Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 74. Sunrise is 6:58 and sunset is 6:26, for 11 hours 29 minutes of daytime. The moon is full this evening with 99.5 percent of its visible disk now illuminated.
The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 4:30 PM. Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1995, the first planet orbiting another sun, 51 Pegasi b, is discovered.
This fall is a season of teasers, rumors, and developments about Wisconsin’s 2026 elections. Each week brings something new. Some of the latest, with an assessment, appears below.
Octogenarian Tommy Thompson’s serial teasing about another governor’s race. He’s at it again:
Tommy Thompson has been elected Wisconsin governor four times — a state record — and the 83-year-old is considering whether to try to make it five.
Thompson, a Republican, says he is seriously considering running for governor in 2026 — potentially disrupting a fairly quiet GOP primary whose frontrunner at the moment is U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany.
Though considered broadly popular during his tenure, Thompson has not been on a ballot in more than a decade.
See Molly Beck, What to know about Tommy Thompson, the 4-times elected Wisconsin governor considering another run, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 3, 2020.
When Thompson was last on a ballot, he lost to Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin’s 2012 U.S. Senate race (by six points: 51% to 45%). Our political climate is less amenable to Thompson’s politics now than in ’12. It’s unlikely that Thompson will run, but it’s impossible to imagine that he’d do well. As with Scott Walker, these teasers about running in 2026 are preening; if either did run, they’d get plucked. (See also We Weren’t Teasing, Scott Walker Was Teasing!)
Thompson’s statements say something about Thompson (remember me, please!), but also about Tom Tiffany (that Tiffany’s not an exciting WISGOP candidate for 2026). If Tiffany were an exciting candidate, Thompson wouldn’t be teasing about his own candidacy. Thompson opportunistically praised RFK Jr. for Health and Human Services secretary when he thought RFK Jr. had a brighter future. (See Wisconsin Octogenarian Desperate for Attention and Relevance.) There’s no bandwagoning for Tiffany.
Whether Robin Vos will run again for the Wisconsin Assembly. This isn’t the first time that Vos has mentioned that he might not run again:
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the longest serving assembly speaker in Wisconsin history, said he’s considering not running for reelection in 2026 on WISN-TV’s “Upfront.”
Vos, a Republican from Rochester who has served as assembly speaker since 2013, said in an interview aired on Oct. 5 he will decide whether or not to seek reelection in 2026 early next year.
“I’m trying to think through, like, I’ve done this for a long time,” Vos said. “How long am I going to do it? I don’t know. Now that Tony Evers is leaving, I’m kind of excited about the fact of working with a different governor, so I just have to decide.”
“I won’t decide until sometime in January,” he added.
Vos previously considered retiring in 2024, but he said a recall effort, backed by supporters of President Donald Trump, “reengaged” him and motivated him to seek another term.
See Francesca Pica, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says he’s considering not running for reelection in 2026, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 5, 2025.
FREE WHITEWATER has a category dedicated to Vos, a gentleman who fell upward like no one in recent Wisconsin political history. It’s laughable to think that Vos is calculating a race based on who the next governor will be — he’s calculating a race based on who the next Assembly speaker will be. If he thinks the WISGOP will be in the minority, he won’t run.
Missy Hughes resigns from the WEDC to run for governor — this one’s not a rumor:
The former head of the state’s economic development agency is running for governor as a Democrat, saying her business experience sets her apart from the field.
Missy Hughes was the secretary and CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. from 2019 until she stepped down earlier this month. Prior to that, she served as an executive at the Organic Valley dairy cooperative for 17 years.
See Shawn Johnson, Former WEDC CEO Missy Hughes joins Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor, Wisconsin Public Radio, September 29, 2025.
It’s hard to see to whom Hughes’s campaign would be appealing in 2026. The WisDems are further left ideologically (center-left, progressive) and the WISGOP further right (right-wing populism) than a candidate with a business-government cooperation approach. Someone with Hughes’s general background would have done better in the ’80s or ’90s (although the WEDC was formed later than that).
There’s much about 2026 that’s yet to be decided, but one influence that’s certain. Wisconsin voters’ views of federal policy will shape the 2026 state races, whichever candidates are nominated.
Villagers climb Mount Everest to help hundreds of hikers trapped by snowstorm: