We hit a new fiscal milestone in this country last week - $40 trillion in debt! But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Americans shouldn't worry, because we can just power through it.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says "we're going to have to grow our way out of this" in reference to the U.S. debt crossing the $40 trillion threshold.
But it won't just be growth that gets our fiscal situation back on track, In an interview with CNBC's Sara Eisen, Bessent claimed tariff revenue will be part of the plan.
“One of things that’s temporary here that’s influencing the deficit has been these tariff refunds, and we won’t have to do that again,” Bessent said, adding that the administration was reinstituting tariffs. “I would expect that our 2026 tariff income is going to be roughly what it was in 2025.”
Oh? You mean we will be back to having $30 billion a month in tariffs that Congress didn't approve of? That's what businesses and consumers were paying to the government before the previous tariffs were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court, and those funds had to be sent back to those businesses (those refunds were not necessarily passed on to consumers).
Update:
The U.S. has now imposed 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian products. Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada will match those tariffs "dollar for dollar" next month.
Trade negotiations between the United States and Canada fell apart Friday night, shortly before a midnight deadline for the 50% tariffs to take effect on $20 billion worth of Canadian products, including some dairy products, alcoholic beverages, cement and hockey equipment.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a bulletin to businesses Friday warning that its officers would be ensuring importers complied with the new rates starting immediately after the deadline passed.
Carney said Friday night that "Canada will match those tariffs dollar for dollar to protect our workers and businesses." He later said the retaliatory tariffs set to kick in next month will focus on American sectors such as "steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics."
Tariffs on dairy, pulp and paper? That seems pretty relevant to Wisconsin farmers and businesses, as UW-Madison's Menzie Chinn reminds us that Wisconsin has nearly 1/4 of the value of its exports go to Canada.
If you adjust for inflation, it looks like we export nearly $6 billion to Canada. Do you think any of the 6 WisGOP Congressmen are going to tell the Trump Admin that these new tariffs are likely help their constituents? Including Tom Tiffany, who wants to be governor of this entire state, and would deal with the job losses that might result from the lack of sales?
What, me worry?
Likewise, are these Congressmen going to be asked if they agree with this claim from Trump's Treasury Secretary?
Bessent on the latest bad jobs report: "After the deportations that we've seen and the closing of the border, we don't need to produce as many jobs"
So how do we grow so fast our debt doesn't matter, while not creating as many jobs as in the past?
It's not possible unless you are talking about massive inflation that $40 trillion total have a lot less meaning than it has today. There's no way we'd be having massive growth as Bessent describes without a large amount of supply shortages (due to fewer workers making stuff) and big increases in income to workers and consumer spending - when real wage growth is down in 2026 and consumer saving is already declining and at multi-year lows. So how much more can/will the American consumer spend?
Trump/GOPs are nothing but BSers when it comes to the budget and the real economy. But what do you expect from the dumb son of a real estate mogul whose advisors are mostly mega-millionaires and billionaires? Aka "people who will ever deal with the consequences of a bad decision that hurts the economy for people with real jobs?"
One of the mysteries we have had in the last year-plus is why businesses continue to report increased costs due to tariffs, but consumer prices haven’t risen by nearly as much over the same time. I’d theorized that there was something going on in the middle of those stages of production, and I got more evidence of that this week.
Robust U.S. productivity levels appear to have blunted the full inflationary impact of President Donald Trump's large-scale trade tariffs, new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston said.
"Industries in which tariffs induced higher costs in 2025 also experienced greater labor productivity growth, which helped them mitigate those higher costs," bank researchers wrote in a paper released on Wednesday.
That means that while firms may have confronted higher input costs due to the president's tax increases, by getting more output out of their workforces they were able to hold off on passing on those costs. That in turn helped inflation, which has been above the Fed's 2% target for half a decade, come in lower than it otherwise would have due to the taxes.
Altogether, the tariffs, which rose from an average level of 2.5% before Trump's return to 10%, joined with healthy productivity rates, added 0.5 percentage point to the core level of the personal consumption expenditures price index, the authors found.
The analysts said firms facing strong tariff-related cost increases managed to keep output steady while cutting labor inputs, and "the reduction in hours contributed to greater labor productivity growth."
In other words, workers are the ones paying the price of the tariffs, even more than consumers are. Businesses are squeezing out more from their employees (and/or using fewer employees), which allows for both higher profits and limits on inflation.
It goes along with this chart that I brought up last week.
it helps explain why wage and job growth have been so lousy for American workers under Trump 2.0. And helps explain why so many people don’t trust data centers and AI initiatives these days, because we can see where workers and their pay raises keep getting squeezed out in favor of automation and money-trading schemes under the guise of “increased productivity”.
Next week, we get the first look at corporate profits for the 2nd quarter of 2026. Let's see if my theory holds up, especially in the wake of big increases in oil and gas prices between April and June. I suspect it will.
The US Treasury unexpectedly said Wednesday that it will step up purchases of long-term government bonds, giving a stressed corner of the market more support.
The bond market responded immediately — then partially reversed course. The 30-year Treasury yield (^TYX) fell to 5.19% Wednesday, its biggest one-day drop in 10 months, before rebounding sharply early Thursday.
The dollar index (DX-Y.NYB) fell 0.75% Wednesday, its biggest drop since April 30, and was little changed Thursday….
Only two weeks ago, Treasury laid out its normal quarterly financing plan and left its long-term buyback cap at $2 billion. Wednesday, it said that cap would rise to at least $4 billion beginning Sept. 9 — well before the next scheduled update in November.
If the Treasury buys up more of its own bonds, it throws more money outward, in an attempt to reduce the longer-term interest rates that have been on the rise for much of 2026.
However, having an excess of dollars can drop the dollar’s value, and if the longer-term bonds are traded out for shorter maturities of bonds, more bonds come due in the short term, causing higher expenses when that happens.
And as you can see in the chart, the markets seemed to disregard Bessent's bond-buying plans, as yields of both the 10-year and 30-year bond durations went back up by 4 basis points on Thursday, while the DOW dropped by more than 700 points.
So what did Bessent do on Thursday afternoon in response? He doubled down and said the Treasury might throw out even more money!
Bessent told CNBC that the Treasury's buyback program of government debt could surpass the $4 billion announced on Wednesday.
"We are going to make a market in these. We routinely do buybacks, and we're going to increase the size of the buyback … it could be more than $4 billion per issue," Bessent said.
He noted that the Treasury is trying to signal support during a typically thin August trading session — particularly for the 30-year Treasury — at a time when massive corporate bond issuance is distorting the market, along with other factors.
"We have a big toolkit," Bessent added. "Part of it is signaling here to show that we believe yields don't reflect the underlying fundamentals of this Iran conflict. We will get on the other side of this."
I dunno, Scott. Higher deficits due to cutting taxes during a war do tend to raise interest rates, since more bonds need to be sold to pay for the increased deficits. And oil is now up nearly 27% since the 4th of July, as conflict in Iran drags on and the US’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) continues to dwindle. That also seems to be a logical supply-and-demand reaction and not the distortion Bessent is claiming.
I sense panic from these guys, especially given that a sizable amount of AI companies and rich guys are so strung out on debt these days. If all of their circular financing becomes too expensive to pay off, then the music stops, and things might get freaky.
And I think Wall Street sensed the panic from the White House today, which is why the market had a big drop on a day where there wasn't a lot of negative earning or economic news. Or maybe they just got further confirmation that he's a complete dumbass who will try to BS his way through this one vs having a plan to adjust to reality.
I saw some ad the other day from the Tiffany campaign trying to call David Crowley a tax hiker because of his record as Milwaukee County Executive. So I decided to dig into last year's Milwaukee County budget document and see where things stand in the most-populous county in the state.
The 2026 budget for Milwaukee County levies $309,014,834 in taxes on property during the year, which is an increase from the 2025 Adopted budget of approximately $10.4 million. However, the 2026 Budget still levies less in property taxes than the 2023 Adopted Budget as a result of Wisconsin 2023 Act 12. The 2026 Budget is a reduction of $3.9 million from the 2023 budget property taxes levied.
Act 12 was the shared revenue deal at the state level that gave a large increase in shared revenues to villages and towns in Wisconsin, to make up for 12 years of negligence under the WisGOP Legislature. The bill also allowed Milwaukee County to add a 0.4% sales tax and the City of Milwaukee to put in a 2.0% sales tax, in exchange for smaller % increases in shared revenues.
That deal allowing a sales tax came after years of stagnant and/or declining aids from the state being sent to Milwaukee County.
In 2010, Milwaukee County received $66.5 million of mass transit operating assistance; in 2026 the County anticipates receiving an amount of $66.7 million in state aid for transit (85.20). State shared revenue has declined from $37 million in 2010 to $35.5 million in 2026. Basic community aids have declined from $48.6 million in 2010 to $35.0 million in 2026. General transportation aids have increased from $4.3 million in 2010 to $5.8 million in 2026.
Combined, these four revenue sources have been reduced from $156.5 million in 2010 to an estimated $143.1 million in 2026. This is a reduction in real dollars not even adjusting for inflation. If Milwaukee County had received inflationary adjustments across these revenue sources since 2000, for example, the 2026 revenue budget for these state aids would be $115 million more than it is. This issue has contributed significantly to Milwaukee County’s historical structural deficit.
The County budget office adds that another big reason their budget is under stress is that they have to pay for an increasing amount of services under state law, without getting much more in resources to pay for them.
From 2021 through 2025, local tax levy required to provide Milwaukee County’s mandated services increased from 59.7% of county tax levy in 2021 to 78.2% of county tax levy in 2025. In 2026, Milwaukee County will spend $230.4 million dollars of County property tax levy on state mandated services. This is a slight decrease to 74.6% of total property taxes levied. This reduction is a direct result of support provided by the state of Wisconsin in the form of Expressway Policing Aids. The 2025-2027 state budget recognized the unique mandate to Milwaukee County to patrol Milwaukee County’s expressways and provided the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office with $19 million in Expressway Policing Aids for 2026.
Based on information from the Milwaukee City Assessor’s office, let’s look at what has happened to the County’s property tax rate, starting with the 2020 budget that Crowley inherited.
That’s a cut in property tax rates by nearly 35% since Crowley has taken ovcer. Sure, the overall amount of property taxes have gone up, because Milwaukee has become one of the hottest housing markets in America, and the median sale price of a home in the County has gone up by 58%, from $190,500 in July 2020 to $301,750 in July 2026.
But the other part of that "tax hiker" argyument by Tiffany and WisGOP is that Milwaukee County got a new sales tax of 0.4%. So let’s look at what that has come in or been estimated for the sales tax totals.
Milwaukee County Sales Tax Collections
2020 $82.0 million
2021 $92.1 million
2022 $90.0 million
2023 $103.5 million
(sales tax increase of 0.4% is passed)
2024 $181.5 million
2025 $188.1 million
2026 $195.6 million
So that's quite a difference in taxes being brought in with the new sales tax in Milwaukee County.
Know what other community just boosted their sales tax? Tom Tiffany’s hometown!
The Wisconsin Department of Revenue reminds retailers about the adoption of a 0.5% premier resort area tax in the Town of Minocqua starting July 1, 2026.
Residents voted to adopt this premier resort area tax as a local retail sales tax in 2018 with authorization by the Wisconsin Legislature for 2026. Generally, proceeds from a premier resort area tax may only be used by the local government to pay for infrastructure expenses within the jurisdiction of that premier resort area.
Effective July 1, 2026, certain sellers must collect the 0.5% premier resort area tax on taxable sales made to customers in the Town of Minocqua.
I’ll add that Tom Tiffany voted to allow a similar 0.5% sales tax for the City of Rhinelander when he was in the Legislature, as part of the 2015-17 state budget. That tax has been in effect since July 2017. The cities of Eagle River and Bayfield also have local sales taxes of 0.5%, which also are communities currently represented by Tom Tiffany.
So it seems like Tom Tiffany can be OK with local sales taxes for his Northwoods constituents to take pressure off of their property taxes, but somehow David Crowley is a tax hiker for a smaller tax increase in the county that is the Number 1 attractor of tourism dollars in the state?
