Evers Defeats Michels, Wins Second Term
Democrats score key win, maintain roadblock on Republican policies.
Governor Tony Evers speaks at a violence prevention press conference at the COA Goldin Center. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
Holy mackerel. Voters gave Tony Evers four more years as Wisconsin’s governor.
Evers defeated Republican challenger Tim Michels after a hotly-contested race with record spending. Michels conceded the race just after midnight.
“Holy mackerel, how about that,” said the governor in his victory speech. Evers said he was “jazzed as hell” to be re-elected.
Evers, 71, outperformed Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, his 2018 running mate. State Rep. Sara Rodriguez (D-Brookfield) will now serve as Evers’ lieutenant governor.
Barnes’s race against Ron Johnson was too close to call at the time of publication.
Evers is a former educator that served as the State Superintendent of Public Instruction before defeating incumbent Republican governor Scott Walker in 2018. He has positioned himself as a lifetime educator and leaned heavily into his folksy style in recent years.
During the campaign, Michels’ was dogged by allegations that he was truly a Connecticut resident. He was a late entrant into the race and upset likely Evers’ challenger Rebecca Kleefisch.
Evers was up by three percentage points when Michels conceded.
On the campaign trail, Evers said his number one priority for the upcoming state budget would be repairing the fiscal relationship between the state and the cities. The state has a $5 billion budget surplus, while Milwaukee and other cities are increasingly starved for revenue under myriad state restrictions.
