The following program is a PBS Wisconsin Original production Menasha.

>> I know that things are incredibly difficult right now.

There's so much loss in this moment.

>> Tornadoes and severe weather devastate communities in eastern Wisconsin.

>> Now, while they be suspending this campaign, I'll never give up my fight for Wisconsin.

>> And the hits keep coming in the Democratic primary race for governor as a leading candidate suddenly drops out.

I'm Frederica Freyberg.

Tonight on here.

And now we dig into the latest with the Democratic candidates for governor and the abrupt departure from a leading candidate.

The mayor of Menasha is with us on how his area is coping after devastating storms.

[MUSIC] Murv Seymour reports from ground Zero, where Corey Ruiz was killed by a police officer, and the community is building support and election officials go head to head with prediction market giants.

[MUSIC] It's "Here& Now" for July 31st.

>> Funding for Here and Now is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

>> Bombshell news in the Democratic primary for governor.

Former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes dropped out of the race yesterday.

Here to unpack the news.

U.A.W.

La Crosse Professor of Political Science Anthony Chergosky.

And thanks very much for being here.

Thank you.

So first of all, what's your reaction?

>> Just another plot twist in this campaign.

I mean, for months and months, Fred, there wasn't much happening in the Democratic primary.

Not a lot of activity, not a lot of voter attention.

And now in the month of July, everything has happened all at once.

And so it's just been a flurry of fast moving political developments all leading up to that key primary election.

Barnes was polling second to Francesca Hong and had solid name recognition from his run for Senate against Ron Johnson.

What is afoot here?

>> Yeah.

I mean, he did have excellent name recognition coming into the campaign.

He had a national donor base that he could draw on.

But ultimately, it seemed like he just wasn't able to catch up to Hong.

It's worth noting, Fred, that during the debate this week, he did not directly go after Hong.

He did not go negative on Hong.

If anything, Barnes was more focused on David Crowley than he was the front runner.

To me, it symbolized how Barnes just couldn't quite get going in this campaign.

I think he started the campaign in general election mode, really focusing on Tom Tiffany more than his Democratic opponents.

But that might have been a misstep because while he was trying to portray a sense of inevitability around his nomination, Francesca Hong was quietly building a lead.

>> But if Barnes dropping out had anything to do with the Journal Sentinel reporting about him using his political influence to basically get dates, though nothing criminal reported there, he would have known that that was out there, but he must have considered it not to be disqualifying.

>> Yeah, it's one of the mysteries of this campaign.

Like, why did this come out now?

Not to mention, Fred, why did this not come out during the 2022 U.S.

Senate race?

I mean, Barnes's whole argument behind why he could be electable this time around was that all the bad stuff was out on the table.

The 2022 U.S.

Senate campaign was a brutal, negative campaign that had revealed all of the bad stuff, and so there would be nothing new this time around.

Turns out that wasn't true.

And so it just undermines one of the justifications for his candidacy and one of the arguments he made in favor of his electability.

>> And yet.

And yet what's being reported and was reportedly kind of investigated by the state Democratic Party, it seems thin.

>> You know, it really raises the question to me what his future might hold in the Wisconsin Democratic Party, like how people within the party are going to view this report, what came out in the Journal Sentinel, the investigation that was conducted by the party, what his future might hold in light of this report, plus his two unsuccessful runs for office.

>> So Barnes dropping out, where does it leave the remaining candidates, including Evers, endorsed Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley.

>> Yeah, I mean, for David Crowley, the question is, if he can get some of those Barnes supporters and if he can quickly catch up to Francesca Hong because the clock is ticking and poll after poll shows that Hong is the front runner now.

I can see signs that Hong is already subtly pivoting to the general election.

She got through the debate just fine.

I was stunned that she did not have any of her opponents go after her during the debate.

I'm sure her team was elated that she got through the debate unscathed, because I thought that was the last and best opportunity for her opponents to shake up the campaign.

So I was expecting all these fireworks and all these negative attacks on Hong, and that just didn't happen.

So she's comfortably the frontrunner.

But like you said, Evers is now getting behind Crowley.

He had the endorsement earlier.

He's raising money for Crowley.

He's getting out on the trail.

So it remains to be seen if Crowley can make a last ditch effort to catch up with Hong.

>> Meanwhile, Republicans and their candidate in Tom Tiffany have got to be loving this because even Democrats say this is full on chaos.

>> Oh, it absolutely is.

And Tom Tiffany has been running a very positive biographical style campaign trying to develop his political brand outside of his congressional district.

I think Republicans in Tiffany are now also starting to shift into general election mode, gearing up for a race against Francesca Hong.

>> And what a race it will be.

Anthony Chergosky, thanks very much.

>> Thank you.

>> This week's Inside Wisconsin politics took up Barnes, dropping out this week's candidate debate and also new poll results that helped inform Mandela Barnes decision to suspend his campaign.

Here's NPR's Shawn Johnson, Anya van Wagtendonk, and "Here& Now" reporter Zac Schultz.

>> His departure kind of leaves the race in some ways, where it was, where there seems to be this growing consensus out there that this is Francesca Hong race to lose.

She is a democratic socialist, which is sort of defined this campaign.

Anya, you've covered her campaign.

You profiled her for Wisconsin Public Radio.

How is she presenting her brand of politics to primary voters and also potentially critics as this primary closes out?

>> Yeah, I think she's been really consistent, not just throughout this campaign, but throughout her political career.

I think a little bit what we saw on the debate stage was her trying to nuance some of that, perhaps for a more general election, again, as she is this kind of runaway favorite at the moment.

I saw some criticism actually from national DSA members on social media who were saying essentially, oh, she's not socialist enough, but I think she understands that there is going to be a pretty ready made line of attack from Republicans based on some of her past statements based on calling for defunding the police, based on aligning with certain, you know, sort of far left, more like agitated sort of online figures that that gives them easy things to kind of clip, which can really kind of be hard to oppose from a more kind of nuanced position.

And so I think we saw her on the debate stage, kind of trying out some of these more bitable, clippable ways of approaching her politics.

>> Zac, we had a couple polls out this week.

They both showed Francesca Hong with at least a 20 point lead.

You know, one of them showed Mandela Barnes.

Marquette showed Mandela Barnes in second, David Crowley down at about 7%.

But in the Marquette poll, we're looking at a third of voters still undecided.

Now Mandela Barnes is out of the race.

You got all those undecided voters.

David Crowley is still there.

Could this race shake up and change in the closing days?

>> Well, every time we say no, we're proven wrong.

It does get shaken up by larger events than what we probably could have the question is, is there enough room for anyone to gain enough ground to catch the lead that Francesca Hong looks like she has?

Just talking about those absentee ballots that have been cast, they're not getting counted.

Bakke the question will be, once this race is all over, will the margin of votes that Mandela Barnes and Rodriguez received add up to the amount that the second place person took?

Or will they have made a difference in some spoiling manner?

That will be interesting math to see, but by then we'll have a winner.

>> The full episode of Inside Wisconsin Politics is available wherever you get your podcasts.

A devastating EF3 tornado with winds up to 140mph hit the Appleton area on Monday.

It leaves people without power under boil water advisories, curfews and pleas to shelter in place to keep roads clear.

People are in shelters as donations pour in.

All as communities try to pick up the pieces of their homes and lives.

This week, Governor Tony Evers declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard to ensure every available resource is deployed in response.

The city of Menasha took a direct hit from the tornado as it moved south from Appleton.

Menasha Mayor Austin Hammond joins us now.

Mayor, thanks very much for being here.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> How are you and your city doing right now?

>> We're doing all right.

There is a huge influx of helping hands over the last couple of days.

We have a great volunteer operation happening at, the former U.A.W.

Fox Cities campus.

And volunteer Fox Cities is running that.

And yesterday alone, we had 1200 volunteers, which has been incredible.

And we've been blessed by neighboring municipalities coming to help us neighboring utility companies.

But, the damage from the storm is remarkably significant.

People have lost their homes.

People have lost lost their businesses, public infrastructure, power out.

Our water plants were hit, and we're reliant on the city of Neenah to help us do that.

And as was mentioned earlier, some of the areas of water service are under a water boil advisory right now.

So it's been a difficult and challenging and trying week for folks here in the city of Menasha are strong and resilient and, are making the most of it.

So even in the most darkest and difficult moments, people are choosing to look out for each other and find ways to lift each other up.

And it's also been incredible to see the public sector, private sector, faith communities all come together to uplift our community.

So it's really been truly incredible to see people come together in this really difficult moment.

But it's incredibly sad how much damage has happened due to this storm.

>> So despite this enormous property damage, how surprising is it that no one was killed?

>> I mean, it's it's a miracle.

It's truly remarkable.

I think some of it has to do with time of day in the middle of the week.

Thankfully, many folks were at work.

And then I think notifications that were given to give people ample notice of the storm to get into safe locations is another part of it.

But it really is a miracle that nobody to, to this point in time.

There's no fatalities, because of the storm.

>> What is the state at week's end here of restoration of services and cleanup?

>> Yeah.

So our in the city of Menasha, we have Menasha Utilities, a local utility company.

And they have been restoring a great amount of power throughout our community.

