Controversial Democrat Kirk Bangstad Can’t Run for Wisconsin Governor

Kirk Bangstad holds a can of “Nope, Not My President” sparkling water at the Minocqua Brewing Company Taproom in Madison, Feb. 4, 2024. Bangstad’s business and his political action committee are entwined. Rob Mentzer/WPR

The Wisconsin Elections Commission has denied Minocqua Brewing Co. owner Kirk Bangstad a spot on the ballot for the upcoming primary in the governor’s race.

The commission voted unanimously Tuesday to deny ballot access to the liberal firebrand and 67 other candidates for offices across Wisconsin. It comes after Elections Commission staff found that Bangstad only turned in 1,504 valid signatures, about 500 signatures short of the 2,000 required.

Earlier this month, the Elections Commission found that around 40 pages of signatures were invalid because they listed incorrect dates or were missing required address information.

After those findings from the commission were released, Bangstad took to social media to say that his campaign had a shot at fixing some of the mistakes that invalidated signatures, attacking the media in several of his posts about the issue.

At the time, he said he had until June 7 to cure the mistakes.

In materials prepared for Tuesday’s meeting, commission staff recommended denying Bangstad ballot access.

According to a Wisconsin Elections Commission spokesperson, Bangstad was denied a spot on the ballot because his campaign did not file enough correcting affidavits to cure errors in his nomination papers.

No challenge was filed against his nomination filings, so the commission didn’t explicitly talk about issues with his papers on Tuesday. The vote denying Bangstad ballot access came as part of the commission’s vote to certify candidates for the primary and general election.

Bangstad launched his bid for governor last month in a crowded Democratic primary field.

His announcement came just days after he was questioned by federal agents over comments he made on social media in April about an assassination attempt on President Donald Trump.

In the April post, Bangstad wrote, “Either a brother or sister in the Resistance needs to work on their marksmanship or he faked another assassination to get a positive news cycle.”

His comments were condemned by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Bangstad has often courted controversy and engaged in legal and social media disputes. They have included a civil defamation judgment over false claims about a publisher, zoning and legal disputes with local officials and scrutiny over how his political PAC spends donor money.

In an email sent Tuesday before the commission’s vote, Bangstad said his campaign submitted more than 2,000 signatures and corrected as many as possible, arguing he should be on the ballot.

“If we’re still not allowed on the ballot, we’ll pursue any possible avenues still available to us to get on it,” he wrote. “These decisions by the election committee staff are subjective and don’t reflect that work that we’ve done to collect the required amount of signatures to get on the ballot. We did the work, we deserve to be in this primary.”

According to a memo from Wisconsin Elections Commission, agency staff reviewed candidates’ nomination papers in accordance with state administrative rules and struck signatures for a variety of reasons, many of which related to missing information.

The memo states commission staff reviewed hundreds of thousands of signatures.

The document adds that staff recommended denying ballot access to candidates who did not get the minimum number of valid signatures, did not file all necessary documents and did not meet other legal requirements.

Controversial liberal Kirk Bangstad denied ballot access in bid for Wisconsin governor was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.