Tony Evers Is Trying To Hand-pick His Successor, And It’s Roiling Wisconsin Dems

Tony Evers is trying to play kingmaker in Wisconsin’s pivotal governor’s race. So far, it’s not working.

Instead of cutting through the chaos of a messy Democratic primary, the sitting governor’s endorsement of Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley has so far only further inflamed what has become a major ideological battle between party factions. But with just nine days to go, Evers isn’t giving up. In fact, he’s digging in on the legacy project to hand-pick his successor.

Evers, who returned from a nearly two-week trade mission to Africa earlier this week, is now hitting the campaign trail with Crowley in one final push as they try to head off democratic socialist Francesca Hong — who is leading Crowley by a wide margin.

Evers’ decision to back Crowley rattled Democrats who were already panicking about Hong’s rise. Interviews in the days since his endorsement with about two dozen Democratic strategists, donors, staffers and party officials, many of whom were granted anonymity to speak candidly or share private discussions, revealed widespread shock and frustration over a move they say has galvanized anti-establishment voters for Hong while splitting support among other candidates.

“What Tony has done as a lame duck is despicable,” said Mike Van Sicklen, a former attorney in the Evers administration and longtime Democratic donor who is supporting former Evers Cabinet member Joel Brennan in the governor’s race. He said it was “crazy” for the governor to back Crowley, “knowing full well that it would essentially be fatal” to other candidates.

The governor and Crowley’s advisers see a new opening after former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes dropped out Thursday as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel prepared to publish a report detailing anonymous allegations that he leveraged his party status in pursuing sexual encounters with young adult women. POLITICO has not independently confirmed those allegations, and Barnes’ campaign said in a statement there are “no allegations of misconduct or wrongdoing” against him. Barnes’ exit left Crowley as the last viable alternative to Hong, who more centrist Democrats worry will struggle to attract crucial swing voters in a general election against Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany.

Crowley’s path to the nomination remains narrow as he continues to lag in poll after poll in the two weeks since Evers backed him — the endorsement did little to boost his numbers but infuriated donors, strategists and the grassroots who’ve flooded local party chairs with a barrage of angry calls decrying what they believe is Evers’ meddling to try to take out Hong.

And as Evers hits the campaign trail to make his pick stick, he must contend with an increasingly anti-establishment national environment and the lingering resentment from rank-and-file Democrats frustrated by his attempt to swing the outcome.

Van Sicklen — who hosted a 2018 event supporting Evers’ first gubernatorial campaign at his house in southwest Wisconsin — said he and his wife, Susan, decided not to renew their Wisconsin Democratic Party membership on the day Evers endorsed Crowley.

“JFK said sometimes party loyalty asks too much, and maybe the governor asked for party loyalty too late,” said Scot Ross, a Democratic analyst from Madison who is neutral in the race.

Evers’ team defended the endorsement. Spokesperson Britt Cudaback said in a statement that the governor “is the most popular elected official in a battleground swing state,” and that Crowley is the best person to beat Tiffany because he has “the experience, relationships, and character to get things done.”

“The governor is focused on making sure Wisconsinites elect Democrats up and down the ballot,” Cudaback said. “He encourages any so-called ‘Democratic sources’ to spend less time whining and more time helping make sure Democrats win Wisconsin this November.”

Of course, there’s still a chance that things can tighten in the final days of the race and Evers’ endorsement could slingshot Crowley through the primary. The candidate raised more than $775,000 since re-entering the race, which is fueling a last-minute TV ad buy that’s already exceeded $500,000, according to ad tracking platform AdImpact. And he still has room to grow his support: More than a third of Democratic voters remained undecided in the race, according to a Marquette Law School Poll released Wednesday — a plurality of whom identified as moderate.

Plus, with Barnes no longer in contention, he has a prime opportunity to consolidate Democrats’ stronghold in Milwaukee and win support from influential Black party leaders in the region. On Friday, Milwaukee’s representative in Congress, Gwen Moore, backed Crowley’s campaign, declaring him “ready to lead on day one.”

Evers attended a fundraiser for Crowley on Thursday in Madison and on Friday in Milwaukee. And next week, he’s slated to hit the campaign trail with Crowley.

“Our campaign is quickly gaining ground,” Crowley told POLITICO in a statement. “There are a massive amount of undecided voters across Wisconsin. They will decide the race, and with Governor Evers’ support, I will continue working to earn those votes and win.”

Evers’ endorsement is the latest example of establishment Democrats struggling to play traffic control in this year’s primaries. From Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s intervention in the Michigan Senate race to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s failed endorsements in California and Arizona, party insiders have repeatedly tried this year to elevate centrist candidates they see as more electable and fend off insurgent leftists — only to face outcry from voters who, after watching the party flounder against President Donald Trump in 2024, are angry and disillusioned with their leaders.

“These types of shenanigans are what loses pivotal elections,” said one longtime Democratic donor who had supported Barnes in the primary.

Hong, meanwhile, is basking in her frontrunner status. She’s turned her messaging squarely toward Tiffany this week, and on Friday, she made an appearance on Fox News as she looks toward winning over centrist voters in the general election.

She played up Barnes’ progressive chops in a statement after his exit, attempting to court his voters to her campaign, adding: “To everyone who supported Mandela because you believe working people deserve a government that fights for them, I welcome you.”

The stakes for Wisconsin Democrats are enormous, with the midterms representing their best shot in a generation at seizing unified control of state government. And winning in purple areas like Wisconsin is crucial for Democrats on a national level as they look for a way out of the political wilderness. That dynamic has escalated tensions this year between moderates and progressives fighting to redefine the party in key races.

“We know voters don’t like this,” one Wisconsin Democratic county party chair said of Evers’ endorsement, saying the decision was being perceived as “the Democratic elite weighing in to tip the scales” in the primary. The chair said they and other local party leaders have fielded a wave of angry calls from grassroots donors and voters who say the endorsement represents Democratic elites meddling in the race.

Those concerns remain even after Barnes exited the race this week. While that could shift some voters to Crowley as he attempts to unify the field against Hong, the recent Marquette poll also suggests the impact could go the other way. That survey showed Crowley’s campaign down by more than 30 percentage points against Hong when accounting for Barnes’ voters second-choice preferences.

That’s because more Barnes voters said they back Hong than support Crowley — meaning the former lieutenant governor’s exit could end up boosting the democratic socialist.

Several longtime GOP officials and operatives in the state liken the situation to the pressure they themselves were under in 2016 from establishment Republicans to try to hold off Trump from winning the GOP presidential primary — despite a wave of unmatched voter enthusiasm he was riding. They were ultimately powerless to Trump’s rise, they argue, and now, Democrats don’t seem like they will be able to head off Hong.

Evers is relatively popular in the state, but his influence in the race has been limited in part by his pre-planned trip to Africa, which kept him off the campaign trail until the two fundraisers this past week. The Marquette poll found nearly a third of Democratic primary voters were unaware of his endorsement. Only 36 percent said it made them more likely to support Crowley.

And already, voters are turning in their ballots: Nearly 140,000 absentee ballots for the Aug. 11 election had been returned as of Friday morning, according to state data. Democrats fear that will erode the potential Crowley margins, since some of those votes will be for Barnes or for current Lt. Gov Sara Rodriguez, who only recently dropped out of the race in mid-July amid a campaign finance scandal.

Evers also hasn’t unified Democratic circles of power in the state. Other top Wisconsin Democrats, including Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Rep. Mark Pocan, have yet to back a candidate, and leaders for major labor groups SEIU Wisconsin and the Wisconsin AFL-CIO both said they planned to hold endorsements until after the primary.

Pocan on Thursday even posted a seemingly complimentary statement about Hong to X, pointing out that she would be “the first woman, first Asian-American, & one of the first small business owners” elected governor in Wisconsin — though he said it was an “observation not endorsement.”

“This endorsement is somehow all of the downside, which is looking like you're meddling in the primary, and none of the upside, which is actually clearing the field,” Andrew Mamo, a Democratic strategist who worked on Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s 2024 reelection campaign, said of Evers.

In fact, Crowley's reentry — after his initial exit due to lagging poll numbers — only made the field bigger. And the winnowing that's resulted since then, from Rodriguez to Barnes, has had nothing to do with Evers.

Barnes nodded to those dynamics as he dropped out of the race, declaring without naming Hong that “it’s very clear who our nominee is gonna be.”

Evers now has just nine days to change that.