So, near our downtown and the furthest side of the city.

And it's going to take quite a while yet for restoration of power to be done collectively throughout the entire city.

But they're making tremendous progress working very quick.

So, that has been very, very encouraging to see.

And then right now we're in operation of clearing debris throughout the city of Menasha.

So we've contracted contractors to come in and help our departments, remove some of that debris.

And National Guard are here today, and they're going to start with traffic control and things like that to help us go and more specific sections of our community so those contractors can do that important work, to remove the debris.

So we're, we're actively getting as much of the debris out as possible.

Utilities are working tirelessly to get power back on.

And in addition to our first responders, law enforcement have just been doing an incredible job, making sure people are taken care of and provided for.

And it's just been a ton of volunteer efforts to make sure that we're providing people with cooling shelters, places to recharge their phone, have a meal, have water.

And it's just all hands on deck and really collectively making sure that our community is provided for.

>> What does your community need most now?

>> I think the community right now needs most.

I would probably say just to be able to have the opportunity to have that work done that is so needed of removing the debris.

And I would just put an ask out that people are not coming to gawk while people are in some of the darkest moments of their life trying to clean up their home, clean up the debris, when people are coming and congesting our streets, it's making it difficult for the work that needs to be done to be done effectively.

So if you're coming to Menasha to be a helping hand, please go visit volunteer Fox Cities website.

And it has all of the volunteer opportunities there.

Based out of the old UW Fox Cities campus off of midway.

We would love to have you come volunteer.

But we need, we need collaboration and partnership.

And I would news and look at pictures.

That way of what has been happening in our community.

But right now, I would just say we really need the ability to let the work be done that needs to be done, whether it's our volunteers doing incredible work, the National Guard, our emergency management, first responders, Department of Public Works utility company, the contracted work, the sooner all of that can happen quickly and efficiently without interruption, the quicker this process.

>> All right, Mayor Austin Hammond, thanks very much and really good luck to you.

>> Thank you very much for having me.

>> It continues to be a tough week for a Madison community and the city's police department.

After a deadly police shooting in a neighborhood where it has happened before, some public events are on hold and parts of one community remain shut down "Here& Now".

Reporter Murv Seymour takes us to the front line with details.

>> We are going to scream his name, justice for, justice for.

>> For more than a week and counting, echoes of anger and frustration continue to ring out in and around the East Side neighborhood, where Corey Ruiz was shot and killed during a scuffle with four Madison police officers.

>> This is not a time to be uncouth.

This is a time to come together and be neighbors.

>> The high profile shooting is in the early phases of being investigated by the state Department of Justice, overseen by Attorney General Josh Kaul.

>> It started as just someone came and painted on the road, and flowers and candles were placed there.

And then it eventually started to grow.

>> This 12 foot tall traveling monument represents outrage and solidarity against police brutality.

First set up in Minneapolis after George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer, the raised fist now sits in the center of the street at a popular intersection in Madison.

It's the very spot where Corey Ruiz deadly encounter with police was caught on cell phone video, sparking national attention, outrage and the nation's most known civil rights attorney, Benjamin Crump, to come to Madison to represent the family.

>> I love this city and I love these people.

And this is this is awful.

>> Natalie Love Church lights, candles, others bring cards, some place flowers.

Most everyone takes a moment to pause and process what's happening here.

Natalie tells me she's come to pay her respects and to demand accountability.

>> Justice looks like there's a system that's in place, a justice system in place.

And this was not it.

Accountability needs to be taken and justice for this poor person.

I don't care if he was guilty as hell.

I don't care if this was not it.

This was not justice.

>> What started out as a memorial has morphed into a movement to help those who are a lot like Corey Ruiz, unhoused and in need of mental health and social services support, Jazzman Brown tells me.

At last count, nearly 50 tents have been provided, allowing some to camp out on the streets.

A temporary fix to a complex housing problem, a touch of comfort and hope to a community that needs it now more than ever.

>> We all know that he was homeless and that he had his struggles.

And how could we not, you know, in the place where he was killed, in the neighborhood where homelessness is so high, help those that, you know, were in the exact same situation he was.

So we've built a space for everyone.

>> One of the lead organizers of this space, Lorien Carter, says if there's one thing this memorial represents, it's hope.

>> This is affecting all of us.

This is something that's in your backyard and a proximity to to whiteness doesn't equal immunity.

We've seen it in real time now.

And so I think that, I think that the country has to acknowledge that there is a race problem.

>> She and others want the police officer to be charged with murder, which will ultimately be the decision of the Dane County District attorney once the DOJ completes its investigation.

>> Please stop telling us to heal.

When you keep reopening the same wounds.

