National Media Discovers Mayor Johnson

The national media has discovered Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who just four years ago was a low-profile alderman known mostly for the catchy nickname of ‘Chevy.’

Now he’s getting positive press from the New York Times, C-SPAN, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press and CNN, among other media outlets, as the host for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Johnson comes across — repeatedly — as congenial, articulate and sincere, not to mention that he’s youthful, nice-looking and has a great smile.

It’s just the latest chapter in an incredible rise for Johnson, who won an upset victory to win the post of Common Council President in 2020, became acting mayor in 2021, won election to complete the term of former Mayor Tom Barrett in 2022, and then swept to a four-year term in April  2024 with “80% of the vote,” as he’s happily shared with the national media.

Johnson, just 37, is a “popular young mayor” and “ubiquitous cheerleader for the city, popping up at festivals, parades and events, shaking hands and working crowds,” the Times reported.

It’s been a publicity coup for Johnson, with the national media coverage focusing on some of the same issues, including:

-How Johnson worked to secure the convention, by “engaging with the search committee, talking about why he got into politics and what it was like to grow up in Milwaukee,” as the Times reported and despite naysayers from his own party in heavily Democratic Milwaukee. “Certainly” there were people “on my side of the aisle… who were not necessarily keen on hosting the Republican Party’s National Convention,” he told C-SPAN.

-How hard the city has worked on security for the convention, connecting and communicating over a period of 18 months with the Milwaukee police and fire departments, the federal Secret Service, FBI and other law enforcement agencies “across our state and across our country,” with meetings involving “at least two dozen subcommittees related to every single aspect of public safety,” as Johnson explained to C-SPAN.

-What a great opportunity this is “for Milwaukee to be at… the center of the political universe with all eyes across the country and eyes really around the world focused in on Milwaukee,” he rhapsodized to C-SPAN. He wants convention goers “to eat cheese curds and scoops of frozen custard, and maybe indulge in a Friday night fish fry” and “explore Milwaukee’s neighborhoods, including Bronzeville,” the Times noted.

-How much crime has gone down in Milwaukee under his leadership, despite being hamstrung by state gun laws. “We’ve seen crime continue to drop,” he told C-SPAN. “Unfortunately, because of state law, we are not able to enact harsher, or I’m sorry, more restrictions for individuals who may decide to carry guns,” he told CNN.

-Johnson’s ability to work in a bipartisan manner, not just in his work to land the Republican convention, but in winning the support of Republican legislators for increased revenue sharing and a local sales tax for Milwaukee. Dale Kooyenga, a former Republican state legislator who is now the president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, told the Times that Johnson “really took the time to walk the halls of the Capitol and spend time with folks who are nowhere near Milwaukee. He formed relationships.”

Wall Street Journal reporter John McCormick, in an interview with Johnson, noted that Republicans he talked to had described the mayor as “a very bipartisan guy.”

Johnson himself cited a curious troika of Americans who influenced him in a recent story by WPR. He pointed to former president Barack Obama and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as his political heroes, but said he was inspired to seek political office by Republican President George W. Bush, whose speech at Ground Zero in New York City days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks made a tremendous impression on the future mayor.

“You get described as sort of a rising star in the Democratic Party in this state,” noted McCormick. “Do you have aspirations to be something beyond the mayor of Milwaukee?”

Yes he does, Johnson admitted. Or as he put it more effusively in the WPR story: “Would I be interested in running for governor one day? Absolutely. Absolutely, I would.”

It is widely assumed Democratic Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers won’t run for a third term in 2026 and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley has already made clear that he has hopes of running for the position. Now his friend Cavalier Johnson, buoyed by all that national attention, appears eager to skip Crowley’s place in the line.

And Johnson, as the WPR story noted, is remarkably tenacious about pursuing his dreams. He ran for the Milwaukee County Board in 2011 and took fifth among five candidates and ran again for a different board position in 2012 and took sixth among seven candidates.

“Man, he’s a driven individual,” union leader and former Milwaukee County Board member Eyon Biddle told the publication. “His first few races did not go well, and most people would have just tucked their tails and ran. But he kept fighting and working for what he wanted for the vision that he saw for himself.”

And that vision has now landed him — quite comfortably — in the national spotlight.