Allegedly tame July inflation seems likely to rise again in August. And consumers already hate it.

INFLATION WATCH was back in the news this week. With Federal Reserve governors signaling that rate hikes will be considered at their meeting next month, the information about price trends in July was looked at as a key piece of data.

And from that side, the news was good if you didn’t want rates to go up, starting with a favorable report on consumer prices in July.

The consumer price index, part of the Federal Reserve’s inflation dashboard, showed a seasonally adjusted increase of 0.1% during July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Excluding food and energy, the so-called core CPI rose 0.2%...

Though the levels held well above the Fed’s 2% target, the tame monthly readings, coupled with similarly moderate levels in June, indicate that the energy-fueled burst earlier in the year is easing, though prices remain volatile and subject to constantly changing conditions in the Middle East.

Stock market futures rose following the release while Treasury yields were negative across the board. Traders further cut the probability for a September rate hike, lowering the odds to 42%, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch gauge of futures prices.

That leveled off the year-over-year increase in Consumer Prices that had exceeded 4% a couple of reports ago.

The next day, the Producer Price Index report said cost pressures lessened for businesses as well.

Wholesale costs for goods and services were flat in July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday in the latest positive sign for inflation.

The producer price index, a measure of underlying inflation pressures, was unchanged for the month, below the 0.2% Dow Jones consensus estimate and after falling 0.1% in June. The June figure was revised from a previously reported decline of 0.3%.

Excluding food and energy, the core PPI rose 0.2%, against the forecast for a 0.3% gain. The core PPI excluding trade services increased 0.4%.

But a couple of items made me skeptical that the inflation of the first half of 2026 was slowing down to that 2% level. The first is the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), whose monthly reports from businesses have shown prices continue to rise at a significant clip. And while it may not be as rapid as we were seeing, it’s still well above the rate that those businesses were reporting in 2024 or 2025.

So what’s correct? Is it the information in the BLS reports, or is it from the businesses who are supplying info to the ISM? After all, if there’s one area where the Trump Administration would manipulate data, it would be in the inflation reports because Trump is constantly saying how he wants interest rates to stay where they are or go lower.

Whether it’s honest or not, I note that the CPI and PPI reports say gasoline prices went down in July for the second straight month (CPI gas -2.9%, PPI gas -5.7%). That’s despite AAA saying that the nation’s average gas price rose from $3.80 on 4th of July weekend to $4.10 by the end of the month.

I looked at the explanations of how these price indexes are figured in the CPI report, and I don’t get a complete answer as to when these prices are measured.

The CPIs are based on prices of food, clothing, shelter, fuels, transportation, doctors’ and dentists’ services, drugs, and other goods and services that people buy for day-to-day living. Prices are collected each month in 75 urban areas across the country from about 6,000 housing units and approximately 22,000 retail establishments (department stores, supermarkets, hospitals, and other types of stores and service establishments). All taxes directly associated with the purchase and use of items are included in the index. Prices of fuels and a few other items are obtained every month in all 75 locations. Prices of most other commodities and services are collected every month in the three largest geographic areas and every other month in other areas. Prices of most goods and services are obtained by personal visit, telephone call, web, or app collection by the Bureau’s trained representatives.

So does BLS just take a moving average throughout the month, so the low prices in the first half of July overweight the “average” price? And would that mean the higher gas prices of August end up showing as an even higher price hike in the inflation report, because July’s average price was lower than it was at the end of the month?

It definitely feels like inflation has bounced back in August, and it’s reflected in a drop in the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment report, which came out on Friday.

Consumer sentiment fell about 8% this August, ending two consecutive months of improvement. While views of personal finances saw only minor declines, expected business conditions sank 11% for the short run and 17% for the long run. Decreases in sentiment were seen across the political spectrum, with Republicans exhibiting the strongest month-to-month decline in August. Sentiment among Republicans is now 19% below readings just prior to the Iran conflict and the lowest since the 2024 election. Although the early-month weakening in sentiment was pervasive across various demographic groups, notably large reductions were seen among older consumers, lower-income consumers, and those without a college degree. These groups are all particularly vulnerable to any erosion of purchasing power stemming from inflation. Across all consumers, only 8% expect their income growth to exceed inflation in the year ahead, down from 18% in December 2024, a reflection of the belief that high prices will continue to be burdensome.

Trump/GOP has ZERO plan or really much interest to do anything about this rebounding inflation and the related weakening in consumer sentiment. Good luck running on being the folks in charge of this situation in 80 days.

Upon review, here are more election notes and figures

I wanted to add a couple of other pieces of data from the Dem Governor’s primary that give a good insight as to how things ended up as they did.

First, I want to give Marquette Professor John Johnson’s analysis of the votes in Milwaukee County. Johnson notes that there were strong similarities between Tuesday’s results and another time Crowley won a nail-biter.

In both campaigns, Crowley (a moderate Democrat) faced off against a progressive challenger running clearly to his left. In 2020, this challenger was State Senator Chris Larson, whose district covers the east side of Milwaukee. In 2026, his main opponent, Francesca Hong, was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (and endorsed by Larson).

To a remarkable degree, Hong and Larson won similar parts of Milwaukee County in their respective campaigns against Crowley.

Within the city, Crowley’s significant sources of votes in either election were the majority Black north side along with some of the more conservative, majority white neighborhoods on the city’s western fringe. Hong and Larson won everywhere else, with particular strength in the liberal strongholds between I-43 and Lake Michigan. This progressive strength also extended into adjacent suburbs including St. Francis, Shorewood, Cudahy, and South Milwaukee—all places where Crowley trailed both Hong and Larson.

However, Crowley handily won a different set of suburbs. On the north shore, he carried River Hills, Bayside, and Brown Deer. To the southwest, he won Greenfield, Greendale, Franklin, and Hales Corners. His support grew the most on the north shore between these two elections. For example, he ever-so-slightly lost Fox Point to Larson in 2020, but he defeated Hong in that wealthy suburb by more than 25 points.

This complements the double-digit wins for Crowley over Hong in the suburban WOW Counties next to Milwaukee. These are places that have made the strongest turns toward Democrats in the Trump era, and that’s part of the reason that two of the biggest winners of Tuesday’s election may be Dem Senate Leader Dianne Hesselbein and Dem Assembly Leader Greta Neubauer (even though they won’t ever admit this publicly).