>> The police shooting of Corey Ruiz opens old wounds for Laurean and others.

Just over ten years ago, just a few blocks from here, a Madison police officer shot and killed unarmed nephew Tony Robinson.

>> Yeah, but I have a right to be here.

Just like you do, man.

>> But you have a right to peacefully protest somewhere else.

Though this is not this place is not for that.

>> The sense of peace here was briefly interrupted over Mike Weber's right to support the Madison Police Department.

Weber tells me he also wants accountability.

way or the other.

You know, if when the results of the investigation come in, I might change my mind.

I don't know, but but I want to see people be cool until that happens.

>> What do we want?

Justice.

When do we want it?

Now.

What do we want?

>> For the second time in just over a week, protesters marched to the state Capitol, taking their battle to the heart of Madison.

>> This is about how Black people have been treated by this country and by this state.

>> Where they continue to interrupt daily routines with a loud and clear message.

Back at the Corey Ruiz Memorial, this small section of community works to get back to normal, what's normal, and just how long it takes to get there is anybody's guess.

Reporting from Madison.

I'm Murv Seymour for here and Now.

>> Prediction betting markets draw billions in wagers on everything from World Cup outcomes to now elections.

Kalshi, which describes itself as the next generation financial exchange, this month launched a midterms hub designed, they say, as the one stop shop for state and federal election forecasting and betting.

Not so fast, says the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Commissioner Ann Jacobs is here, and thanks for being here.

>> Happy to be here.

>> So the commission recently put out some guidance to voters about betting on the outcomes of elections.

What did that say?

>> The guidance we sent out to voters basically summarized what has been Wisconsin law since about 1849, which is you cannot bet on an election and vote in that election.

>> So what are the penalties for putting a wager on an election?

>> There's two sort of penalties for it.

Number one is someone could challenge your ballot and have it not count.

And the second one, which is far more draconian, is it is actually a class I felony to bet and vote in the same election.

>> How would anyone find out whether you had done that or not?

>> I get asked that question quite a bit, and the answer is the same way crimes are reported to authorities, of all types a, a spurned spouse or boyfriend girlfriend, a disgruntled employee, an agitated neighbor, someone who you promised to share the money with and then didn't share the bet results with.

That's how these sort of things are reported.

>> How could betting on the outcome warp the process, even tip the outcome?

>> There's a few ways it could.

I mean, one of which is sort of on the very personal level, you are no longer voting for the person you think would be best in the position you're now voting for someone who can line your pockets.

And that's a corruption of, of the process on a very individual level.

In theory, you could have people within a, a campaign go out to place bets to try to tilt the prediction markets to create, a false sense of momentum or antipathy towards a given candidate.

So it could be an attempt to manipulate it at a much larger level.

>> What about the argument that wagering on an election actually gets people who wouldn't ordinarily be interested in voting involved in the process?

>> I find that so odd.

We want them to come into the process to vote, not for the person that they think is going to be best, but to try to make money.

That's sort of a warped view of elections.

We want people to vote.

I want people to vote.

I hope everyone goes out and votes on August 11th, but I want you to go out and vote because you believe that is going to be the best person for the job at hand.

>> What is your reaction to Kalshi new midterms hub?

>> I, you know, apparently there is great enthusiasm for this, as I accidentally learned by posting on social media about this law and people take it quite seriously.

I don't have any opinion one way or another about prediction markets, whether they're good or bad, legal or not.

All I care about is I don't want people to accidentally commit a felony by voting and betting.

You can vote.

You can bet you just can't do both.

>> Does this put the Wisconsin Elections Commission squarely into a fight with a very, very moneyed interest?

>> I hope not, because we're one of something like 35 states that have this same law.

The policy behind the law is sound and has been that case for 100 and however many years it's been.

So we really need to think about whether or not we want our elections to be governed by money making or by efficacy in government.

>> On another matter, what is your reaction to this week's court ruling that upholds WECA guidance that you opposed, saying early absentee voters can't get a do over even if their candidate dropped out?

Now, that's with nearly 130,000 early ballots cast and another candidate this week dropping out.

>> I was obviously very disappointed in the outcome.

I have been on the commission since 2016.

It was our guidance, at all times until a court put it on hold.

And now we've issued this new guidance for the very first time without alerting voters.

It was coming.

And I was very disappointed in that outcome.

>> All right.

We leave it there.

Commissioner Ann Jacobs, thanks so much.

>> Pleasure.

>> For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBS wisconsin.org and then click on the news tab.

That's our program for tonight.

I'm Frederica Freyberg.

Have a good weekend.

[MUSIC] >> Funding for "Here& Now" is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and friends of PBS Wisconsin.