Ben Brist Defeats Longtime Milwaukee Politician Bob Donovan

Ben Brist. Photo courtesy of Brist’s campaign.

The long run of Milwaukee-area politician Bob Donovan came to an end Tuesday night as Democrats swept elections in Wisconsin and across the country.

A Republican and former alderman on the south side of the City of Milwaukee, Donovan finally met his match in Democrat Ben Brist, a young Army veteran running a well-financed campaign. With all in-person votes counted Tuesday night, Brist won with 55% of the vote.

Brist served seven years on active duty as an officer in the paratroopers and recently earned a master’s degree from Harvard Kennedy School. During his time in graduate school, Brist interned for U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin. He went into the election Tuesday with support from a long list of unions and traditional Democratic allies such as Planned Parenthood.

With all in-person votes counted, Brist won the seat with 59% of the vote. Brist’s victory provided an important pickup in the Democrats’ bid to take control of the state Assembly for the first time since 2010. Democrats spent heavily to defeat Donovan. The state party and legislative campaign committees donated a combined total of more than $1.6 million to the Brist campaign.

A former long-serving member of the Milwaukee Common Council, Donovan had a knack for political survival, overcoming the effect of scandals that have dogged him for years related to his residency and a 1992 disorderly conduct ticket for peeping through a hole in the partition between restroom stalls in a men’s room at UW-Milwaukee.

Having spent most of his political career surrounded by Democrats, Donovan did manage to work across the aisle with Milwaukee Democrats both in City Hall and as a legislator in Madison.

His defeat Tuesday helped Democrats flip the state Legislature and secure a trifecta in state government, following the election of Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley.