Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, a Democrat, and Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany are facing off in November in the open race for governor of Wisconsin.
Crowley narrowly defeated democratic socialist state Rep. Francesca Hong in a competitive — and dramatic — Democratic primary, another battle pitting the insurgent left wing of the party, which has notched some major wins this year, against the more moderate and establishment-aligned faction.
Crowley, who had previously dropped out of the election, relaunched his campaign July 19, 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 and risky gambit to thwart the momentum of Hong, who had been gaining major traction in her campaign. But Evers’ plan paid off, with Crowley beating Hong by a razor-thin margin on election night. He also defeated State Sen. Kelda Roys and Joel Brennan, former secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Administration, who earned a combined 12 percent of the vote.
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The Democratic primary hade undergone several major shakeups in the final weeks before the August 11 primary. Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, the first major candidate to jump into the race, suspended her campaign July 17, 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, former Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, who unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate against GOP Sen. Ron Johnson in 2022, suspended his campaign after Politico reported he was considering dropping out ahead of potentially damaging media reports. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported his decision came amid ongoing reporting from the outlet “into allegations that Barnes was taking advantage of his role in the party to have sexual encounters with young adult women, which prompted an investigation last year by the state Democratic Party.”
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.
