More Names Surface in Governor’s Race

Mandela Barnes. (Public Domain).

Next year’s wide-open race for governor took some surprising turns recently.

Missy Hughes became the seventh Democratic candidate. Four-term Republican governor Tommy Thompson said he was thinking about running exactly 40 years after his first campaign. And a new poll gave Congressman Tom Tiffany an edge among Republican candidates and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who hasn’t announced for the job, a small lead among Democrats.

Let’s take them in that order.

The latest Democratic candidate, Missy Hughes, lives outside the western Wisconsin city of Viroqua, population 4,407, in Vernon County. Hughes resigned after six years as the CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) to run for governor.

She would be the first governor in 40 years from a rural area and boasts, “I’m not a politician – and that’s the point.”

Three Democratic candidates – State Sen. Kelda Roys, Rep. Francesca Hong and former Rep. Brett Hulsey – are from Madison. Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez is from Waukesha. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and union advocate and Brewers beer vendor Ryan Strnad are from the state’s largest county.

Hughes also touts about knowing what businesses need to start and thrive.

Before running the state agency, she says she spent 17 years helping Organic Valley co-op grow to $1 billion in sales, which kept “1,600 family farmers on their land.”

Her campaign website documents her pro-business chops from her time at WEDC this way:

“Major companies like Milwaukee Tool, Microsoft, Eli Lilly, Kikkoman… committed to invest over $10 billion and create 45,000 good-paying jobs across Wisconsin.

“She helped more than 9,500 Wisconsinites start small businesses on Main Streets across all 72 counties, launching the Main Street Bounceback Program which filled empty storefronts with small businesses like coffee shops, art studios and barber shops.”

Candidates for statewide office often claim to be “not a politician” – for example, Tim Michels, the construction company executive and Republican Party’s 2022 candidate for governor, who lost to Evers.

But when was the last time a “not a politician” candidate was elected governor? UW-Stevens Point chancellor Lee S. Dreyfus, a Republican, in 1978.

And who was the last governor elected from a rural area? Thompson, from Elroy, in 1986.

Which brings us to the trial-balloon idea of running Thompson floated in a WTMJ interview.

“I am still looking at it and I’m seriously looking at it,” Thompson said. “No decision has been made. But it’s certainly something that is not too far removed from my brain.”

Thompson, who will turn 84 on Nov. 19, was governor from 1987 until 2001, when he resigned to accept President George W. Bush‘s appointment as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. He left that job in 2005, ran for president for four months in 2007 and lost the 2012 U.S. Senate race to incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin. He is a business executive and global health care consultant.

If elected, Thompson would be 85 when inaugurated in 2027. The oldest current U.S. governor is Alabama Republican Kay Ivey who turns 81 on Oct. 15.

Finally, it was a Badger Battleground Poll done for Platform Communications that lifted Tiffany’s campaign to win the August primary for the Republican Party’s nomination for governor and stirred a potential campaign by Democrat Barnes, the Milwaukee native who served as lieutenant governor from 2019 to 2023 and lost a 2022 U.S. Senate campaign to incumbent Ron Johnson.

Platform Communications, which included statements from Republican and Democratic consultants in its report, said its 500-respondent survey was done Sept. 28-30 and found:

• Tiffany was backed in a GOP primary for governor by 30% of Republicans polled, followed by 14% for Eric Hovde, who lost last year’s U.S. Senate race to Baldwin. But 34% of Republicans surveyed said they were undecided. The second GOP announced candidate, Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann, got 4%.
• Barnes, president and founder of Forward Together Wisconsin, was supported in a potential August primary by 16% of Democrats, followed by Rodriguez, an announced candidate who got 8% in the survey. But 38% of Democrats asked said they were undecided. The poll reported Crowley’s support at 7%; Roys and Hong, 4% each, and Hughes, 2%.

Platform Communications did not give a margin of error for the poll.

No word on a potential run for governor by an eighth Democrat, two-term Attorney General Josh Kaul. Is every day that Kaul doesn’t say he will run a sign that he won’t?

Steven Walters started covering the Capitol in 1988. Contact him at stevenscotwalters@gmail.com