#tony evers

[saywhat-politics]

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers wants his state to become the first state to audit insurance companies over denying coverage.

More of this, Democrats.

[reasonsforhope]

Wisconsin Gov. vetoes “harmful” trans sports ban because it would make state “less safe”

And Republicans don't have enough votes to override his veto!

"Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) has vetoed a Republican-led ban on transgender high school athletes, saying that such legislation would needlessly harm the mental well-being of trans youth and make the state less safe for LGBTQ+ people. State Republicans reportedly lack the votes to override his veto.

“This type of legislation, and the harmful rhetoric we get by pursuing it, harms LGBTQ Wisconsinites’ and kids’ mental health, emboldens anti-LGBTQ harassment, bullying, and violence, and threatens the safety and dignity of LGBTQ Wisconsinites, especially our LGBTQ kids,” Evers wrote in his veto message.

“I am vetoing this bill in its entirety because I object to codifying discrimination into state statute and the Wisconsin state legislature’s ongoing efforts to perpetuate hateful and discriminatory rhetoric and policies targeting LGBTQ Wisconsinites including our transgender and gender nonconforming kids…. I will veto any bill that makes Wisconsin a less safe, less inclusive, and less welcoming place for LGBTQ people and kids,” Evers added.

He vetoed the bill in a public ceremony while surrounded by trans advocates, Democratic lawmakers, the mayor of Madison and others, NBC News reported.

The bill would have required public, private, and independent charter schools to designate each team by the gender of its participants, and then require participants to play on teams matching the gender listed on their birth certificates.

The bill would have overruled current policies, established in 2015 by the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association, that allowed trans students to play on sports teams matching their gender identity as long as they provided a personal letter; supporting documentation from parents, teachers, and medical professionals; and proof of any gender-affirming care...

Last September [in 2023], Evers vetoed a Republican-led bill that would’ve banned gender-affirming medical care for minors."

-via LGBTQ Nation, April 2, 2024

[boasamishipper]

wi governor dem primary recap: election night edition

good afternoon everybody!!!!! anybody get any sleep last night???? no??? me either!!!!!!!!

for those of you who haven't been following my wi governor dem primary updates or missed an update along the way, here's a rundown of what you missed:

at the start of july, this race consisted of lt governor sara rodriguez, former lt governor and 2022 senate candidate mandela barnes, state assembly rep and democratic socialist francesca hong, president of the greater milwaukee committee joel brennan, state senator kelda roys, and milwaukee county executive david crowley

whoever won among these candidates would face republican congressman tom tiffany in the general election in november. the gop consolidated around tiffany a couple months prior after he received trump's endorsement, though medical service technician andy menske was still on the ballot for the republicans

like all wisconsin statewide races, this race was considered a tossup no matter who won. however, wisdems have considered this race especially important as 1) thanks to the liberal state supreme court approving new fair maps, this is their first chance since 2011 to win a trifecta and 2) whoever wins the race would be able to certify the presidential election in 2028, which tiffany (a 2020 election denier among other crazy stances) has not pledged to do

on july 8, david crowley (citing low polling numbers) dropped out of the race and endorsed lt governor sara rodriguez. missy hughes, former ceo of the wisconsin economic development corporation, who dropped out at the end of june, had also endorsed rodriguez. although hong was polling higher than rodriguez, it seemed as though the other center-left candidates were planning on coalescing around rodriguez for their best chance of beating hong

a few days later, on july 12, rodriguez fired her campaign manager after discovering that her campaign had hundreds of thousands of dollars less cash on hand than expected

on july 17, rodriguez suspended her campaign for governor, saying continuing problems with her campaign's financial reports would be a distraction. this left barnes and hong as the frontrunners

at the same time, a story dropped that there is a movement among certain wisdems to have crowley get back in the race and have governor tony evers endorse him.

crowley agreed to get back in the race only if he got the evers endorsement. shortly afterwards evers gave him the endorsement.

why didn't everybody coalesce around barnes instead, you ask? turns out he was down in every market in internals (the fact that he lost to ron johnson and hadn't held elected office since '22 also probably does not help) and he had been accused of "using his office and power to gain access to women, abuse them, isolate them, leave many silenced and unable to speak out".

what about roys and brennan? neither had polled above 5% the entire primary season and were not considered viable candidates. (i also think that the optics of evers endorsing a white person over his black lt gov who was still in the race played a role in roys and brennan not getting the nod.)

