisconsin Policy Forum as the largest levy increase in at least two decades (an opposition compilation of Policy Forum material, printed at that weight; the 2.6% in a Journal Sentinel headline was the proposed 2027 rise — three different levy numbers that must not be conflated). The accurate sentence, from the record alone: a real, historic one-year property-tax cut, financed alongside a near-doubling of the county sales-tax component, with the levy rising again in the two budgets after the cut. A signature claim that is literally true for one year and materially incomplete as a description of a tenure is the fiscal-framing species — priced heavier than a promise, lighter than a falsehood, and printed with its full table.

Public safety — attributed with care: Milwaukee city homicides rose in 2025 — about 141–142 (the Badger Institute reads the MPD dashboard at 141; the Journal Sentinel reads the MPD database at 142; the range is printed because the sources conflict) — while homicides in the rest of Wisconsin fell, even as city Part 1 crime fell 17%, violent crime 22%, non-fatal shootings 19%, and carjackings 49%, and 2026 is running more than 20% below 2025. Crowley is county executive, not mayor or police chief — the police are a city function; the county runs the jail, sheriff, and transit. The county-side attacks (a jail-tablet program allegedly misused by inmates, including an accused murderer's alleged witness threats, and two alleged mistaken releases) come from conservative-outlet reporting not independently verified against court records in this research — printed as attributed allegations, no further. His Assembly votes against tougher drunk-driving and domestic-abuse-intimidation penalties rest on an opposition compilation (Heartland Post), not pulled from the Assembly journals here — attributed, unpriced.

His program: repeal Act 10 "in full" — his words — and repeal right-to-work; "$15 an hour immediately, $20 an hour by 2030"; open BadgerCare as a buy-in "to any household that wants it"; cap childcare costs; fund it, he suggests, from the ~$3 billion surplus plus taxes on "billionaires" and "billionaire companies" — structure unspecified to WPR. The costing gaps are genuine and we state them exactly: no independent cost estimate of the buy-in was located — in a state where Medicaid is already nearly a third of state spending (over $36 billion in the 2025–27 budget); and the only savings figure for Act 10, $35.6 billion since 2012, is the MacIver Institute's — an interested source, flagged as such, with no neutral fiscal estimate located. This is a large, specific, largely uncosted program: own-promise math, unverified — the same species we price against Tiffany, at larger promised scale. On abortion he seeks a constitutional amendment enshrining access, would sign expansions beyond 20 weeks, and declined repeatedly to name any gestational limit — "between a doctor and a patient." Tiffany's debate charge of abortion "through the full nine months" is Tiffany's inference from that refusal, not a Crowley-stated position, and is printed as such. On data centers: local control, subsidies conditioned on 100% clean energy and union labor, no statewide moratorium.

His enforcement position — his own words, priced under our framing: In the October debate Crowley said he would not support a blanket ban on cooperation with federal immigration authorities and agreed immigrants convicted of crimes should be deported. He also calls for no contracts between local law enforcement and ICE, judicial warrants before ICE enters jails, and opposition to 287(g) agreements — "I don't think that none of our police departments nor sheriffs should be working with ICE" — and campaign-event language quoted in Tiffany's ads, in Crowley's own voice: "I'm not an ally. I'm an accomplice… I'm going to be with you no matter what" (the full event context was not located in a neutral source; the quote is his, the framing is the ad's). "Sanctuary state" is the Tiffany campaign's characterization, not a Crowley program title, and we do not print it as his. We back ICE the agency and its job unconditionally: a program of no contracts, warrant-gated jail access, and no 287(g) is a program of non-cooperation with federal enforcement, and we price it as a values failure on the issue this publication treats as non-negotiable — while printing his convicted-criminal deportation position beside it, because it is also his.

The Manchin test — worked openly, because his file is the strongest we have tested: The documented breaks and cross-aisle facts: (i) Act 12 — a multi-year deal with a Republican legislature, trading a tax increase and a permanent pension surrender for shared-revenue reform; (ii) Lincoln Hills — Vos's credit, in service, as a minority legislator; (iii) vouchers — Crowley does not support eliminating school vouchers, including Milwaukee's, and says he would veto legislation eliminating the Milwaukee program — a stated break with his party's activist base, made in the general election; (iv) he was the only candidate to back the bipartisan $1.8 billion Evers-negotiated surplus compromise. Against that: his endorsers are the Democratic mainstream (Obama, Harris, Baldwin, Evers, Moore); he has never held a caucus-leverage seat, so no classic in-service vote against his party exists to inspect — his cross-party record is executive deal-making; and the program he is actually running on, in his own words, is his party's progressive standard — Act 10 repeal in full, right-to-work repeal, a $20 wage, a universal Medicaid buy-in — plus the race's furthest-reaching non-cooperation position on immigration enforcement. No abolish-police, defund, or DSA-platform item was located in his own material; the democratic-socialist in this cycle was Hong, and Crowley beat her — Sabato upgraded Democrats because he won. He is an enabler-class Democrat with genuine deal-making proof, not an extremist, and we do not call him one.

Pros: A proven executive who closed the deal everyone called impossible; a real 2024 tax cut inside a messier full record; a primary won against a democratic socialist after re-entering 24 days out; the voucher-preservation pledge and the bipartisan-surplus position are real, stated breaks; he leads every public poll while being outspent three-to-one.

Cons: The fiscal-framing species on his signature claim. A large program with no located independent costing and funding described as a one-time surplus plus an unnamed wealth tax. A non-cooperation enforcement program in his own words. No gestational limit named, handing his opponent his best line. Homicides rose in his city in 2025 on the numbers above, on a record where the jail is his.

The flaw, plainly: Own-promise math at the largest promised scale in the race, a signature claim materially incomplete against Wisconsin Watch's table, and an enforcement position opposed to the cooperation we treat as the job. No personal-conduct item was sourced against him.

Jamie Jo Carothers (write-in), briefly

Registered write-in, not on the printed ballot; $782.66 raised and spent. No platform or coverage of substance was located. Viability arithmetic only.

A standing check for the whole race: no pedophile-association material meeting the proven standard was located for either nominee, and no unproven accusation of that class surfaced. Absence noted, nothing implied.

OUR CALL

LiberalMind endorses Tom Tiffany.

This is the tranche's hardest call, so the reasoning is printed in full. Crowley passes more of the Manchin test than any Democrat we have evaluated this cycle — Act 12 is proven cross-party governing, the voucher veto pledge is a real stated break, and he beat a democratic socialist to stand here. What the test requires, though, is breaks toward our values on the program he would govern with — and the program in his own words is Act 10 repealed in full, right-to-work repealed, a $20 wage, a BadgerCare buy-in open to any household with no located costing, funded by a one-time surplus and an unspecified wealth tax, alongside a stated program of non-cooperation with federal immigration enforcement: no contracts, warrant-gated jails, no 287(g). The deal-making proves he can govern across the aisle; the platform states what he would govern for, and on enforcement — the issue where our doctrine does not bend — it is the opposite of our values. Tiffany's flaws are priced at full weight in his own section: a tax package with no located fiscal closure, and a war chest that is a three-donor structure flowing through a 2015 law he voted for — a proven filing fact we print as an independence exposure, not a corruption finding, because none was sourced. His January 6 record is documented fact above, unpriced under the standing rule, with the audit findings beside his fraud claim. Weighed on the doctrine: a proven conservative whose priced flaws are unclosed math and donor exposure, against a proven deal-maker whose stated governing program is the other party's standard plus enforcement non-cooperation. The program governs. Endorse Tiffany — and flag plainly, as we do in our report, that this call turns on the platform-versus-record weighing of the strongest Democratic file of the cycle.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website.

Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Sources

Election result — November 4, 2026

Winner: David Crowley (Democratic) — called by the Associated Press. This result was appended on November 4, 2026 (results wave 1); the original article above is unchanged, exactly as published before Election Day.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

← Back to the Election Series