Complaint Accuses Mandela Barnes of Campaign Finance Violation

Mandela Barnes. (Public Domain).

Legal complaints have been filed with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission against Democrat Mandela Barnes’ campaign and a political action committee (PAC) benefiting the former lieutenant governor, alleging violations of state law.

The Barnes campaign insisted it did not violate the law in a response to Urban Milwaukee. The attorney filing the complaint is Michael Maistelman, who is supporting Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley’s campaign for governor in the Democratic primary.

The complaint makes two allegations involving The Long Run PAC, the successor PAC to Barnes’ U.S. Senate campaign in 2022.

First, that the Long Run PAC sponsored a statewide poll for Barnes in October 2025 but did not register as a Wisconsin political committee until about two months later, which appears to be a violation of state law.

The PAC paid Impact Research $62,000 on Oct. 14 for “polling consulting,” according to Federal Election Commission reports. Yet the PAC did not register with the state until Dec. 22, 2025, and under Wisconsin law it was required to do so before making any disbursements or incurring any obligations.

But the Barnes campaign pointed to a 2017 state Ethics Commission decision regarding a complaint against Republican candidate Andy Gronik for setting up a politically focused nonprofit called Stage W and commissioning a political poll without registering a campaign committee. The commission found that there was “no reasonable suspicion that a violation of the law occurred,” as a story by reporter Dan Bice noted.

The second violation charged in the complaint is that the PAC spent more than allowed to support Barnes’ gubernatorial campaign. Under state law, the maximum donation is $86,000, and the complaint charges that the PAC donated $112,000, including the $62,000 spent on the poll.

Maistelman argues the $62,000 was an in-kind contribution to the Barnes campaign, but a spokesperson for the campaign denies this, noting this was a “testing the waters” poll, which does not constitute the receipt of a “contribution” because the poll was (1) conducted for a private individual (Barnes) who had not yet registered as a candidate for governor; (2) not provided for the purpose of expressly advocating the success or defeat of the candidate; and (3) not commissioned for the purpose of bringing about the candidate’s nomination or election, but for the purpose of “testing the waters.”

Maistelman’s complaint was filed on behalf of a woman named Claudia Pogreba. “My client is asking for a thorough and impartial investigation so the public can have confidence that Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws are enforced equally for everyone,” the attorney told Urban Milwaukee.

His client “was referred to me by mutual friends,” he added. Pogreba is listed as donating $250 to the campaign of Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul.

Barnes Long Run PAC has gotten considerable negative coverage over the past two days, with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporting yesterday morning that the PAC was created to “invest in working-class candidates, young candidates, candidates of color and LGBTQ+ candidates,” but less than 15% of the committee’s spending went to candidates, with most of the funds going to administrative costs, consultants and salaries. And last night Drake Bentley’s story for the Milwaukee Courier was the first to report on the legal complaints by Maistelman.

Some Democratic observers suspect there is a battle of opposition research going on between the Crowley and Barnes campaigns. After Crowley re-entered the campaign for governor, Barnes himself issued two press releases attacking Crowley, one titled “David Crowley Left This Race for a Reason” and the other declaring “Crowley ‘Was Never Really Able to Catch Fire.’”

Four days later came a story, first reported by NBC and then by Urban Milwaukee, that some 15 years ago, when Crowley was in his mid-20s, he had a secret Twitter account with crude messages. It had the feel of a leaked story, perhaps by someone close enough to Crowley to know about his youthful indiscretions. And now we have an attorney who supports Crowley filing an ethics claim against Barnes.