That’s because WisDem consultant Joe Zepecki told the New Republic’s Greg Sargent that the best places for Crowley in the primary are many of the communities where Dems are most likely to pick up seats in this November’s races in the Wisconsin Legislature.

“Crowley’s path to victory runs through suburban Wisconsin and through holding down Republican margins in rural communities. That overlaps with exactly where Dems need to win state legislative seats to get the trifecta next year.” Wisconsin Dem strategist, quoted in this piece:

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— Greg Sargent (@gregsargent.bsky.social) August 13, 2026 at 6:37 AM

The total number of votes in the WOW Counties also gave them an increased influence on the 2026 Dem Guv primary compared to the contested one that Tony Evers won in 2018. Total votes were up by 47% compared in the Dem Guv primary this week vs 8 years, but the WOW Counties were up even more than that, jumping by 83%.

This translates into the WOW Counties having a larger share of the votes in the 2026 primary, and the City of Milwaukee having a smaller one (even though the City had its turnout go up by 17,000 compared to 2018).

But why did the polls not catch on to Crowley’s increasing chances of getting more votes than Hong? That’s what G. Elliot Morris looked into, as he gave data to one of the pollsters that had Hong up 20+ points.

Last year, a non-profit called State Navigate contracted me to develop a flexible survey weighting program that they could use on any poll of a statewide or state legislative district primary or general election. This program let them adjust the data they got back in their polls to be representative of the population they were trying to sample.

I did not ask for money from State Navigate, but instead to have access to the raw data and to be able to analyze it publicly for posts like these. State Navigate has agreed to let me publish the analysis below. I did not share it with them beforehand. (For what it’s worth, State Navigate was the most accurate pollster in both the Virginia and New Jersey governor elections in 2025.)

Based on the analysis below, I conclude:
· Most of the miss in polls in Wisconsin is attributable to faulty demographic targets (too many young people). This inflated Hong’s vote margin by about 10 points.

· My best guess is that the race moved 6 points toward Crowley after pollsters released their final surveys.

· Non-ignorable non-response within demographic categories likely further inflated Hong’s vote margin by 2 points.

Which means that a theory the Crowley campaign had before the election turned out to be true – that polls were missing the reality that primary voters skew older, and that was a group he was likely to do better with.

So 3 days after that stunning result, we can see how it happened. And I can't think that Crowley would lose many of Hong's voters, given that she tended to do best in the areas and demos where Dems do strongest. Combine that with Crowley's strong performance among suburban and more rural areas, that may give him a better baseline to start from when it comes to cutting into GOP margins this November, and in turning areas that are up for grabs toward the Dems.

Tuesday was a BAD Election Night for the Tiffany campaign for these reasons, and no wonder why they were thrown off their game by the result. They don't have anything to run on themselves, especially when the Republican candidate has blindly supported everything that an unpopular President has done in the last 19 months. So they need voters to be scared of the Dem candidate for them to have a chance. When the media-described "moderate" wins and is powered to victory by groups of voters and areas of the state that are already trending toward the Dems, it makes it a lot harder for GOPs to win with that "scare dumb people" strategy.

The fun never stops in Wisconsin elections, does it?

24 hours ago, I bet a lot of us weren't thinking we'd be seeing this reality.

Decision Desk HQ projects David Crowley wins the WI Governor Democratic Primary #DecisionMade: 2:20 AM EDT

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— Decision Desk HQ (@decisiondeskhq.bsky.social) August 12, 2026 at 1:21 AM

Well ain't that a fun surprise? A few thoughts.

1. While I wasn't expecting a Crowley win, it did feel like things were tightening. In my neighborhood on the West Side of Madison, I noticed a number of Crowley signs show up in the last week, and sure enough, Crowley won my ward over Hong convincingly. A lot of Dem voters got the message that Crowley was the only candidate that could defeat Hong, and met the assignment.

2. If Fran Hong stays off of national TV, she probably wins yesterday. Hong had taken the frontrunner role by meeting Wisconsin voters and giving online content to Wisconsin voters. Why she decided to go Hollywood before she was the nominee is beyond me, and sure enough, the national media concentrated on stupid comments in old tweets instead of the issues and interests that put Hong in the lead. Fran also did not respond well to those non-troveries, which sent the message that she was not ready for the Big Job, and it scared a number of Dem voters who were/are terrified of an election-denying lowlife like Tom Tiffany being Governor ahead of the 2028 elections.

3. Here were my thoughts on turnout last weekend, as I compared it to the much-smaller amount of votes in the 2018 Dem Guv primary.

I would anticipate quite a bit more than 538,000 votes being cast for the Dem Guv primary on Tuesday. Most of that is due to there being no seriously contested statewide primary for the GOP, so casual voters will go for where the heat is in this election, which is on the Dem side (yes, there may be a few dweeby GOPs who may try to vote in the Dem primary to advance Hong. But their numbers are small and they should be careful for what they wish for).

My very unscientific guess is that it means around 700,000+ votes would be on the Dem side, and maybe more like 750,000, given that voting-age population has grown a bit in the 8 years since then. The overwhelming majority of those votes will be on Election Day, since the Wisconsin Elections Commission says there have been a little over 265,000 votes cast so far overall (and that includes all parties).

I ended up being a bit short on that. Total Dem votes in the Guv election looks to be just over 792,000, which is almost 50% more than the votes cast in Gov Evers' win in August 2018. And Crowley and Hong both exceeded Evers' 2018 winning total by more than 86,000 votes, and well above the 275,000 "win total" that I thought was needed yesterday.

In fact, the combined total of Crowley and Hong votes ended up nearly 160,000 votes above the winning total that Tom Tiffany had on the Republican side, despite Tiffany pulling 95% of the GOP votes in a virtually cleared field. And there were more than 300,000 additional votes cast in the Dem Guv race than the GOP's, once again showing that in Wisconsin primaries, voters will check out the more interesting and contested race.

4. The places that Hong and Crowley did well in were telling. Take a look at this map of last night's results.

Crowley won almost all counties in the Southeastern part of the state, and also won most rural counties. Hong won the 3 BOW Counties in the Fox Valley, won Dane County, and won most counties that had UW campuses.

And if you know which people live where in Dane County, you can see the Socioeconomic differences in this map. Much like the other one, areas won by Crowley are purple, and Hong's winning areas are green, with the darker shades showing a bigger margin of victory.

Hong did better in the hippie/college areas near downtown and along the Isthmus, as well as in more blue-collar urban parts of the metro area. Crowley did better in more affluent and more suburban areas of the county, and did well among Dems in the rural townships. And from what I can tell in the Milwaukee-area results, a similar pattern was there, although Crowley also seems to have done well in majority-Black areas of MKE.

5. I have no doubt Dems will reunify and all be working together to defeat Tiffany and knock the GOP out of power in all levels of state government this November. State Rep Hong knows firsthand how tyrannical the WisGOPs have been in the Capitol, and she is dedicated to doing her part to end it, despite this tough defeat.

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— Francesca Hong 홍윤정 (@francescahongwi.bsky.social) August 12, 2026 at 11:14 AM

Crowley should give Fran a prominent and visible role over the next 83 days of this campaign. And she has earned some kind of spot in Crowley's Administration, should he win and she want the gig (it would also be a nice pay bump from the $50K Hong pulls as a State Legislator, and health care benefits).

Yes, Hong's supporters are down right now, and feel the nomination they deserved was taken from them by the Dem establishment (you can see them all over social media). They have a right to be upset, after all the work Hong and they have put in to get to the position they were at. While Hong is impressively keeping her eyes on the big prize, it's understandable that fans and supporters will not want to hit the streets to support someone who snuck in at the last moment and won what Hong supporters thought was there. But by Sept. 1, it's time for those people to also see the big picture, stop election-denying forced-birther Tom Tiffany and other WisGOPs from having any power, and then push Crowley and other Dems to put in the improvements that are needed in this state.

6. Primary polls are nothing more than outlines of the state of play, not the "voice of God". Particularly when voters like most of the candidates in the race and are trying to tactically choose which is the best one to advance. Which adds to my final point.

6a. We need ranked choice voting in Wisconsin. Someone should not win a primary when a majority of voters either cast votes for people who later dropped out of the race, or they cannot stand the candidate that takes the plurality. And Wisconsin's "first past the post" system led to a lot of agonizing by voters like me in trying to figure out what was the best vote to cast that increased the chances of getting result I wanted. It shouldn't be that way, especially in primaries. The choices would have been much easier to make if I knew that I could vote for multiple candidates I liked, and make it much less likely that my decision wouldn't be a worthless endeavor, and allow an unacceptable outcome that could be catastrophic.

Dems should run on election reforms like ranked-choice voting, the pre-Election Day processing of absentee ballots, and allowing for communities like Milwaukee that have Central Count locations of absentee ballots be able to report their results as each ward is completed instead of have this stupid thing where everything has to be done before any absentee ballot results are reported. All would avoid a lot of the mess-ups and stresses that we dealt with in this Dem Guv primary.

7. WisGOPs did NOT want this outcome. They are now wrong-footed with an awful candidate heading up their side of the ballot in Tom Tiffany. And they may try the same "dangerous socialist other" BS with Crowley that they would have done against Hong, but that won't work with anyone that decides elections. Especially when Crowley won the primary by being attached to popular, moderate-coding Governor Evers. Meanwhile, Tiffany is tied at the...to Trumpian idiocy, lawlessness, and failure.

Crazy stuff, man. But I am feeling much better about November's prospects than I was at this time last night. LET'S GET IT.

Profits and productivity rise in America, while workers get less and consumers pay more

It may have gotten lost due to the release of the July jobs report on Friday, but the day before, productivity numbers were released for Q2 2026, and that measure keeps on rising.

Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased 1.4 percent in the second quarter of 2026, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today, as output increased 1.7 percent and hours worked increased 0.3 percent. (All quarterly percent changes in this release are seasonally adjusted annualized rates.) From the same quarter a year ago, nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased 2.2 percent in the second quarter of 2026.

Unit labor costs in the nonfarm business sector increased 1.3 percent in the second quarter of 2026, reflecting a 2.7-percent increase in hourly compensation and a 1.4-percent increase in productivity. Unit labor costs increased 1.4 percent over the last four quarters.

But I’ll remind you that these are unit labor costs before inflation, and the same report says prices rose at an annualized rate of nearly 6% for Q2. When you look at it that way, workers were taking home less, and it was relatively cheap for companies to make products. So guess who takes the gains?

BLS calculates unit labor costs as the ratio of hourly compensation to labor productivity. Increases in hourly compensation tend to increase unit labor costs and increases in productivity tend to reduce them. Real hourly compensation, which takes into account consumer prices, decreased 3.1 percent in the second quarter of 2026, and decreased 0.1 percent over the last four quarters. The labor share, which is the percentage of output that accrues to workers in the form of compensation, was 52.9 percent in the second quarter of 2026, the lowest level in the series which begins in the first quarter of 1947.

Now combine that with what we saw in the July jobs report, which not only showed fewer jobs for that month, and May and June being revised lower by 103,000, but also had year-over-year wage growth drop to a 5-year low.

This is a continuation of a trend where businesses have been squeezing more output without having to add as many workers in recent years, as the BLS illustrates with these charts.

Later this month, the Bureau of Economic Analysis will release their first look at corporate profits for the inflation-wracked April-June period. If the productivity and jobs numbers are indicative, I bet those profit numbers will show a big increase from Q1, and accelerate what has already been an impressive (obscene?) runup in those numbers since 2020.

We don't often ID these higher profits as Robin Hood in reverse, where rich owners take the gains from workers, give smaller raises, and get all the benefits of higher prices. And that's before we even mention the tariff refunds that businesses are now getting, without those businesses reducing prices for everyday workers and consumers.

Nice "economy", isn't it?

Oil, interest rates and Trump/GOP borrowing all going up in the US

Remember about a week ago when oil markets were plummeting and the Trump Administration was saying a peace deal with Iran was on the way? I'm talking about the most recent time, not the 15 other times we’ve heard Peace is At Hand in the last few months.

Well, that hope is over. Again. And oil is back on the rise....now with a new lack of availability!

Oil prices jumped on Monday as hopes for a Washington-Tehran deal over the Strait of Hormuz faded and the US's Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell below 300 million barrels, hovering at its lowest level since the 1980s.

The SPR fell by 6.1 million barrels in August, reaching its lowest point since 1983, with inventories at 298.7 million barrels, according to data from the Department of Energy.

The US, like other countries, has been releasing stored crude to make up for supply disruptions sparked by the war in the Middle East, with the Trump administration ordering the release of 172 million barrels in March to steady global markets.

Oil ended up rising nearly $4 a barrel on Monday, finishing above $82 a barrel for the first time since the end of July. I'll add that the draw of 6.1 million barrels only covers the first week of the month, from Saturday, August 1 through Friday, August 7, and is the largest one-week drawdown in more than a month.

Know what else is back on the rise? Long-term bond yields, which touched 4.7% for the 10-year bond for US Treasuries on Monday and 5.25% for the 30-year bond. Check out the trend since bombs started falling on Iran at the end of February.

As much as Fed Chair and Trump confidant Kevin Warsh may want to avoid rate hikes for the benchmark Fed Funds rate, the US bond market is raising rates via their open market trades.

As an effect of the rising rates, we’ve seen expenses to pay off that US debt rise more in Federal Fiscal Year 2026 exceed the increases in either Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. That number comes from the Congressional Budget Office’s budget review for July, which came out on Monday.

Spending for Social Security benefits rose by $70 billion (or 5 percent) because of increases in average benefits and in the number of beneficiaries. That increase would have been greater but for a significant set of onetime retroactive payments that began in March 2025 and stemmed from the Social Security Fairness Act of 2023, which was enacted in January 2025.

■ Medicare outlays increased by $66 billion (or 8 percent) because of increased enrollment and higher payment rates for services.

■ Medicaid outlays increased by $45 billion (or 8 percent) largely because of rising costs per enrollee….

■ Outlays for net interest on the public debt rose by $117 billion (or 14 percent) because the debt was larger than it was in the first 10 months of fiscal year 2025 and because of higher long-term interest rates. Declines in short-term rates partially mitigated the overall rise in interest payments.

Auctions of new debt are slated to be coming at a faster clip in the coming months, as the US Treasury has now upped its estimate of borrowing needed for the July to September quarter, with nearly ¾ of a trillion dollars now projected to be pushed out.

During the July–September 2026 quarter, Treasury expects to borrow $739 billion in privately-held net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-September cash balance of $950 billion. The borrowing estimate is $68 billion higher than announced in May 2026, primarily due to lower projected net cash flows, partially offset by the higher-than-assumed beginning-of-quarter cash balance. Excluding the higher-than-assumed beginning-of-quarter cash balance, the current quarter borrowing estimate is $87 billion higher than announced in May.

That is a sizable increase in volume of borrowing compared to the 4th quarter of 2025 ($550 billion) and 1st three months of 2026 ($577 billion).

Another item that worth noting from the Treasury’s announcement is that they should stay steady in how much debt they are sending out at one time, with the exception of less borrowing in September as a large amount of taxes are paid, and more needed starting in the month after that.

Based on current forecasts, Treasury expects to maintain current auction sizes in benchmark bills in the coming weeks and anticipates potentially issuing a short-dated CMB to meet its cash management needs around the end of August. Given projections for receipts associated with the mid-September corporate and non-withheld tax date, Treasury expects to implement reductions to shorter-dated bill auction sizes during the month of September. In October, Treasury anticipates increasing auction sizes across the bill curve based on expected seasonal fiscal outflows. As always, Treasury will continue to evaluate near-term borrowing needs and assess additional adjustments to bill auction sizes as appropriate.

Another batch of 10-year and 30-year bonds will have their auctions this week, and that will be something that many look to in order to see if this Summer's rise in longer term rates will continue, and with it, higher costs in a county that is nearly at $40 trillion in overall debt.

Doesn't seem like any of this oil, interest rate or debt news is going in the right direction, does it?

A few turnout points ahead of Tuesday's primary

As someone who is both deeply interested in Tuesday's primary and as someone who is working the polls that day, I was curious to find out how many people might actually be voting in this thing. So I went back to the 2018 August vote, which was also when there was a contested race for Governor for the Democrats.

Overall, there was just under 995,000 votes cast in August 2018, but there was also a contested US Senate primary for the GOP (do you remember when Leah Vukmir was a rising star in WisGOP World? Until Tammy Baldwin beat her by double digits that Fall and she went away). Since you can't vote for more than one party in the primary, there was a split in who voted for who, and there were only 538,857 votes cast on the Dem side.

Tony Evers won comfortably with more than twice as many votes as the next candidate, but he barely exceeded 225,000 votes. So it's not very high numbers we are dealing with in these things. And not surprisingly, the places where the Dem votes came from in 2018 is more toward heavily-blue Milwaukee and Dane Counties, while the suburban WOW Counties in Southeastern Wisconsin and the Fox Valley's BOW Counties don't loom as large as they do in November.

But let's also point out that while Milwaukee and Dane Counties made up nearly 40% of the votes in 2018's Governor primary, there still was more than 60% cast in the other 70 Wisconsin counties, and even outstate counties will make up a significant portion of the electorate.

I would anticipate quite a bit more than 538,000 votes being cast for the Dem Guv primary on Tuesday. Most of that is due to there being no seriously contested statewide primary for the GOP, so casual voters will go for where the heat is in this election, which is on the Dem side (yes, there may be a few dweeby GOPs who may try to vote in the Dem primary to advance Hong. But their numbers are small and they should be careful for what they wish for).

My very unscientific guess is that it means around 700,000+ votes would beon the Dem side, and maybe more like 750,000, given that voting-age population has grown a bit in the 8 years since then. The overwhelming majority of those votes will be on Election Day, since the Wisconsin Elections Commission says there have been a little over 265,000 votes cast so far overall (and that includes all parties).

But even though there will be many more votes cast in 2026's Dem primary, I'm not sure the Dems' Guv winner will have all that much more than Evers' 2018 total of 225,000+. Dems have 7 candidates on the ballot, even though 3 of those candidates have suspended their campaigns, and I think it's conceivable that 8-10% of the votes go to those 3 candidates that left the race, especially since the Elections Commission said "no backsies" for people who already sent in their ballots.

That math was also part of the reason I was going around and around on who to vote for (I eventually settled on Crowley and voted for him yesterday), because I do think Hong has a solid base around 35%, with the other 65% up in the air for all the Dem candidates including Fran. If the goal is to keep Hong from winning, there will likely have to be at least 2/3 of those other 65% to consolidate around one candidate. And given the 8-10% of votes for the candidates that are already out, it may be more like 3/4 of the up-for-grabs non-Hong votes at this point.

We'll see if it happens. And we'll see where the turnout is coming from, especially since there seems to be a significant difference between younger and older voters - something Crowley said may go in his favor, since older people are more likely vote in primaries. Which feels like a bit of hopium there, but who honestly knows at this point?

US job and wage growth falls back to earth in July

For the past couple of months, the US economy had been largely holding up despite still-gloomy consumer sentiment snd higher prices. Part of that was due to a jobs market that had shown signs of strength in 2026, with 3 out of the first 4 months of the year having gains of 150,000 jobs or more, and new unemployment claims being at or near their lowest amounts in 57 years.

Then the July jobs report came out on Friday, and suddenly the employment situation doesn't seem so great in the US.

The July jobs report delivered a nasty surprise: Instead of adding jobs as economists expected, the U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs. Even worse, May and June payrolls were revised down by a combined 103,000 jobs, revealing a much weaker labor market than previously reported.

— Jon Cooper (@joncooper-us.bsky.social) August 7, 2026 at 1:19 PM

Oops? Maybe not so good. And we are back to an average of less than 50,000 jobs being added per month, much like we were for most of 2025.

But hey, at least the unemployment rate dropped to 4.1%, that's good, right? Not if you read the actual jobs report.

Both the labor force participation rate, at 61.4 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 58.9 percent, changed little in July. Since January, the labor force participation rate declined by 0.7 percentage point, and the employment-population ratio decreased by 0.5 percentage point.

The labor force (-264,000) and the number of people listed as employed (-87,000) went down in July, and it continues a slide in both measures that we've been seeing since Trump 2.0 kicked into gear in Spring 2025.

In addition to the stagnating overall numbers for jobs, wage growth also flatlined in July.

In July, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls, at $37.62, were little changed (+2 cents). Over the year, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.2 percent. In July, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees, at $32.40, were little changed (+4 cents).

Even worse is that the previous two months had average hourly earnings revised down, with May being 2 cents an hour lower, and June being reduced by 4 cents an hour. Which means that average hourly earnings went lower than what was reported last month.

It also gives a clear contrast to the times of inflation of 2022, where wages were rising by 2-3 times as much as they are in Summer 2026. We're back to what wage growth was in 2017, but with inflation 1-2% higher today than it was then.

We find out this week what inflation ended up being for July, and we know gas prices stopped falling that month and creeped back up. And given how bad the jobs market and wage situation got worse last month, I can't think that consumer sentiment for August gets better. And our deteriorating savings rates will get even lower, unless consumer spending nosedives.

The stock market may be bubbly at this time, but the Real Economy for America may have started to slump. We'll have to see what the data that comes out this week and next to see if July is the start of something worse, or a bump in the road.

After a lot of thought, it's Crowley

Math is math, and while I am all in for no matter who wins on Tuesday, because Tiffany as Governor would set this state back another decade and turn the 2028 election into the worst one we've ever seen here, Crowley is the best combo remaining of "can still win the primary" and also "win in November by a solid amount and would help downticket". I blame Kara Spencer for all this mess (look her up), and her boss Sara Rodriguez for not doing more to catch the funding problems before they blew up at a late hour. Onto Great Taste Weekend we go. Have a good one and maybe see ya there (I did see Dan Shafer there a couple of years back).

Consumers spend big in Q2, but incomes did not rise with prices. That can't hold

We got a two-fer of major economic data on Thursday. This included the first look at real GDP for the 2nd quarter of 2026, and the economic growth topline was.... not great.

Economic growth was weaker than expected in the second quarter though underlying drivers were mostly solid. At the same time, inflation in June held well above the Federal Reserve’s goal and complicated the central bank’s policy path, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

Gross domestic product, a broad measure of goods and services, increased just 1.5% for the April-through June period, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis numbers adjusted for seasonality and inflation.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a growth rate of 1.8%, following the 2.1% increase in the first quarter.

Sounds bad, especially given that worker producitivty has been growing stronger than 1.5% in recent quarters, but then you dig inside the numbers, and you see consumption bouncing back in the US for Q2, and business investment staying strong. And the main reason the overall GDP number was disappointing was because of a large increase in imports and a decline in inventories.

I've often used a stat I call "Core Private GDP", which takes out the contributions to GDP from trade, government and inventories, all of which are volatile and not necessarily a reflection of the day-to-day economy. If you look at it that way, Core Private GDP growth more than doubled in Q2 2026.

It's all the more remarkable when you realize that the same GDP report says prices in its gross domestice purchases index was up by an annual rate of 5.7% in Q2, so core GDP was up by over 9% before inflation. You read that, and it sounds like we are in boom times and money should be flowing everywhere.

But that's not really true, as that same Thursday's income and spending report showed. In fact, the increase in Employee Compensation for those three months was lower than any of the last 4 quarters of the Joe Biden presidency (a time when many felt they could not keep up with rising prices), and lower growth than what we saw in Q1 2026.

The largest source of increased aggregate income for the second quarter came through non-work sources such as interest and dividend income, and owners' income. That includes billions in payments in May to farmers to make up for losses due to natural disasters in 2023 and 2024.

So if people aren't seeing getting much more money from their jobs, why has been consumption been so strong in the face of higher inflation? Because Americans aren't saving anything, as the national savings rate declined again in June, down to 2.7%. The only time it has been lower in the last 5 years was during the peak months of inflation in the Spring and Summer of 2022.

But if you think our savings rate will rebound as the Summer winds down, I'll note one major difference between August 2026 and August 2022. 4 years ago, gas prices were coming down from their Ukraine War-induced spike, while in 2026, they've been back on the rise for most of the last month.

If you think spending ourselves broke in the face of rising prices is a bad thing, one way that can be stopped is by making it more lucrative to save. And that's done by having the Fed raise interest rates and other methods to slow down price increases and the economy in general. The Fed passed on raising its Fed Funds rate last week, but the bond market has been acting on its own to make it more expensive to borrow.

The Clampdown is coming, and may well already be underway (consumer spending slowed in June). The question is who and what gets clamped on as a result.

A few primary thoughts from Up North

Made my annual trip to Vilas County on Wednesday to hang with family through Saturday. Good to check in with everyone and catch up.

Unlike Madison, its been stormy here, with the power knocked out twice this week. Not really something they're used to in these parts, but might be something that needs adjusting to in the 2020s.

