Audio added of the fired up crown at Tommy Thompson speech, whenthe legendary 4x Governor and best known director of Cabinet Member of HHS tells a conservative gathering John Pudner “probably the best political brain in the country,” then yes we are going to shamelessly present Wisconsin and that speech below as the greatest complement of a lifetime :-).

But let’s run through the other states we’ve been covering in recent posts:

Tennessee — Some people who knew of my first trip of the cycle to Tennessee in January 2025 thought I was crazy when I laid out a detailed, county-by-county plan for how family friend John Rose could defeat Marsha Blackburn for governor. In fact, as late as April (15 months later) they still thought I was crazy as Rose was trailing 63% to 10% — about the same margin by which my candidate Dave Brat trailed Eric Cantor in 2014, before I ended up on Fox News explaining my county-by-county calculations ahead of that upset.

Tennessee is one of three states — along with Alabama and Wisconsin — where our teams have already knocked on thousands of doors, and there are many local races I’ll be watching closely in Thursday’s primary. I still see Rose on a path to a stunning victory, but I’ll admit I’m nervous about the presence of a third spoiler candidate. Sometimes, even when a candidate like Rose — who represents only one-ninth as many constituents as U.S. Sen. Blackburn — manages to hold the heavy favorite below 50%, a spoiler can split the opposition and hand the frontrunner the win. So I’m hopeful that those who don’t want to coronate Blackburn will unite behind Rose.

I won’t say I’m Babe Ruth calling a home run shot. I’d say this is more like me taking a Babe Ruth swing and knowing it would be quite an impressive shot if it connects. But Ruth also swung hard and struck out plenty, so maybe I’m crazy.

Alabama — Our last post was on Alabama, and for now we’re in a relatively quiet window for a few weeks. My basic adage is to hit doors early and go digital late, but while kids are on summer vacation, many voters are traveling with them. So our Alabama canvassing teams, having finished their Tennessee doors after the big Alabama runoff wins, will get a lot more done in Alabama after a short break and before November.

Texas is the other place where we believe there are some very key races, and I spent this weekend planning with our Texas director, Logan Scott. He has built a strong network of canvassers there, and for once they’d like to spend more time working in their own state instead of traveling elsewhere for us.

Massachusetts has also had some of our attention, but that looks more like a long-term play for our teams, because the trajectory of states now leads us to laser focus on Governor in …

Wisconsin, which has seen the biggest trajectory shift in the governor’s race, with a socialist candidate emerging as the likely Democratic nominee. And that brings us back to our teaser about the most wonderful endorsement we could have hoped to receive from Wisconsin’s most legendary government figure in decades. We toured the state organizing the last few days now appears the state may feature not only the governor’s race to watch in the entire country, but also a broader rightward shift back to the middle that could make control of the state legislature a much closer call. On top of that, two Wisconsin congressional races could help decide control of Congress itself.

Here’s the recap from back in Wisconsin:

This weekend, we had the chance to spend time with two Wisconsin legends from the past 50 years — one in conservative Catholicism, Cardinal Burke, and one in politics, Gov. Thompson:

Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke is pictured with Pudner after a two-hour Mass celebrating the La Crosse Shrine’s 18th anniversary, with more than 1,000 people packing the church. It has become a favorite destination for the tens of thousands of “Trads” (traditional conservative Catholics) Cardinal Burke drew to this diocese in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District following his appointment by Pope John Paul II in 1994 and through his decades of clarifying traditional Church teachings, particularly at times when statements by Pope Francis left many American Catholics confused on issues like marriage. 

While this Mass had nothing to do with our voter outreach, it occurred in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, where Wisconsin Faith and Freedom reached 117,000 voters at their churches and homes in 2024 with the pictured comparison piece featuring the same two candidates planning to rematch in November.

Four-time Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson more than honored our President, Pudner, when he introduced him to a Dane County crowd in the speech Saturday to be posted here as “probably the best political brain in the country.” While Thompson rightly referred to our canvassing teams winning elections all over the country, his more-than-kind introduction happened to come on the weekend that our entire team of field directors returned home to Wisconsin for the 94-day sprint to Election Day.

Pudner and WIFFC Executive Director Kelly Herrell crisscrossed the state this weekend, logging 1,200 miles between them and meeting up only at the pictured event in Johnson Creek with Wisconsin Assembly Champion of Women’s Sports Barbara Dittrich and Christian singer and Pastor Gene Schmidt, who donated sales of his popular CD to Wisconsin Faith and Freedom.

The following is a very lightly edited version of portions of the introductions by Mike Herl, who will host an exclusive event interviewing Pudner in Dane County in September, and the much-too-kind introduction of Pudner by four-time Governor Tommy Thompson.

Tommy Thompson (having just been introduced by Mike Herl): I’m speaking all over the state for candidates. I don’t need to do that because I’m not running, even though I wanted to.(laughter from crowd)

John, stand up. John Pudner is my friend, and he probably has the best brainpower on elections in the country. John Pudner wins elections all over the country. He’s got an organization, (Wisconsin Faith and Freedom), that I’m fully behind and supporting. He is getting people out to knock on doors for candidates all over the United States, and I want to thank him. (though the canvassers had just all arrived back in Wisconsin).

If you’d like to help him, please do, and sign up.

John, I’m not gonna knock on doors for you! (laughter from audience) But I will get you some people to help. Great job. I’m not knocking because I am speaking for these great candidates all over the state.

I don’t really believe what’s going on in our state, in our country, and in this world. We are the bastion of freedom. We’re standing between America, our republic, versus socialism, and it’s as simple as that. And we’re either going to win, or we’re gonna live under something that you and I don’t want. That’s why I’m out here today in the rain, like you, because I believe in America.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine John (points to another John in the crowd, not Pudner) here getting beat up? Gets beat up by some thugs.

Today’s liberal would say, “Oh no, we don’t call the police. We call the social worker.” The social worker is gonna go, “Oh, John, they beat you up? Oh, too bad. Did you say anything wrong to make them beat you up?” And you say, “There were six of them, only one of me.” And the social worker says, “But were you nice to them?” Well then, you probably don’t even need this social worker.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, this election is all about that. It’s all about whether or not we’re going to have social workers or policemen; whether we’re going to obey the Constitution or not; whether or not we’re going to support the executive branch of government and the Supreme Court, or whether we’re not.

So, ladies and gentlemen, may the road always rise to meet you, and may the wind always be at your back. And may the sun shine warm upon your forehead. Until we meet again, may God walk with you. God love you.

God love Wisconsin, help us, and God love the great United States of America. (applause)

Mike Herl: That was Tommy Thompson, and he is the greatest cheerleader for Wisconsin you’ll ever find.

We just had a train of cars coming in, so I think a lot of people waited until the rain stopped. God bless you for coming out early and getting a seat.

At this time, I’m going to bring up Mr. John Pudner.

You heard all the great words that Tommy Thompson had to say about him. He’s with Wisconsin Faith and Freedom, and he is going to explain what he’s up to these days, and possibly make an announcement. So please welcome John Pudner. (applause)

John Pudner: (Holding up the 2024 candidate comparison piece featuring Congressman Derrick Van Orden vs. Rebecca Cooke on one side and Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris on the other, with bilingual copies in Spanish and English.)

I cannot wait to get home tonight and tell my wife that Tommy Thompson introduced ME. She will probably worry I’m going senile and ask if I meant that I got to introduce Tommy Thompson. And I’ll have to insist, “No, really, Tommy Thompson introduced ME,” and she won’t believe it.

We do have a big first-time announcement. Some of you saw me leading off the Trump 2024 surrogate bus tour (while also offering to speak at any Democratic events that year) to launch our effort distributing 402,000 of these side-by-side comparison pieces at churches and homes.

I’m happy to announce that, just yesterday—this is a first-time announcement—we got funding to print 150,000 of these, so I will have them available for those who want them immediately after the primary. They go in churches as well as homes, and in addition to printing them, yesterday we also got funding to pay for door-to-door canvassers to get 30,000 of them to targeted homes, and we think we’ll do more.

You can go to www.wisconsinffc.com to view the rest of the speech or watch it as soon as it is posted on the YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/@FFCWisconsin.