Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 68. Sunrise is 6:12 and sunset is 7:40, for 13 hours, 28 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 5.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 5:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board goes into closed session shortly after 6:30 PM, resuming open session at 7 PM.
On this day in 1944, Paris is liberated by the Allies.
At the Journal Sentinel, Craig Gilbert offers an assessment of the 2026 Wisconsin gubernatorial race. His article presents a few key points (points summarized as ‘AI-assisted’ by the Journal Sentinel; I’d recommend readers review the article in full, of course):
- Wisconsin’s 2026 gubernatorial election is unusual due to the lack of an incumbent and potentially no widely recognized candidates.
- Few candidates have high statewide name recognition, creating an unpredictable race where candidates have more leeway to define themselves.
- Historically, candidates with low name recognition rarely win statewide races, but the open field presents a unique opportunity.
- The race is expected to be highly competitive and the most open-ended in decades.
See Craig Gilbert, With no incumbent and no big names, the 2026 Wisconsin governor’s race is shaping up as unusual, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 25, 2025.
Gilbert’s full article would have been, in the political era before this one, the gold standard of analysis. In conditions of two conventional political parties, with a conventional federal executive, Gilbert’s assessment would be sound.
This is not, however, that time, as these are not those parties and this is not that federal executive. One party is a far-right populist party, and the federal executive is Trump, a bigoted authoritarian.
And so, and so, one should, adjust the Journal Sentinel‘s summary to represent the actual conditions of 2025-2026:
- Wisconsin’s 2026 gubernatorial election is unusual as it has a major authoritarian party and an authoritarian president.
- The lack of statewide recognition will not matter once Trump and supportive donors join the fight. Candidate ‘definitions’ will rest on how they stand in relation to Trump.
- The outcome of the race will depend mainly on how Wisconsinites view Trump and Trumpism.
- ‘Historically’ is yesterday’s now-discarded perspective.
A hot-air balloon lands in a residential area: