MILWAUKEE — Ten days after telling voters he had no path to victory, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley jumped back into the governor’s race today, arguing he is the best Dem candidate to beat likely GOP nominee Tom Tiffany.

Crowley told reporters after his formal announcement the combination of his experience and the backing of Gov. Tony Evers, labor unions and others would create the path to not only winning the Dem nomination Aug. 11, but beating Tiffany in November.

“Every single day there’s been a change in this race,” said Crowley, who announced he was getting back in one day after Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez dropped out.

Just ahead of Crowley’s announcement, Evers formally endorsed the county exec. The governor, who left yesterday for a trade mission to Africa, had repeatedly said over the course of the race that he didn’t plan to back anyone in the primary.

In today’s statement, Evers acknowledged his earlier pledge but said voters deserve the perspective of someone who’s done the job.

“David is not only the best candidate to beat Tom Tiffany, he’s the right candidate for the state of Wisconsin,” Evers said.

Multiple Dem sources told WisPolitics this week that aides close to Evers had encouraged Crowley to get back into the race, but the county executive declined to get into details of his discussion with Evers. He would only say multiple people called encouraging him to run and he made the decision with his wife after praying on it.

One of Crowley’s biggest hurdles in restarting his campaign will be marshaling the needed resources to win the primary.

Crowley reported last week that he spent more than twice as much than he raised during the first six months of the year before dropping out. He had $315,179 in the bank.

Evers had $1 million in his campaign account at the end of June after transferring $400,000 to the state Dem Party.

Crowley said the governor didn’t make any financial promises to him in offering his endorsement.

The push to get Crowley back into the race is seen by many as a last-ditch effort by moderate Dems to stop Madison state Rep. Francesca Hong, a socialist democrat, from winning the party’s nomination. Those efforts took on a new urgency after Rodriguez, endorsed by Crowley after originally ending his campaign July 8, announced yesterday that she was dropping out. That decision came after a string of stories about financial irregularities with her campaign that began with a Sunday announcement she had fired her campaign manager.

Crowley’s re-entry creates a three-week sprint to the Aug. 11 primary with Hong, former DOA Secretary Joel Brennan, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and state Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, remaining in the field.

Republican Governors Association spokesperson Kollin Crompton mocked the field, saying, “Watching Wisconsin Democrats is like watching a clown car crash into a parked semi-truck.”

The RGA has begun a $3.2 million media buy labeling Hong as “dangerously liberal.” But insiders see it as an effort to boost her in the primary with its emphasis on Hong’s opposition to Donald Trump’s immigration policies and her vow to take the Dem Party back to its progressive roots.

Crowley didn’t mention Hong in his announcement, but alluded to her and the RGA ad buy. The former Dem lawmaker, who was elected county executive in 2020, said the party’s nominee for governor can’t lack the experience and the coalition needed to win the race.

“We cannot allow the GOP to choose the Democratic nominee for governor of the great state of Wisconsin, period,” Crowley told supporters.

Still, he downplayed to reporters the possibility his re-entry could backfire with segments of the Dem base that would see it was the party’s establishment trying to pick the nominee.

“I don’t know who the establishment is,” Crowley said.

Crowley’s impact on the race may not be immediately clear. Results from a new Marquette University Law School Poll will be released Wednesday. But Crowley wasn’t included in the poll, which went into the field before the county executive got back into the race.

Poll Director Charles Franklin said the survey will show where Rodriguez was before she dropped out and who her voters favored as their second choice. There will also be general election matchups with Rodriguez and the other Dem contenders against Tiffany, the presumptive GOP nominee.

Crowley’s renewed Dem rivals for the party’s nomination reacted differently to the news of his re-entry to the race.

Hong welcomed him, saying: “Competition is good for our democracy.”

“Our campaign will remain focused on building the working-class coalition it will take to defeat Tom Tiffany and deliver permanent affordability for Wisconsin families,” she said.

Roys’ campaign continued to argue she was best positioned to beat Tiffany this fall, citing her ad buy and that she had more cash on hand at the end of June than any of the contenders.

Brennan’s campaign said “no matter who else is in or out. Joel will continue making that case directly to the people who have the power to decide: the voters of Wisconsin.”

Meanwhile, Barnes’ campaign knocked Crowley with campaign manager Darby O’Connor noting “he left this race for a reason.”

She pointed to Milwaukee County’s failure to renew a healthcare contract for public employees on time and that he had “absolutely no traction” before leaving the race a little more than a week ago.

Crowley’s re-emergence as a candidate comes as the Elections Commission reported Friday that 67,895 absentee ballots had already been returned for the Aug. 11 primary. 

There’s no partisan breakdown in Wisconsin of those who have returned their ballots, and voters can’t change their vote after returning them.

“With just 3 weeks until Election Day and after nearly 70,000 people have voted, this Hail Mary serves no purpose other than playing spoiler and handing our state to Trump’s handpicked candidate in Tom Tiffany,” O’Connor said. 

Tiffany, meanwhile, posted on X ahead of Crowley’s announcement that Dems had “handpicked” Crowley in a “bid to block the socialist who wants to abolish the police and prisons.”

“This is the same David Crowley who was just as asleep at the wheel over Milwaukee County’s health care contract as Sara Rodriguez was over her campaign finances,” the 7th CD rep from Minocqua posted.