1:29 am: Crowley Barely Wins vs. Socialist
Just after 1 am central, the final dump from Milwaukee Central Count allowed 270toWin to report that David Crowley was the Democratic nominee despite getting less than 40 percent of the vote statewide and as Milwaukee County Executive barely being supported by his own Milwaukee County voters 43% to 42%. An apples-to-apples comparison occurred 16 years ago when the County Executive then, Scott Walker, showed the love Milwaukee voters felt for his job then by giving him a 50-point win in the same county.
He defeated Mark Neumann, who was equally loved in the Congressional District he had been representing and surrounding counties, winning 42 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties.
Last night, the reason the Governor’s race went back and forth was that both hometowns barely supported the Democratic gubernatorial candidate from their home county. Francesca Hong started the night as the heavy favorite, but every time more of her home Dane County reported, her chances of winning went down because she was barely defeating David Crowley in her home county — by only 7 points.
With every new report of more Dane County voters barely supporting Hong, her chances of winning dropped substantially, and then when a new dump of Milwaukee votes showed them barely supporting David Crowley, his chances would drop dramatically. The roller coaster of each area shown on the graph above almost rejecting the candidate who represented their county led to uncertainty.
5 Potential Faith and Freedom Candidate Comparisons After Varnam’s Home County Gives Him 55% Margin of Victory
To the contrary, by 10 p.m. I was able to trade texts and congratulations with David Varnam, just weeks after we both spoke at a Dane County event. I told him after his speech, filmed by his daughter, in which he labeled himself a “Girl Dad,” that I was personally supporting him in the primary. WIFFC does not endorse candidates and last time did not do a comparison piece on Lt. Governor, so we will determine if one is done between him and Sarah Godlewski for Lt. Governor. Varnam’s 55% margin of victory for Lt. Governor in his home county was similar to Walker’s 50% win from his home voters and nothing like Crowley and Hong barely winning their hometown voters.
And like Neumann’s popular showing with the voters who knew him best in 2010, Varnam’s opponent Will Martin won in his 3 county home base of Milwaukee-Racine-Waukesha. Varnam’s win does make him the one statewide candidate from the western half of the state where he is so popular.
With the General Election set for Attorney General, all but one of the remaining big Wisconsin races were set early in the night after polls closed at 8 p.m. Central.
In the 3rd Congressional District, Rebecca Cooke won 60% of the vote to get a rematch with Republican Derrick Van Orden. That will lead to a comparison piece similar to the one we got to more than 100,000 voters in the district two years ago when Van Orden won by 11,256 votes.
In the other Wisconsin race that could help decide control of Congress, Mitchell Berman won by more than 20 points to get on the general election ballot against 1st District Congressman Bryan Steil, representing the areas south of Milwaukee where we were so successful in turning out Spanish-speaking conservatives and other voters all the way down to Kenosha in 2024.
We have also received a lot of interest and questions about whether an Attorney General comparison piece will be run between Republican Eric Toney and incumbent Democrat Josh Kaul, particularly because of the interest we have received from churches over Kaul joining the national effort to strip churches of their tax-exempt status. Voters have been asking us about that position and the ballot measure that would forbid any future political officials from forcing churches to close down during times of worship.
Please note that with the primaries over, we will work to get an issue questionnaire to all of these candidates and if anyone reading this knows the person on any of these campaigns most likely to handle a questionnaire – please email jpudner@wisconsinffc.com to let us know the best contact.
Our Tuesday WIFFC Team Meeting to Plan Statewide Push — Especially CD1 and CD3
Our field directors met all afternoon yesterday in Wisconsin to plan our canvassing efforts throughout the state and how we could replicate as much as possible of the 402,000 candidate profiles we distributed in 2024.
A heavy concentration will once again be based out of La Crosse to reach the heavily conservative Catholic 3rd Congressional District, while another major focus will be CD1.
One note we do want to make clear is that these team members, who have knocked on close to 200,000 doors during primaries, do that candidate-specific primary work through Data & Community Affairs, our professional campaign and field operation. No money raised by WIFFC is used for those or any political efforts.
Our team will now shift its focus to the separate work of the Wisconsin Faith & Freedom Coalition, whose mission is educating and encouraging faith-based and conservative voters to participate in the general election. One organization gets involved in Republican primaries and works to elect one Republican over another. The other does not.
Different organizations. Different missions. Same team committed to putting a serious ground operation in the field.
Our experienced field directors can go into a community, recruit local people, train them and help turn them into better canvassers. The result is Wisconsinites talking to Wisconsinites about the issues and candidates that matter to their communities.
They worked in the 2024 Trump-Harris campaign when our big push was in CD3, the most competitive district in the state. In the 2025 Supreme Court race, our field operation was assigned northern Wisconsin, where most of our field directors lived — Ashland County. On a night that saw conservatives staying home across the state, we provided the only upward movement, a 7- to 10-point increase in conservative performance.
Almost all of the dozens of canvassers who worked with us in those 2024 and 2025 efforts were Wisconsinites.
That is exactly how we believe a good field program should work.