so with only 24 days to the election, crowley jumped back into the race!

barnes, though initially (and rightfully) furious at being passed over, dropped out of the race on july 29 following rumors of a bad gop oppo drop. this left hong, brennan, roys, and crowley as the only remaining candidates.

so that catches us up to where we left off. what happened in the last 12 days?

well, for starters, people who already cast their votes started petitioning the wi election commission for the right to spoil their ballots and cast their votes for somebody else. the WEC ruled that these voters were stuck with whoever they already voted for (whether they were still in the race or not), thus shrinking the pool of remaining voters

taking to the campaign trail with evers, crowley blitzed across the state in the final two weeks before the primary. his campaign also reported a surge in fundraising and a rush of new union endorsements, but opinion polling still showed him trailing hong by double digits (though 30-40% of voters remained undecided all the day up to election day).

the wisgop and tom tiffany continued gleefully pouring money into hong's campaign, as they believed (rightfully) that they had a better shot of recapturing the governor's mansion in november if they were running against an avowed socialist. wisdems concurred and worried that hong being top of ticket would lose them their chances of recapturing the assembly and legislature.

wisconsin democratic senator tammy baldwin declined to endorse anybody in the race. governor tony evers went on record saying, bluntly, that he didn't think hong could win against tiffany in november.

(people got mad at him for this but like what was he supposed to say?? he had access to the internals he Knew what the odds were. also if hong really had a chance against tiffany then bernie and aoc would have endorsed her. not sure how that would have played when the median wisconsin voter thinks bernie and aoc are the antichrist but it's still a gesture they could have made and deliberately chose not to.)

kelda roys and joel brennan categorially refused to drop out of the race, making it harder for crowley to consolidate the moderate vote

hong, acting like this was now her race to lose, took part in a national media blitz with an insane level of breeziness. she did interviews where she refused to walk back her "woke 1" statements of believing thanksgiving should be canceled and that the police should be defunded and abolished. new oppo ads highlighting these sound bites (along with hong's old tweets about disliking culvers because there were too many white people there and her 2021 quote about her "proximity to whiteness" a la her biracial son) trended on social media and aired in every media market. she also campaigned publicly with hasan piker, who drew pushback for his comments about america deserving 9/11.

all these comments put a serious dent in hong's image. dem voters and independents seeking a more moderate (and less terminally online) alternative (with a chance of winning, unlike roys and brennan) were grateful to find an evers-endorsed crowley waiting in the wings.

the night before the election, pollsters and prediction markets were claiming hong would win the race by double digits. even so there were still many many voters who told pollsters they were undecided. this is a surprise tool that will help us later.

dawn. election day. 24 hours remain.

tuesday, august 11, 2026. foggy and rainy for most of the morning and afternoon, clear skies leading into evening. the brewers are playing the padres in san diego. voters statewide are ready to cast their ballots.

polls close at 9pm. everybody hunkers down and waits with bated breath for the results to come in.

immediately, crowley takes the lead by less than half a percentage point. nobody expects him to be able to maintain it.

dane county, home of the bluest city in the state (madison) and hong's assembly seat, only Barely goes to hong. she wins by 7 points over crowley instead of the double-digit shellacking everybody assumed was coming. part of this is due to kelda roys winning 10% of the vote and peeling votes away from hong (roys is also progressive, though not socialist level. the breakdowns will eventually provide clearer voter profiles, but the assumption rn is that older left leaning voters remembered roys's outspokenness and advocacy during the scott walker years and the act 10 saga, and found her more palatable than hong, and thus voted for her instead.)

when all is said and done, hong ends up winning madison, but the towns surrounding the city (verona, fitchburg, sun prairie, waunakee, oregon, and stoughton) go for crowley. not a good sign for hong.

crowley, as expected due to his barnstorming with evers, does very well in the more rural counties, racking up lots of votes there

hong does wildly and unexpectedly well in kenosha

crowley overperforms in dane county but underperforms in milwaukee county. vice versa for hong. election analysts now believe this is going to come down to the absentee ballot drop.

side note: state law prohibits milwaukee county processing absentee votes until polls open on election day. their process of counting absentee ballots involves counting them at one location, loading the info onto 9 thumb drives, then driving those thumb drives to a separate facility where they are officially tabulated. is this bullshit? yeah. take it up with the republican legislature who made that rule and (barring the bucks' win in 2021) have tried year after year to fuck milwaukee up the ass at worst and pretend the county/city doesn't exist at best.

