A competitive — and dramatic — governor’s race is underway in Wisconsin. 

The Democratic primary has undergone a major shakeup with just weeks to go before the August 11 primary. It’s shaping up to be another battle pitting the insurgent left wing of the party, which has notched some major wins in other Democratic primary races this year, against the more moderate and establishment-aligned faction. 

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, the first major candidate to jump into the race, suspended her campaign on Friday, days after firing her campaign manager for what she described as “serious financial mismanagement and inaccuracies” in filing campaign finance reports that left her campaign with low cash on hand. 

Then, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who had previously dropped out of the election, relaunched his campaign Sunday with the support of outgoing Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who had previously been neutral in the race to replace him. 

The move was widely seen as a last-ditch effort to thwart the momentum of democratic socialist state Rep. Francesca Hong, who helped lead a push against then-President Joe Biden in 2024, and had been gaining traction in her campaign. 

Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate against GOP Sen. Ron Johnson in 2022; state Sen. Kelda Roys and Joel Brennan, former secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Administration, are also running in the Democratic primary.  

The Republican front-runner is Rep. Tom Tiffany, who represents Wisconsin’s 7th District. 

Hong said in a statement that she welcomed Crowley back into the race, saying: “I look forward to the perspective he’ll bring as we each bring our case to Wisconsinites over the next three weeks.”

“Competition is good for democracy, and voters deserve a substantive debate about the future of our state,” she added. 

But Barnes’ campaign manager Darby O’Connor asserted in a statement that Crowley “gained absolutely no traction” in the race and cast his reentry into it as a “Hail Mary” that “serves absolutely no purpose other than playing spoiler and handing our state to Trump’s handpicked candidate Tom Tiffany.”  

Evers, first elected in 2018, announced in July that he did not plan to run for a third term and that he wanted to spend time with family. 

Wisconsin is a perennial swing state with close statewide elections where voters split their tickets. Former President Joe Biden carried the state by around 20,000 votes in the 2020 election. In 2022, Evers won a second term as governor as GOP Sen. Ron Johnson defeated Barnes to win another term. In 2024, President Donald Trump flipped the state back with a narrow one-point win over former Vice President Kamala Harris as Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin won her race by just under one percentage point. 

Evers has been the rare Democratic governor serving in a state with a majority-Republican state legislature, though recent redrawings of state legislative lines have given Democrats a chance to make inroads in the legislature. 

Democrats notched a big win in the state in April with the election of liberal Judge Susan Crawford over conservative Judge Brad Schimel to an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, maintaining liberals’ majority on the court. 

In all, 36 governorships are up in 2026. Five Democratic-led states won by Trump in 2024 (Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) are holding elections for governor in 2026, while two Republican governors in states won by former Vice President Kamala Harris (New Hampshire and Vermont) are up for reelection.