Saturday, June 13: Sorting out the crowded Democratic gubernatorial primary, meet the candidates who want to take on the GOP state treasurer, Supreme Court takes another redistricting case, Republicans hitch their star to Trump, a Harvard-trained graduation speaker at a Wisconsin prison
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“I want you all to reach for the stars, because I’m standing here proof that sometimes when you reach for one you can actually grab it.”
– Christopher Medina-Kirchner, a teaching fellow and post-doctoral research scientist at Harvard Medical School, speaking at a graduation ceremony at the Racine Youthful Offender Correctional Facility where he was once incarcerated
Political races up and down the ballot in Wisconsin are underway, with a wide-open governor’s race and legislative control up for grabs after a contentious August primary (Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
New
St. Mary’s Hospital nurses voted to unionize Thursday, Erik Gunn reports, in the largest representation election in Wisconsin in at least a quarter century.
Minocqua Brewing Company owner and political gadfly Kirk Bangstad said Friday beer was seized from his Madison and Minocqua outlets by Wisconsin Department of Revenue officials in a dispute over permits and excise taxes, Gunn reports.
Primary season heats up
The Examiner is running weekly profiles of the Democrats vying for their party’s nomination for governor. Last week Baylor Spears sat down with former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who says his statewide experience is a strong case for his candidacy — including his narrow loss to Sen. Ron Johnson in 2022. On Friday, we published Gunn’s profile of Missy Hughes, the former CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., who frames the issues facing Wisconsin in economic terms and sees that lens and her expertise as a unique strength among the Democratic hopefuls.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission finished hearing challenges to candidate access to the 2026 ballot, ruling that a few contenders including Bangstad did not meet the requirements to participate, Henry Redman reports, while overruling other challenges and allowing 7th Congressional District candidates to participate.
Further down the ballot, two Democrats are vying for their party’s nod to challenge Wisconsin’s only Republican state official, Treasurer John Leiber. Baylor Spears reports on all three campaigns.
More election-related news
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a challenge to the state’s congressional maps. The case is the second congressional maps lawsuit the Court has accepted in recent weeks, again raising the ire of the Court’s conservative minority. Henry Redman reports
In a commentary, Editor Ruth Conniff watches Republican U.S. Reps. Derrick Van Orden and gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany lavish praise on President Donald Trump in Chippewa Falls, and wonders whether it will pay off as Trump’s approval dips and the effects of his policies hit home in Wisconsin.
Votebeat’s Dion Nissenbaum and Alexander Shur report on the FBI interview with a Wisconsin 2020 election denier and how the investigation of ballots in Milwaukee might have more to do with 2026.
Jonathan Shorman examines President Trump’s attacks on a slow vote count in California and what it might mean for future challenges of the results of the 2026 midterms.
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Correction: Yesterday’s newsletter mistakenly misidentified the authors of the Votebeat story on Milwaukee election investigations. We regret the error.
Christopher Medina-Kirchner greets graduates at the Racine correctional institution where he was incarcerated before he became a Harvard researcher (Photo courtesy Wisconsin Department of Correcrtions)
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