On this week's Capital Notes, we discuss artificial intelligence and the role it's playing in Wisconsin politics, along with what's at stake in the competition for control of the Wisconsin Legislature this year.
Here's an excerpt of the conversation between WUWM's Maayan Silver and JR Ross, editor of WisPolitics.com.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Maayan Silver: NPR actually did some focus groups with swing voters. These are people who voted for Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024. One thing that unified a lot of them was fear about the effects of AI on jobs and on humanity as a whole. What are you hearing from state politicians on this front? Anything?
JR Ross: Not right now. They tried to pass a data center bill [that] didn't get bipartisan support and died. I think it passed the Assembly possibly, not the Senate. But you're seeing signs of the AI fears in campaigns.
Francesca Hong, a state representative from Madison, is running for governor. She put out a policy on AI last week. You've seen new ads from Tom Tiffany, a Republican running for governor, talking about stopping big data from bulldozing our farmland.
Now, we have data centers coming to Wisconsin, they are in the process of being built, and I'm not sure they could stop that — who the next governor is — but they're trying to capture that kind of populist angst about what these things mean and what they might do for costs for you and I for when we pay our energy bill. Because there are promises being made that these centers will cover the cost of generation and transmission for energy, but people aren't sure they believe that. You can just tell it in the polls. They're somewhat nervous about data centers, and AI is a real palpable fear about what it means for their jobs.
So, yeah, whoever can capture that best might have an interesting issue to use with voters this fall because there's definitely some interest in that from the people you talk to.
And you were talking about big races. Wisconsin's Legislature has been under conservative control since 2011. Now we have new maps that will give Democrats a better chance. What's at stake in this midterm election year when talking about control of the Wisconsin Legislature?
Well, if there's a trifecta for Democrats, they can enact a string of policies they've been stymied under Gov. Evers. There are a host of ideas, from legalizing recreational marijuana to overhauling a tax break for manufacturing and agriculture to paid family leave. It just goes on and on.
And one of the big things is that if there is a Democrat trifecta, they would draw a new map. So in Wisconsin you can have a map drawn by the Legislature, signed by the governor, once in a decade. But the maps we have right now were picked by the state Supreme Court in 2022. So we still have an opportunity, even though the decade's almost over, or will be almost over come 2028, there'll be an opportunity to draw a new map. There are obviously lawsuits pending before the state Supreme Court on that very topic.
But if Democrats have the opportunity, they would draw a map that would at least make a 4-4 split rather than 6-2 for Republicans, and maybe, maybe find a way for a 5-3 or 6-2 map for Democrats — the opportunity at least. There are no guarantees in politics, right? But that'd be a big deal. That would definitely influence national control for the House in 2028.
When you talk about those splits, you were talking about the congressional maps, right?
Yeah. Right now 6-2, there's one swing seat in western Wisconsin that isn't really swingy sometimes that, you know, President Trump won it by like five points or so in '24, but Derrick Van Orden ran behind the president in '24 and he's a target.
The first district in southeastern Wisconsin can be competitive, the right candidate, right environment. But, Bryan Steil has done a very good job running at the top of ticket. So right now there's not really a path for Democrats to get to a 50-50 map in Wisconsin, barring an amazing electorate, barring incredible resources and great candidates, it's not in the cards. But if you have a chance to draw that map, they could create an opportunity to pick up a couple of seats at least in 2028.
