I mentioned before that the Wisconsin public was watching poor Gov. Tony Evers go through all of the stages of grief at warp speed. First came the shock; Evers, looking like a lost puppy in the rain, quite the sad sack, eyes cast downward, unable to believe that his entire party (almost) had suddenly turned on him with the viciousness of a wolf pack. And all because he wanted to help schools. Except Missy Hughes.
Thought bubble: “After all I did for these jerks…” Tony was not “jazzed.” He folded two of the stages of grief into one and experienced them together in public. Denial and depression.
Then, came the anger lashing forth. Evers flailed wildly in media interviews, verbally punching Democrats as clueless jerkoffs who want to hurt kids. This phase was something to behold. He wasn’t wrong.
The next phase is supposed to be acceptance. But instead, Evers appears mired in the anger part, like a gas pedal that is stuck, engine racing, and who can blame him, but it’s morphed into something new.
Revenge.
And this is where it’s going to get interesting.
Evers Cancels Out
Evers was supposed to be a guest at a fundraiser for a senate Democrat from Milwaukee named Dora Drake. This matters because the state Senate is hanging in the balance.
And Evers skipped it! That’s according to JR Ross, of Wispolitics, who vacuums up political intel like an old model Hoover.
Nugget: @SenatorDrake, who joined fellow Senate Dems in voting against the $1.8 billion surplus package, has a fundraiser next week that billed @Tony4WI as a guest.
But he canceled, according to a source.
See more in today’s Report:https://t.co/fECmGBXs9y
— JR Ross (@jrrosswrites) May 22, 2026
Evers cancelled out! On a Dem! With the Senate hanging in the balance! He cancelled out like a guy who calls off a blind date because he gets wind that he’s been catfished. Dora, once joined at the hip with Evers, had trashed his plan mercilessly. With friends like these… Dora catfished Tony; she wasn’t what she seemed. Evers thought she was a ride or die political ally, until she wasn’t.
This development underscores how dumb it was for every Senate Democrat, most Assembly Democrats and most Democrat gubernatorial candidates to go against their popular governor. Say what you want about Evers, but folks like him. They see him as Mr. Rogers. He kept getting easily elected for a reason. What has to chafe Evers, Maggie and Britt the most is the sheer lack of respect.
If Evers doesn’t fundraise for Democrats or stump for them… this could matter a lot this November. His coattails lifted many Democrats into office. And this is how they thank him??
How far will he take the revenge tour? Hey, Tony, dare you to endorse the moderate doctor Mike Roberts, who is running for state senate in Rob Hutton’s old seat. He’s pragmatic, not very partisan, and he is just a decent homespun guy. You might like him if you set aside the team loyalties. And just a reminder, governor, that his opponent for that West Allis-Tosa-Eastern Waukesha County swing district is the very nutty state Rep. Robyn Vining, who voted to kill your surplus deal!
You really want to send a message? Endorse the moderate guy over the lunatic who tried to do your deal in. You know what? Voters might find it refreshing.
The Democrats are trashing Mr. Rogers! Oops.
You could tell that realization started to hit them like a bad whiskey hangover. They were all acting drunk on too many shots, saying crazy sh*t about Evers and taxpayers and schools that is hard to roll back. Then they woke up and started guzzling water and aspirin. And realizing they just went bonkers, opposing funding schools…and Tony Evers.
The Hangover Cure
You could tell the exact moment the Democrats all woke up in unison searching for a hangover cure on the Internet. It was when they, in unison, all seized on the same false narrative on social media, led by blogger turned Democrat narrative spinner and Civic Media extraordinaire Dan Schafer. The guy is an intellectual and sometimes makes good points and at least he tries to argue his case with decorum and stats, so he is fun to intellectually spar with… but.. sometimes it’s just total bunk.
The New Democrat narrative ran something like this, “We had to screw over every school district in the state by yanking needed special ed funding from them because we were being fiscally responsible! The Evers/Republican deal would have caused a huge deficit! So we also just had to let government tax your tip and overtime money! Your money belongs to government!” So basically now they were trashing Evers as fiscally irresponsible.
Tony, ahem, call Mike Roberts….
This deficit stuff was total nonsense. I mean no one believes Kelda Roys and Chris Larson are fiscally responsible. So it fails on the smell test.
At first, I just responded with a few social media posts pointing out why it’s, you know, total nonsense. But then their narrative started leaking into the liberal media ecosphere. Wisconsin Public Radio ran a headline and story that read like a Dan Schafer blog post. Dan Schafer will probably print a dozen copies off and use them to wrap his Christmas presents next year. Just so he can remind himself of his great success feeding a bogus narrative into the liberal media.
So I knew I had to do more. I’ve noticed this pathway before. Liberal bloggers create false or misleading narratives that then leap into liberal media outlets, amplified by reporters who lack financial literacy. The Schafers of the world count on this. The Democrats do, and it’s worked for years.
Anyway, I decided to call Robin Vos and ask him to explain his side on the deficit. I already knew how this worked. I mean I’ve been covering government for 30 years. Plus, I was armed with the fiscal bureau memos, DOR revenue estimates and stuff. I just wanted someone on the record. But he seemed distracted, so he suggested calling Mark Born. It turns out that Mark Born is a pretty smart dude who is co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee. He’s a pretty affable dude who doesn’t get a lot of attention in the media. But he’s not really a flamethrower. He just relishes the chance to talk for an hour about revenue growth estimates and stuff.
And even though I probably lost money taking that hour to listen to Mark Born expound about revenue, because I could have been doing other stuff, and even though I get told to shut the f*ck up and called other names by Republican leaders and grifters despite doing all of this, I did it all the same.
Because no one else was doing anything to push back on this nonsense, and the legislators who were trying don’t have much audience. And I don’t like bogus narratives, and the public has a right to know this information.
In the middle of all this, Chris Kapenga, one of three obstinate Republicans who killed a deal to give property tax relief to disabled vets and stuff, went on UpFront, and claimed that shadowy leaders, presumably clueless Devin LeMahieu and the often angry Mary Felzkowski, never really added up the votes.
Yikes, now she’s going to be really angry that I wrote that.
“Absolutely not.”
GOP State Sen. Chris Kapenga, 1 of 3 Republicans who voted against tax relief deal, says GOP leadership didn’t do a vote count ahead of announcing deal: “There were a couple of leaders…who just said we’ll just push it to the floor.”
THE IVIEW SUN ON UPFRONT pic.twitter.com/kXeDa7QfpN
— Matt Smith (@mattsmith_news) May 22, 2026
But wait! Devin told Evers, Vos and the media that he had the votes! Or so people say. The only way I can explain this is that the Senate has been a rudderless ship for some time. Vos gets all the heat because he actually does sh*t. If the public knew all of the good bills the Republican Senate killed, their heads would explode. But that’s another story. It’s actually not that surprising that LeMahieu couldn’t bring Kap to the table. That guy likes to adopt purist positions that sometimes end up costing folks or the state more money as a result. Don’t spite your nose to save your face or however the saying goes.
The real story is that Tony Evers couldn’t even bring a single Democrat to the table – not one – and that’s why he’s so p*ssed. He also whipped out an email statewide trashing the Democrats’ narrative as total hooey. So if you don’t want to listen to me or Mark Born on this one, listen to Tony Evers.
He says it’s hooey.
Mark Born explained the deficit thing with all of the calmness and clarity of my old algebra teacher.
It turns out the state always runs a structural deficit on the front end.
Why? It’s just how the legislative fiscal bureau runs stuff. Always. But the budget always ends up balanced because the fiscal bureau estimates don’t count future revenue growth.
Born and his band of Republican merry men and women and Evers carefully analyzed revenue growth trends. Turns out revenue has grown on average by more than is needed to balance this deficit for the last five years.
On top of it, revenue is strong and coming in higher than expected. In fact, DOR just released stats and said it’s already like $300 million more than expected. According to Center Square, “Wisconsin collected $2.4 billion in general purpose revenue taxes in April, a 13.7% increase from the year before.”
Yes, despite all the media doom headlines on gas prices (which do suck), Wisconsin’s economy is roaring, fueled by higher wages and strong manufacturing. You wouldn’t know that from the news.
The point is, no reasonable person thinks the structural deficit is real. The Democrats threw out a number and WPR lapped it up that was based on zero growth, which they know won’t happen.
‘Junk’
That’s why Mark Born called the deficit argument “junk.”
How come no one seems to know this? Because the legislature’s PR machine sucks. As in, they don’t have one. Craftily, though, the guys in super swing districts are putting Evers on their direct mail. Strategy they get.
People are individually hurting because of gas prices, higher utility rates, higher insurance costs, etc. Heck my own monthly costs jumped $400/month due to home insurance increases. But the revenue growth is strong from income and corporate taxes. Republicans’ tax cutting approach worked.
When government is doing better and people are doing worse, government has an obligation to give what it can back to the people, Born believes.
Plus, remember Evers? He proposed a budget with a higher structural deficit by far, and Democrats were all for it.
As for Tom Tiffany? He had thankfully moved on from trying to unfairly paint every Republican legislator as the Madison swamp. They’re not. They just wanted folks to get some fiscal help, they think the surplus is folks’ own money, and they knew the deal would help the six majority maker swing districts that will determine control of the Assembly. That’s all. It would also have helped Tom Tiffany if he embraced it. In fairness: he wants to give the entire surplus back if he wins.
This race isn’t about red versus blue.
It’s about common sense versus crazy. pic.twitter.com/4lzae37D9W
— Tom Tiffany (@TomTiffanyWI) May 23, 2026
Tom has moved on, thankfully, and is now focusing on reminding people that the crazed Democrat frontrunner, Francesca Hong, actually wants to abolish the police, and he doesn’t. She also wants to abolish prisons and, judging from her admission that she’s an anti capitalist, capitalism itself. Mandela Barnes, number 2 in the polls, once said releasing criminals early from prison is “sexy.”
TMZ was sticking cameras in his face and asking Tom about his thoughts on thrifting.
The Democrats want to turn Wisconsin into the Chaz. Tiffany doesn’t. Yeah, there are bigger fish to fry. Or as state Rep. Jim Piwowarczyk might say, there are bigger walleye to fry. If only Tony Evers knew how to hold one.
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