I was looking for any indications on the primary election that's already having early voting for our state. Couldn't find much, including almost no yard signs or radio ads for any candidate from Wausau northward, despite it being in the 7th Congressional district, which has a multi-candidate GOP primary for Tom Tiffany's seat, in addition to the Dem primary for Governor.

Sure seems like a candidate could get a bit of boost in these parts with a few signs or billboards that give the impression to others on the road that they're someone with support and worth checking out. Since I've been away, did anything happen with the Governor's race in the last 2 days?

Silly goose, of course I know that Mandela Barnes pulled the plug right before a story was going to come out about him creeping on young Dem staffers. What an absolute dud of a campaign for that guy - spent the most money, had by far the highest name recognition, and Dem voters overwhelmingly turned him down and how he lacked the juice.

And now we find out Mandela had this time bomb of bad behavior towards women looming? Just underscores how this guy was up his own backside, and never learned the lessons of blowing that 2022 race vs Ron Johnson.

If there's a lesson to be learned from this bizarre primary, maybe the biggest is that high-priced Dem consultants are no substitute for getting in front of voters (both online and in person), and maybe that idea of "yard signs don't vote/professional organizations win campaigns" is also outdated in a time of an attention economy where voters don't trust the pros that have lost races for Dems too many times.

Weird and wild stuff. I'll have more to break down in both economy and the last week of this race when I get back to the big city.

Dem guv candidates have different specifics on budget surplus, while Tiffany has nothing

Ahead of tonight's debate, I wanted to draw your attention to a goosd rundown from the Wisconsin State Journal on what the various governor’s candidates say they would do. Among the list of questions given to each of the candidates for governor in this article was one that asked why each candidate had opposed the property tax and school funding deal from May that Tony Evers and GOP Legislative leaders tried to get through (click here if you want a reminder of what was in that). And the State Journal also asked what they’d want to do with the estimated $3 billion that would be in the bank for the state for the 2-year budget that would start next July 1.

Let’s start with the GOP Guv candidate Tom Tiffany on why he opposed the budget surplus deal and what he’d do with the money.

The last state budget increased spending by roughly 15%, exceeding $100 billion for the first time in Wisconsin history, so I believe the full surplus should be returned to taxpayers. The problem isn't that taxpayers aren't sending enough money to Madison. The problem is that government has drifted away from its core responsibilities. Government should focus on doing the basics well: keeping our communities safe, maintaining our roads and bridges, educating our kids and funding special education, caring for our most vulnerable citizens and protecting taxpayers. Instead, we've seen too much growth in bureaucracy, too many new programs and too little accountability.

These are a bunch of random words that add up to nothing. Where are the specifics as to how any of this will be done? HOW will the money be “returned to taxpayers”. HOW will our most vulnerable citizens be cared for or our schools and our roads and bridges be funded? What are these “basics” of government?

It’s not like Tiffany was asked off the cuff as part a video/radio interview for a 30-second answer. This is a written, allegedly thought-out response to the question! And that "$100 billion" comment on the budget isn't the total being paid in state taxes. It's the total over 2 years for ALL sources of funds, including $33.7 billion from the Feds, and another $31.4 billion is paid for by fees for services like campground admissions, UW sporting events, room and board fees, and licensing. The total over two years is $111 billion up front and another $3 billion being borrowed.

And a guy who has spent the last 2 years in Congress voting to explode our US budget deficit with tax cuts to the rich and major increases in funding for ICE and to give $1.15 trillion to our military next year has zero credibility on fiscal items.

Compare Tiffany's response with what the current leader in the polls for the Dems wants to do.

[State Rep. Francesca Hong:] The deal used a temporary surplus for one-time payments, new spending and permanent reductions in state revenue. It’s not fiscally responsible to make permanent monetary commitments without permanent revenue to sustain them. A recurring program funded only by one-time money creates the same structural problem as a permanent tax cut funded by a temporary windfall.

One-time money should pay for one-time needs; permanent commitments require permanent revenue. I would use surplus dollars to strengthen our reserves, pay down debt and deferred costs, repair public buildings, replace lead pipes, clean up PFAS contamination and capitalize revolving funds that finance affordable housing and infrastructure.

“One-time money for one-time needs” seems pretty fiscally conservative to me, doesn’t it? Hong also reminds us that the state package included an exclusion of income taxes on tips and overtime premiums that would have gone on beyond 2028, when those Trump/GOP tax cuts end at the federal level.

There is a guy in this race who oversaw the arranging of the state budget for Tony Evers for both the 2019-21 and 2021-23 budget cycles – Joel Brennan. So let's see what he would have done.

There was a better one-time option sitting right there. The Child Care Bridge Payments program was about to expire. Renewing it instead of letting it lapse would have been real, targeted money solving an actual crisis, not a check that skips over the families who need it most. And that commitment would cost the state a little over $100 million, not the entirety of the expected surplus. We must be cautious in a Trump economy, because we know that gas prices will continue to be volatile and that Trump tariffs have already cost Wisconsin families nearly $1,100 this year. More harm to our economy over the next year from Trump’s federal actions is a near certainty.

I like Brennan’s idea of bridging the funds on Child Care Bridge Payments to avoid long-term commitments. But I’m not a fan of banking the rest of the surplus, because additional funds will be needed to both reduce property taxes and reverse the damage to education and our economic competitiveness that we’ve had to deal with over the last 15 years.

That said, I also understand that there are a sizable number of unfunded mandates in Medicaid, SNAP and other federal programs whose costs are going to be shoved down to the State in the next 2 years due to the Trump/GOP Tax Scam 2.0 that Tom Tiffany voted for. So we won't have nearly the cushion that some may think we have.

As for the other candidates – Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley also uses Hong’s “one-time surpluses should be used strategically for one-time needs” theme, and goes on to say the surplus should be used for generic Dem priorities that he says improves the economy with investments in “education, workforce development, infrastructure, housing, and childcare.”

Mandela Barnes is relatively generic as to how he would use the billions at his disposal for 2027-29, but he does mention the need for Dems to win both houses of the Legislature to get “the deal Wisconsinites deserve”. Which I agree with, and I recall Crowley telling “Up Front” over the weekend about the need to be a Dem “team captain” as the nominee. Which makes it all the odder that Barnes has run such a sluggish campaign that isn't geared toward firing up Dems with the rare opportunity that is out there.

Barnes’ budget plans include

fully funded schools, make the wealthy pay their fair share, and cut taxes for middle-class families. We will do that by using the surplus responsibly—ensuring we do not create a structural deficit—alongside taxing the rich and closing the loopholes that let billionaires get away without paying their fair share.

Good themes to be sure, and I'd call it as a "less specific progressive" plan.

State Sen. Kelda Roys was one of the first legislators to publicly oppose the package, and reiterated to the State Journal about the structural deficit that would have loomed in the next budget had it become law. She follows with this explanation of what she would ask for as Governor.

One-time rebate checks do nothing to create long-term solutions to the state’s budgetary challenges or to reduce property taxes, but if we use the [surplus] balance as a bridge to help ease the transition to a functional school funding formula and a phase-out of the voucher program, we can actually improve the state’s bottom line.

Interesting connection between eliminating vouchers as a fiscally responsible move, and given how voucher funding has exploded in the 15 years that Republicans have been in power in the Legislature.

Clawing back that $394 million that was taken away from public schools (and added to in property taxes) to pay for vouchers in 2025-26 sure seems like a logical place to cut if you want to have real changes in where resources go in our state.

The state budget and the funding ideas behind it is likely the largest item the new governor of Wisconsin would do. And so ahead of tonight’s debate, I wanted to forward this thing so you can see what the Dem candidates would want to do with it, and also to note that Tom Tiffany either has no idea or is hiding his real plans about the state budget. It’s amazing that a guy who was in the majority party in the State Legislature for a decade seems to not know much about what he’d do in the Capitol should this state be dumb enough to give him the Governor’s job.

While that’s far from the only red flag you should have about Tom Tiffany, it really shows why Dems need to hammer that fool relentlessly and make him try to give some real answers. And to make our media ask him real questions.

Gas prices back up as July ends. And lower supplies will keep them high

As the US and Iran cranked up its military bombings in the Middle East this week, it drove up oil prices further, ending the week up more than 30% from where we were at America's 250th birthday.

But it’s not just speculation on fear of what might happen in the future that’s driving up those oil prices, as our real-life supplies are continuing to get more scarce today. We drew another 5.06 million barrels off of the US’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) last week, bringing the total pull over 100 million barrels since the Trump Administration started using the SPR to try to stabilize oil and gas prices in April.

Not only are oil reserves shrinking, but so is the amount of gasoline that’s on the market in America. That’s a striking contrast to what was happening at this time in 2022, which was the last time pump prices were over $4 a gallon nationwide. 4 years ago, gas stockpiles were growing.

And unlike July 2022, gas prices have gone back on the rise in the US in July 2026, up nearly 15 cents in the last week. Given the short supplies, higher oil futures, and Trump/GOP’s inability to fold their losing hand, it seems likely that August 2026 will have higher gas prices than we saw August 2022.

In addition, Tropical Storm Bertha shut down production at a Chevron refinery for a while this week, so that cut another 2 million barrels of oil off the market.

The low supplies in the States and the need to replenish that low SPR amount sooner than later means it oil might well be taken off the market in the later part of this year instead of being added. So I wouldn’t count on gas prices going down any time soon, and with that in mind, I also can’t see Americans’ already-declining savings rate turning around for much of the rest of 2026.

Sure, we'll likely see an increase in savings for June when that gets reported next week due to that month's drop in prices. But we know prices are going back up for July, and I can't think there was a big boost in income to offset that.

So any improving feelings that consumers may have had when gas dropped down is likely to go away when they see that big 4 in front of the pump price again. And if it stays that way in August (as it likely will), they might be even more stressed than they were when consumer sentiment was hitting record lows in May.

Pt. 2 - Primary mess shows Wisconsin needs election reforms

To follow up on my thoughts about the state of the Dem Governor's primary, the way it has developed leads me to think there are 2 clear reforms to the primary system in Wisconsin that needs to happen, given how politics works in the mid-2020s.

1. There needs to be campaign finance reports in April for the 1st quarter of the calendar year before the primary. in 2026, there were no finance reports between Jan 15 and July 15, and it resulted in all of these candidates staying in and waiting to see where their money situation compared with everyone else. This led to a lack of direction as to who was up or down, and a lack of attention to the Governor’s race in general. This allowed the one candidate who was actively creating content through media and public events (Francesca Hong) to gain a following. It also allowed Sara Rodriguez’s fundraising and resource discrepancies to go unnoticed by both her and the general public until the verge of that July 15 report, when all of a sudden, she discovered that her campaign was out of money!

Yes, it is gross that money and resources are given such creedence in current-day politics over ideas and voter interest. But it’s also how media and donors measure candidates’ chances, and they slant their coverage and interest accordingly (because horse race stuff is easier to report and evaluate than actual positions). So why do we have to wait 6 months between reports to get an update on these things?

Why do we find out so late?

Our current campaign finance system in Wisconsin requires one large report with 6 months of data to collect vs 2 smaller reports that could come every 3 months. Quarterly reports allow any gaps in reporting, resources or infromation to be caught sooner to the time it hapens, and doesn't require so much staffing and campaign work for filing in July, which is one month before voters go to the polls - a time candidates and staff would rather be ramping up and meeting voters.

2. We need Ranked Choice Voting in Wisconsin, especially for primaries. In this Governor’s race, I think a lot of Wisconsin Dems are fine with most or even all of the candidates that have run. If we had ranked choice voting, voters could comfortably choose who they think is the best candidate, particularly if they thought no candidate would get 50% of the first-place votes (as will likely happen in the Dem Governor’s primary regardless of who wins). 15 miles from the Wisconsin border, the City of Minneapolis has ranked-choice voting for its mayoral elections and other local offices. And Minnesota Public Radio has a good explainer of how RCV works.

If there was a general consensus of 2-3 candidates that everyone could agree on, and those candidates were ranked 1 through 3 on most ballots, eventually an unacceptable 4th or 5th candidate would likely be eliminated, even if that 4th or 5th candidate had the most first-place votes.

Because Wisconsin only allows for first-place votes, many of us are trying to be strategic with our primary vote, choose a candidate that can win and/or defeat a certain other candidate (for a sizable group of Dems in Wisconsin in late July 2026, this means figuring out which candidate can get more votes than Fran Hong). What we don't want is to throw away our vote on a candidate that may end up at 4-5%.

My mother-in-law had voting deputies go around in her assisted living center to pick up her absentee ballot this week, and when she asked me my advice as to who to vote for, I told her to hold onto her ballot and wait until later. Because I didn’t want her to throw away her vote on a candidate that won’t be able to win, or worse, drop out before Election Day. I’m still waiting to fill out my absentee ballot for the same reason.