Of course, Tom Tiffany and WisGOP don’t think that voters will understand how Milwaukee County takes up a small portion of the overall property tax bill for its residents. The “rising taxes” argument is generally due to the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee Public Schools – budgets that David Crowley has little to no control over.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, citizens and businesses pay a total of approximately $2.1 billion in property taxes to the various taxing entities in Milwaukee County. These entities include:
Milwaukee County government.
Municipal governments (cities and villages).
School districts.
Technical college.
Special districts (such as the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District or the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission).
Tax Incremental Finance districts.
Of this $2.1 billion total, Milwaukee County government makes up about 14%.
This is coupled with Tiffany's votes in the last 14 months for massive increases in spending in the last 12 months for ICE, and being fine with a bloated military and a stupid war in Iran – neither of which have improved Wisconsin’s economy one whit, and have increased the cost of gasoline.
So does Tom Tiffany and the GOP really want to talk about David Crowley's budget choices in this Fall's elections? Because if we look at the reality and have that debate, it's one the WisGOPs deserve to lose. Milwaukee County's property tax rates have gone down significantly under Crowley, while Tom Tiffany voted to defund K-12 schools and local governments while in the Legislature, causing property taxes to rise throughout Wisconsin. And Tiffany's reckless votes in DC to give even more tax cuts for the rich and corporate have caused long-term interest rates to rise, raising borrowing costs for businesses and homeowners.
But the Crowley campaign and the WisDems have to make the argument to make the average voter think about these facts. So get to it, guys.
Caught the Up Front show this morning, and it included an interview with both Democratic Guv nominee David Crowley and GOP Guv nominee Tom Tiffany. I wanted to give you Tiffany's interview (which begins at 7:42 of this clip) because even though Matt Smith wasn't exactly going Mike Wallace on Tommy Tiff, Tiffany still looked lame and scared.
Off the bat, Tiffany tries an attack on Crowley claiming "there's not a dime's worth of difference" between Crowley and Hong and that "the leadership of the Democrat (SIC!) Party has capitultated to this Democrat (SIC!) Socialist movement".
Now does Tiffany say what policies Crowley and Hong agree or how the Party has "capitulated" to the DSA "movement"? NO, OF COURSE NOT! Does Matt Smith ask "In what way has that happened?", to make Tiffany answer how he can say that? NO, OF COURSE NOT! He just moves on to the next question.
Tiffany pulls another bunch of empty statements later on when he talks about what really matters in this election.
TIFFANY: [Democrats] are going to try to divert from the real issues of this campaign and there's a reason for that. That's because they've been giving the 400-year property tax increase (something that's only possible by WisGOP refusing to fund schools at the state level), the over $2 billion in rate increases - at this place we're sitting at right now, his utility bills went up $400 a month in the last year, and that's because they've just been rubber-stamping these increases. We have to deal with the affordability issue, and I'm going to do that.
Does Tiffany say HOW he's going to "deal with the affordability issue"? OF COURSE NOT! He's a Republican, do you think he knows anything beyond complaints and generalities? And does Smith ask how that's going to happen? OF COURSE NOT!
Smith asks what role Donald Trump and his support of Tiffany will have in the election, and that's where the Tiffany Tap Dance begins.
TIFFANY: ...the other side, they're going to campaigning against Donald Trump. I'm going to be campaigning for the State of Wisconsin, and I've really stayed foused throughout this campaign. This is about being governor. This isn't about being in Wisconsin and shouting at Washington DC. You control the things you can control, and that's what I'm going to do as Governor."
Oh? What happens in DC doesn't have any effect on what happens for the Governor of Wisconsin, despite the fact that nearly 30% of Wisconsin's state budget comes from the federal government?
But those federal aids may be getting lower under Trump/GOP. For example, UW-Madison reported a drop of $27 million in federally-funded research under the first year of Trump 2.0, due to loss of 145 federally-funded grants. In addition to the loss of potential findings and improvements for overall life, the loss of grants is a loss of jobs and economic activity, particularly with higher-educated people who have a lot of options on where to live. And do you think a Governor Tom Tiffany would do anything to advocate to the Trump Administration for those jobs or improvements?
Know how else a Governor "shouts at Washington DC"? By asking for disaster aids when weather events strike. Which seems really important given the headlines we've seen over the last year with this Administration.
“Trump has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
Right now people in blue states are basically paying federal taxes as if they’re colonized territories of red states. www.politico.com/news/2026/03...
We saw a similar dynamic play out here in Wisconsin, as the county David Crowley runs did not get tens of millions of dollars in aid requested after record rains hit Southeastern Wisconsin this time last year.
Disaster relief for six Wisconsin counties inundated by historic flooding back in August has again been denied by the federal government. It’s the second time that Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Grant, Milwaukee, Door and Grant counties have been denied assistance from the Trump administration since the floods drowned parks, damaged homes and trapped people in their cars in the middle of the night.
This latest denial was in response to an appeal filed by Gov. Tony Evers in November, after the first denial came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). At the time, Evers stressed that the extreme storms had left over $26.5 million in disaster costs.
In a statement Monday, Evers called the new denial “completely unsatisfactory,” saying that the Trump administration had again denied the relief for Wisconsin “without any explanation” and calling for the decision to be reversed. “Wisconsinites have been hard at work to build back from these historic flooding events, but folks are not out of the woods yet,” said Evers. “Efforts to rebuild will cost tens of millions of taxpayer dollars that local communities will be on the hook for, and it’s really disappointing to see our federal leadership turn their backs on Wisconsin, our families, and our communities in our time of need. We will continue to advocate to the Trump Administration and our federal partners that Wisconsin needs these resources to rebuild and recover, and we will continue to do what we can to support our local partners however we can in the meantime.”...
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley called the denial for disaster relief “deeply disappointing” in a statement Monday. “My administration has worked to rebuild and recover after last summer’s historic storms and flooding,” said Crowley. “Without federal assistance, the financial burden of these public infrastructure repairs falls to local governments to cover. Communities rely on intergovernmental partnerships in times of crisis, and this decision by the Trump administration erodes that public trust. To move forward, my administration will continue working with the State of Wisconsin, our municipalities, and community partners to identify responsible funding solutions to rebuild our roads, bridges, parks, and public buildings. Our residents should not be forced to shoulder the full cost of disasters beyond their control, and we will continue advocating for the resources our community deserves.”
Relatedly, doesn't Tom Tiffany have a job right now in Washington DC that pays $174,000+ per diem expenses and benefits? Couldn't he do something right now to deal with a pointless, losing war in the Middle East and record profits in the US that are raising prices and causing problems back here in Wisconsin? Shouldn't he be using his position as an elected Congressman to vocally push for aid to go to the Fox Valley after their devastating storms from late July, like Governor Evers has done?
Sure leads one to ask a simple question of Tom Tiffany.
To Matt Smith's credit, he does ask about another item where the presidency and the Governor of Wisconsin would interact - certifying the presidential elections, which is something Tiffany voted against doing in 2020. And Tiffany's answer is both lame and non-reassuring.
SMITH: The Democrats are going to come at your hard for your vote on the 2020 election. Do you regret that at all, not voting to certify the results?
TIFFANY: No, Joe Biden won the election, and we've lived with the consequences of the massive inflation after he became president. Inflation went up the most in 40 years, and now it's up to us to do everything we can to fix those problems that were created from that. I'm looking forward, not backward.
SMITH: Do you regret your vote, though?
TIFFANY: I'm looking forwards, not backwards.
So not only does Tiffany not want to talk about why he decided to throw out the votes of Americans to keep Trump in office after 2020, he seems to think it was OK because...he didn't like how the Biden Presidency went?
Hey Tommy, if you don't like the outcome of what Wisconsinites choose in the 2028 elections because you think having Dems in charge is a bad outcome, WILL YOU STILL VOTE TO CERTIFY THE ELECTION? Because it sure seems like what you're saying you won't.
This guy is weak, and has nothing but surface-level complaints to go along with lots of weaknesses in both votes and policies. He should be hit constantly until he gives a real answer with real substance, which will damage his campaign even more, since Tiffany's solutions (what few they are) are going to be things that Wisconsin voters do not want.
I don't count on our corporate media to do that job (they love that dirty Uihlein/Hendricks ad money), but all Dems and their supporters sure should, and Dems should be filling in the blanks for the many things Tom Tiffany won't talk about.
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.
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.
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:
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.