seriously the bucks nba championship was the first time in my life i saw republican politicians acknowledge mke as part of the state.

anyway!

crowley does REALLY well in door county, beating hong by 14 points

hong narrowly wins st croix county

crowley overperforms in racine and leads hong by about 2000 votes

florence county, which borders minnesota, narrowly goes for crowley. why such a narrow win? media markets. no one was spending money up there on anti hong OR pro crowley tv ads. that's a mistake that'll be rectified in november

winnebago, one of the larger counties, starts to come in. whoever wins winnebago will likely win the race

milwaukee continues to count the absentee ballots

brewers get the shit kicked out of them by the padres and lose 11-2

hong wins wood county by 0.6 points

roys meanwhile is racking up votes. she should consider running for johnson's senate seat in 2028!!

milwaukee finishes counting the absentee ballots and promises to have those numbers by 10:30pm CT

hong wins brown county with 41%

marathon county, which includes the city of wausau, goes for hong, but narrowly

green county ends up going for crowley

hong, shockingly, wins pierce county - but crowley, who is racking up votes in winnebago county, is still in the lead. the winner as predicted will come down to milwaukee county. what do those votes look like?

uh oh.

so it turns out that when the 9 thumb drives arrived, they discovered that 4 of them only had the audit info and not the actual vote tallies. as a result they had to go back and start the process over again. this happened around 11:30pm CT (about half an hour after i forced myself to go to bed) and projected to delay the final count by at least an hour.

crowley leads by less than 2k votes after midnight.

1:30am comes and goes. at that point my mother goes to bed.

the milwaukee absentee ballots are finally tabulated, with the majority breaking for crowley. with a ~3500 vote lead over hong, the ap calls the race for crowley at 2:30am CT. i don't find this out until 3am when i get up to use the bathroom and can't resist checking my phone.

fun fact: wi state law triggers an automatic recount if the loser loses by less than 1 percent. hong declines a recount and concedes the race to crowley.

election day 2: electric boogaloo

wednesday, august 12, 2026. lovely weather. busy day for me at work. i have been up since 3 gleefully refreshing twitter and analyzing the county by county breakdowns. it looks like this result can be attributed to 1) the evers endorsement 2) roys peeling away votes from hong in dane county 3) negative undecided voter reaction to hong's anti thanksgiving comments. all my previously undecided normie dem coworkers confirmed the latter. two voted for crowley; one voted for brennan weeks ago and couldn't spoil his ballot. another didn't vote (despite my best efforts to persuade her smh; she says she forgot) but is down to vote for crowley in november.

roys and brennan, following hong, concede the race to crowley. all three of them endorse him and pledge their support.

the wisdems have a "unity breakfast" (god knows how any of them are even awake rn) and everybody goes on the record stating their first priority now is to beat tom tiffany in november

senator baldwin attends the breakfast, as does lt governor candidate sarah godlewski and attorney general josh kaul. tony evers can't come. he's at the state fair. yeah really.

the wisgop is in absolute SHAMBLES this morning. they really thought they had this election in the bag if hong won (and on god they really might have. like maybe hong could have eked out a win over tiffany but she wouldn't have been able to deliver on a dem trifecta). now with the national environment being like d+5 and the dem candidate being a young center left liberal with no skeletons in his closet, the wisgop have to pivot their whole strategy on a dime. dems in ARRAY. wisgop and tom tiffany found dead in miami.

takeaways:

electability concerns hold a great deal of sway over the dem electorate. everybody who went on the record of breaking for crowley says that they did so because he's got the best odds of beating tiffany.

tony evers is a kingmaker and all hands that rise against him shall fall

that being said the primary chaos never would have happened under the wikler regime. @ wisdems (tgm jon hamm voice) i never want to see that shit again

what's next for crowley? he came out on top, but has a tricky path to walk going forward. a lot of people voted for him because they didn't like hong; they still don't really know who he is. now he has to prove to wisco voters that he is the best choice between himself and tiffany. he also has to convince hong and roys voters to vote for him. hong has pledged to campaign for him in dane county and other places she won. if he changes his stance on data centers (goes pro-moratorium) he will likely move a lot of her voters into his camp. fun fact if he wins in november he will be the first african american governor in wisconsin history and only the fourth ever african american governor in us history. wild right?