I know of people that have sent in their absentee ballot with a vote for the now-withdrawn Sara Rodriguez. As of today, those voters are screwed, according to a ruling from earlier this month by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Voters who cast their ballots early and want to change their vote – for example, if their chosen candidate drops out of the race before ] Election Day – can no longer do so under new guidance stemming from a recent court ruling.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission voted Thursday to issue guidance limiting voters' ability to "spoil" their ballots only in limited circumstances that do not include deciding to vote for another candidate….

Previously, Wisconsin voters had the ability to cancel their previously submitted ballot and request a new one for any reason, up to three times. That changed in October 2022 when then-Waukesha County Circuit Judge Brad Schimel ruled the practice, called "ballot spoiling," was illegal.

The 2nd District Court of Appeals then put the circuit court ruling on hold, and ruled earlier this year to reverse Schimel's decision. The appeals court's February 2026 decision did not address the merits of the case, but found the lawsuit was not properly served in the first place.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin is now supporting a lawsuit to reverse that ruling, and given that absentee ballots are not opened or tallied until Election Day in Wisconsin, a successful suit by the DPW would allow those voters a second chance in this primary.

This is how the lack of RCV makes many votes worthless and often leaves voters stressed and forced to choose less-optimal candidates. In addition, because there have been so few polls and other indicators as to the state of the race, I and others are now waiting longer to make our choice as a result, in order to lessen the chances of having that vote not matter or be a regret due to later developments.

RCV may be less needed in General Elections, as it is rare that there will be more than 2 candidates that are viable or where voters are accepting of more than 1 of the choices given to them. But I'll add that RCV at least makes it worthwhile for some third-party or non-party candidates to pursue a run vs not even trying because of first-past-the-post. As long as Wisconsin would include a "sore loser" law to avoid having a candidate who loses a party primary get back in the general election.

If Dems do pull off the trifecta this November, we need to be pushing the new Legislature and Governor to get behind Ranked Choice Voting so we don’t end up in this kind of stressful mess of a primary again. There are significant flaws that the last month has exposed in our current system, and the lack of information and options that have been given to voters, media and candidates could lead to outcomes in 2 1/2 weeks that a majority of voters did not ask for.

And how does that help anyone beyond a few insiders, campaign consultants and douchebag MAGAts (who thrive on sneaking through with the support of a fraction-of-a-fraction that votes in primaries) that already have enough advantages?

A few thoughts on the Dem Guv primary race

2 weeks ago, the Democratic primary in the Governor’s race seemed to have come into focus.

State Rep. Francesca Hong had a solid group of support but a question as to whether she led and how many more voters she could attract.

Former Lt. Gov Mandela Barnes seemed to be stagnating and possibly fading out, and current Lt. Gov Sara Rodriguez was on the rise as the alternative to both of these candidates. I personally was behind Rodriguez and had the yard sign out.

Milwaukee Co Exec David Crowley had just dropped out and was endorsing Rodriguez, and State Sen. Kelda Roys and Joel Brennan were at the bottom of the pack and seemed to be on the verge of dropping out.

And now….here we are today. Rodriguez is out, the sign is out of our yard, Crowley is back in, and “undecided” is still winning this week’s Marquette Law School Poll of 414 Democratic primary voters.

With Rodriguez out and Crowley back in, this poll was already out of date by the time its results went public this Wednesday. As a result, Charles Franklin and company say there will be a do-over poll that will release its results next Wednesday, which makes me curious why our media and Wisconsin politics put so much creedence as the MU Poll being the voice of God in the first place.

Sure, I worry Hong might drag down some downticket Dem candidates if she was the nominee. She and Barnes are the Dem candidates that would trigger the most dumb white Wisconsinites and other low-info voters, and you’d see the most dishonest and racist GOP ads we have ever seen in this state (yes, worse than what was dumped on Barnes in 2022 vs Ron Johnson). I do think Hong or Barnes can win in November – but I also think they’re the 2 candidates that give Tom Tiffany his best chance to win.

What’s making me frantic about the situation is less the prospect of Francesca Hong having a base of strong support or Mandela Barnes slipping into a nomination despite having zero juice among anyone paying attention. It’s more than there is no indication whatsoever as to where this race is going, and who else can win.

It’s a simple math problem. If you think that Fran tops out her support at around 40%, then it becomes harder with 4 other candidates in the race to get one of them over 40% to beat her. But if there are 3 other candidates it’s easier to get one to 41%, with 2 others it’s very possible, and she’d likely lose a 1-on-1. But in the absence of polling or other signals that yes, THIS one person is the Fran Alternative, voters are left scrambling and confused.

Am I supposed to get behind Crowley because Governor Evers and some SE Wis local officials endorsed him, or is there a reason he didn’t catch on before he dropped out, and that he is being a self-centered fool that is wasting all of our time? And one that will be unfairly attacked for the budget deficits and many needs that still remain in Milwaukee County (much of which isn't Crowley's fault, but GOPs and some low-info voters won't care about that).

Should I get behind Roys, who is solidly progressive with experience in the Legislature, and is the type of candidate who Republicans have no game plan against – a smart white mother who doesn’t put up with their misdirecting BS. But Kelda can’t even get to 5% in almost any poll, and was at 1% in this week's Marquette Poll. So is there any point to getting behind someone that can’t win? She’s got 1 week – put up or shut up, Kelda.

Brennan is a different category, because his “more boring and corporate Evers” routine isn’t connecting, and the money he was supposed to get from the MKE corporates and other insider connections hasn’t really happened. Brennan also just angered the WisDems’ Black Caucus by running an ad saying that the Guv candidates Of Color couldn’t win, but say the same for the lower-polling Roys. SO WHY IS HE STILL IN THIS RACE? If there’s one candidate that should drop, it’s Brennan. He has no lane.

If you think that Fran Hong must be stopped in order to increase Dems’ chances of winning a trifecta in November and getting real change done in this state, I get that (I’m not terrified by Fran winning the primary, but it’s not my preferred outcome). But there doesn’t seem to be an agreed-upon strategy as to how to do that, and there is no one candidate that voters or other candidates are consolidating around to do that.

And that clarity of what would (or would not) happen by choosing a certain candidate is what we need. In the words of the late great Ric Ocasek - JUST TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!