Can Rep. Clancy Win Reelection?

Rep. Ryan Clancy (left) and Jarrod Anderson (right). Campaign photos.

Jarrod Anderson should have absolutely no chance of winning his race for the Wisconsin Assembly.

Anderson, after all, is a political newcomer with little name recognition running in a party primary against a well-known incumbent, Rep. Ryan Clancy, in the heavily Democratic 19th district that includes the liberal East Side and Bay View.

Moreover, Anderson isn’t taking issue with most of Clancy’s policy positions. The two both support the expansion of Medicaid, abortion rights for women, legalization of marijuana, support for public schools and opposition to public funding for private schools, increasing the minimum wage and legislation to enhance tenant rights. “Ryan and I are equally progressive,” Anderson said in an interview with Urban Milwaukee. “The difference is that I see the need to work collaboratively with others.”

Oh yes, there’s that word again, that’s been the mantra of the top Democratic officials backing Anderson against the Democratic incumbent.

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s endorsement praised Anderson’s “collaborative approach,” while Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley saluted Anderson’s “collaborative spirit” and Milwaukee County Board Chair Marcelia Nicholson opted for Anderson’s “collaborative leadership.” None of them mentioned the name of Anderson’s opponent, though Johnson did diplomatically note that the incumbent’s approach “has not resonated well with many colleagues and constituents.” Never was a Democratic office holder attacked by his party mates with such good-mannered understatement.

Adding to that list more recently was East Side Alderman Jonathan Brostoff, who previously served as 19th District Assemblyman and endorsed Clancy when he first won the seat in 2022, facing no opponent in an open seat. Brostoff is now supporting Anderson, and Clancy faces a level of opposition from his own party that hasn’t been seen in many decades, if ever in Wisconsin history.

But the endorsements of Anderson have mostly used such coded language that voters may not see why they should pick the newcomer over the incumbent when both have nearly identical views on the major issues.

Some Clancy supporters have suggested that Democrats turned on him because he has strongly supported Palestine on the contentious issue of the Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Certainly, that is true of Wisconsin Elections Commission member Ann Jacobs, but as Urban Milwaukee has previously reported, it is Clancy’s antagonistic style that has burned bridges with Democrats both in the state Capitol and the Milwaukee County Courthouse, where Clancy served as board member for four years.

Going back more than a year, well before the Hamas attack on Israel, courthouse sources had predicted that top county officials were sick of Clancy’s scorched-earth style of politics and wanted to back an opponent against him in the next election. Clancy gave them an opening in August 2023 when he made the statement that police work has “no dignity or value.” Because of its origins in slave catching, he charged, “American policing… [is] epically racist and classist… American policing has always been bad and it always will be.”

His statement was jumped on by Republican legislators and featured in a Fox News show. But it also brought criticism from County Supervisor and former Democratic state legislator Tony Staskunas, who charged that Clancy “has a long history of antagonism and disdain for law enforcement” and “was insulting, combative, and condescending to members of the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department, including the Milwaukee County Sheriff (Denita) Ball,” as Urban Milwaukee reported.

Ball is African American and was clearly angry at her treatment by Clancy. So was County Board Chair Nicholson, who gave a fiery speech that board members believed was aimed at Clancy, declaring that “I have heard a lot of references to leadership, with that term almost spat out, with disparagement to a point where the language feels coded,” she declared.“It’s a trope as plain as day: a white liberal ally tosses aside leadership by black and brown people.”

In short, it is no coincidence that three of the top black Democratic officials in Milwaukee have turned on Clancy and it has nothing to do with Middle Eastern politics. Clancy contends that those who condemn his style of politics are simply opposed to change. “I’ve put forth a lot of bold legislation that always challenges the status quo” he explains on his campaign website, “and there are a lot of folks out there who are very entrenched in that world.” He has also dismissed Mayor Johnson’s opposition by accusing him of being “beholden to corporate interests” without offering any evidence of this.

It seems likely that some Democratic official recruited Anderson to run, though he denies this. In an interview with Urban Milwaukee Clancy accused Jacobs of recruiting Anderson, which she denied. “She asked many people to run,” Clancy claims. “Jarrod seems to be the bottom of the barrel.”

If there is any issue to separate the two candidates, it is crime. “Folks are really concerned about public safety,” Anderson says, ”about break-ins and reckless driving.” He supports legislation to allow Milwaukee and other cities to use automated traffic cameras for law enforcement and traffic management purposes, his campaign website says, as well as universal background checks for all firearm sales in Wisconsin, and a ‘red flag law,’ to bar guns from individuals known to be dangerous.

Clancy’s website takes on a long list of issues, but says nothing about gun control. “Clancy fights for safety through community investment and by funding programs which make our neighborhoods better, safer places to live,” the website declares.

Oh, and there’s the issue of Palestine. “I will continue to use my office and platform to advocate for justice for Palestinians and others, and to advocate for an end to Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people,” Clancy’s website notes. Whereas Anderson says “this election is about Milwaukee. My campaign has nothing to do with foreign affairs.”

There are certainly notable personal differences between the two candidates. Clancy is 47, Anderson 31. Clancy grew up in the metro area, Anderson grew up in Iowa and North Dakota and moved to Milwaukee four years ago. Clancy lives in Bay View with his wife and five children, Anderson lives on the Lower East Side with his wife Ellen. Clancy has a bachelor’s degree in English and Anderson has a law degree.

Clancy has a more overtly political background: He is a former Peace Corps volunteer, political activist, substitute teacher, union organizer and business owner (of the former Bounce Milwaukee, a restaurant and recreational complex). Anderson moved here with his wife after both got law degrees at the University of Iowa (where they met) and she was hired by Milwaukee’s Quarles & Brady firm. Anderson worked after getting his bachelor’s degree for the Red Cross of Western North Dakota on community health efforts and for the past three years for the Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative, managing the Milwaukee group’s legal and governmental affairs.

But the most striking thing about this election is how little support an incumbent Democrat has from his own party: Clancy has been endorsed by only three of 34 other Democrats in the state Assembly, one of the 11 Democrats in the Senate and three of the 14 Milwaukee County Board members he worked with.

In an interview with Urban Milwaukee, Brostoff cited Clancy’s attacks on the value of police work as a problem for the party: “When you get up to Wausau or Green Bay and you hear, ‘well, the Democrats hate the police,’ that’s not helpful. I think Ryan is more about the publicity than the politics and the goal is to get policies passed.”

Whereas Brostoff’s old colleague in county government, Milwaukee’s Democratic state Sen. Chris Larson, has released a statement saying “Clancy has been a progressive champion since he was first elected in 2022. We can’t afford to lose his leadership in the assembly.”

If Clancy has little support from elected officials, he is backed by a long list of labor unions and liberal groups, as his endorsement page shows. Local political observers expect the race to be close.

“We will always have more volunteers on our side,” Clancy declares. “The endorsements I’m most concerned about are from the people close to the grass roots.”