what's next for hong? so she's lost her assembly seat. dina nina martinez-rutherford beat dsa endorsed juliana bennett (who has been losing elections in madison since i was a student there) for the dem primary for hong's seat. if dina nina wins in november (she will; madison is VERY blue), she will be the first trans person in the legislature! exciting!

boa you were talking about hong. right okay. so hong ran an excellent campaign. she got voters all over the political spectrum engaged and ran an amazing grassroots on the ground operation. there's clearly an appetite for socialist-leaning policies in wisconsin and dem candidates who are fighters and anti-establishment, and honestly, had there not been so many skeletons in her closet re: those old tweets and her ill informed media blitz (and not so great performance at the debate, which btw voters think roys won), she probably would have won last night. (in a head to head i still think crowley would have probably beaten her though not by flanagan-craig margins.) her most likely paths forward for me are:

hong runs for mayor of madison in 2027. will she win? who knows. satya rhodes-conway, the current mayor, is also progressive and very popular, and has only been around for two terms.

hong primaries dina nina and runs for her state assembly seat again in 2028. possible, but she has held that seat for six years now and i think she has higher aspirations than the state assembly.

hong runs for u.s. senate in 2028. ron johnson, unpopular gop incumbent who is definitely a russian asset and lost narrowly to barnes in 2022, is up for reelection. i could see her entering that primary. on the other hand with AG josh kaul and former wisdems chair ben wikler (with successful experience running statewide) running, the odds are not in her favor.

hong runs for mark pocan's congressional seat in 2028. this i think is the likeliest next step for her, and the one with the highest odds of success. mark pocan (wi 2nd congressional district rep) is 61 and has been in office since 2013, taking over for tammy baldwin. she can easily make the argument that it's time for somebody else to have that seat, which encompasses the very blue dane county. if she primaries pocan, the seat is hers. i can see kelda roys giving her a fight in that primary, though.

what do i do now?

if you're in wisconsin and can vote, please consider donating money to the crowley campaign or volunteering to get out the vote, and vote for dems all the way down the ballot. let's get that bread (dem trifecta)!

if you do not live in wisconsin and you know people who do, please encourage them to vote this november for david crowley for governor, sarah godlewski for lt governor, josh kaul for attorney general, yee leng xiong for state treasurer, and jocasta zamarripa for secretary of state.

if you're me, read over this post one more time, publish it, and go to bed early tonight. you need the sleep.

if you're not me and you made it to the end of this post, thanks for reading and following along! i'll see you in november!

[traegorn]

The Democratic primary for Wisconsin Governor is such a mess

[dadsinsuits]

Tony Evers

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Wisconsin Governor Evers Vetoes 5 Anti-Trans Bills On Trans Day Of Visibility

"I will veto any bill that makes Wisconsin a less safe, less inclusive, and less welcoming place," said the governor.

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

Transgender Day of Visibility was a mixed bag for many transgender people. The day opened with horrifying news from the Supreme Court, which ruled that transgender people could be legally subject to coercive conversion therapy if their parents and counselor want to practice it on them in Colorado. In Wisconsin, however, the news was more hopeful. Despite a Republican-controlled legislature—with an 18-15 majority in the state Senate and a 54-45 majority in the state Assembly—Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has on multiple occasions pledged to veto any anti-LGBTQ+ bill that crosses his desk. Now, on Trans Day of Visibility, he delivered on that promise again, issuing five vetoes against anti-trans bills in a private ceremony at the state Capitol surrounded by LGBTQ+ kids and families. "My promise has always been that I will veto any bill that makes Wisconsin a less safe, less inclusive, and less welcoming place for LGBTQ people and kids," Evers said. "It has been my honor to keep that promise over the course of two terms as governor."

Two of the bills, AB 100 and AB 102, would have instituted anti-trans sports bans—AB 100 targeting K-12 schools and AB 102 targeting the University of Wisconsin and technical college systems. Both would have classified all athletic teams by sex as determined at birth and barred transgender girls from competing on teams that match their gender identity. The bans could apply broadly to interscholastic, intramural, and club sports, covering everything from traditional athletics to activities like darts, disc golf, and even potentially chess, as has been interpreted in some locales. In his veto messages, Evers was scathing: "I object to codifying discrimination into state statute and the Wisconsin State Legislature's ongoing efforts to perpetuate hateful and discriminatory rhetoric and policies targeting LGBTQ Wisconsinites, including our transgender and gender nonconforming kids." He added: "While the federal government and other states across this country may give way to anti-LGBTQ hate, here in Wisconsin, we will continue to decline to do the same."

Another bill, AB 103, would have required school boards to adopt policies banning school staff from referring to any minor student by a name or pronouns that do not align with their "biological sex" without written authorization from a parent or guardian. The bill would have also required schools to notify all parents and legal guardians when a student requests a name or pronoun change and empowered administrators to deny the request unless every parent or guardian supports it—effectively giving any single parent veto power over a trans student's identity at school. For transgender youth in unsupportive households, the bill would have functioned as a forced outing mandate, requiring schools to disclose a student's transgender status to parents who may respond with rejection, abuse, or removal from the home. Evers vetoed the bill with a similar message, reiterating that "LGBTQ kids, including transgender and gender nonconforming kids, deserve our love, respect, and support just like any other kid."

The remaining two bills targeted doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors. AB 104 would have banned health care providers from performing, referring for, or even “causing the engagement” in gender-affirming medical interventions for anyone under 18—and would have required the Board of Nursing, the Medical Examining Board, and the Physician Assistant Affiliated Credentialing Board to investigate any allegation of a violation and revoke the provider's license if substantiated.

SB 405 took a different approach, creating a civil cause of action allowing minors who received gender-affirming care to sue their providers for any "physical, psychological, emotional, or physiological injury" until the age of 33—a bill Democratic state Sen. Mark Spreitzer called a "blatant effort to threaten health care professionals with privileged litigation in the hopes that it will create a chilling effect." In his veto messages, Evers wrote that he objects to "restricting medical professionals like physicians from providing evidence-based and medically appropriate care to their patients, restricting parents from making decisions with physicians to ensure their kids receive the healthcare they need, and preventing patients from receiving that basic, life-saving care. Healthcare providers should be trusted to provide medically appropriate and accurate information, treatment, and care for their patients without the unnecessary political interference of politicians."

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) stands up for righteous values by vetoing 5 cruel anti-trans bills on TDOV.

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: Democratic governor says “Hell no” to five anti-trans bills on Transgender Day of Visibility

[northstarfan]

Gov. Evers: Keeps promise to protect LGBTQ youth, again vetoes several anti-LGBTQ bills targeting trans and gender nonconforming kids 

MADISON — Gov. Tony Evers celebrated International Transgender Day of Visibility today by vetoing five anti-LGBTQ bills targeting Wisconsin’

MADISON — Gov. Tony Evers celebrated International Transgender Day of Visibility today by vetoing five anti-LGBTQ bills targeting Wisconsin’s transgender and gender nonconforming kids, making good on his promise to veto any anti-LGBTQ legislation sent to his desk that hurts LGBTQ kids and Wisconsinites. The governor vetoed the bills in a private ceremony at the Wisconsin State Capitol building in Madison, surrounded by LGBTQ kids, families, advocates, and community members.

“My promise has always been that I will veto any bill that makes Wisconsin a less safe, less inclusive, and less welcoming place for LGBTQ people and kids. It has been my honor to keep that promise over the course of two terms as governor, and I am proud to deliver on that promise again today,” said Gov. Evers. “This type of legislation stirs harmful rhetoric, negatively affects Wisconsinites’ and kids’ mental health, emboldens anti-LGBTQ harassment, bullying, and violence, and threatens the safety and dignity of LGBTQ Wisconsinites, especially our trans and nonbinary kids. Especially in the wake of continued attacks against LGBTQ communities, particularly targeting the trans community, our work to fight this hatred and bigotry is more important than ever. I’m proud to stand with LGBTQ kids and Wisconsinites today and every day.”

The governor’s action today comes as attacks against transgender and nonbinary individuals, as well as attacks against the LGBTQ community as a whole, continue to persist across the country. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, currently, there are approximately 500 anti-LGBTQ bills that have been introduced throughout the United States so far in 2026, including several bills in Wisconsin that target transgender individuals, specifically youth.

[thingstrumperssay]

“Chilling”: Wisconsin Gov. Evers Pushes Back After Trump’s Border Czar Threatens to Arrest Him

We go to Wisconsin as the state’s Democratic Governor Tony Evers pushes back after Trump border czar Tom Homan says Wisconsin officials coul

They're threatening to arrest governors now.

I mean, I knew that it was likely to happen when I heard that the supreme court was basically going to give Trump's administration immunity to do whatever the fuck they want. I'm still mad about it.