Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 34. Sunrise is 6:39 and sunset is 4:37 for 9 hours 58 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 76.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1938, the Nazis instigate Kristallnacht.
Baylor Spears reports on a Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate forum:
The primaries for Wisconsin’s open gubernatorial election are about nine months away and the 2026 general election is still a year out, but Democratic and Republican candidates had their first opportunity to speak at a group forum Thursday.
The forum, moderated by WISN-12 News Political Director Matt Smith, was hosted at the Wisconsin Technology Council’s annual symposium and focused mostly on the economy, especially the technology sector.
Democratic candidates at the forum included Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, state Sen. Kelda Roys, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, state Rep. Francesca Hong and former Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) CEO Missy Hughes.
Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann was the lone Republican candidate at the forum. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is seen as the frontrunner on the GOP side, was not present.
See Baylor Spears, Wisconsin gubernatorial candidates discuss Trump, data centers, AI and marijuana at first forum, Wisconsin Examiner, November 7, 2025.
Some were missing: Tom Tiffany (who knows he’s ahead), and Mandela Barnes (who’s undeclared but who knows he’d be ahead among Democrats if he were to enter the race). There are Republicans who worry about Tiffany (he’s devoid of charisma) and Democrats who worry about Barnes (he lost before to Ron Johnson). On the concern of some Democrats, see Mandela Barnes faces pushback as he moves toward launching a Democratic campaign for governor and This Democrat Lost a Big Race. The Party Is Uneasy About His Return (subscription sites, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and New York Times, respectively).
There was a third candidate missing, too. Donald Trump wasn’t in the room.
It’s Trump who will be, figuratively, on the ballot nearly as much as either major-party candidate literally.
If Trump is doing well among Wisconsinites next year, then the WISGOP candidate will do well in the fall. If Trump is doing poorly next year among Wisconsinites next year, then the WisDems candidate will do well.
Our state politics is a proxy for national politics. There’s no evidence that this will change by next November, or for years afterward.
Rare video shows sucker fish hitching rides on whales: