Democrats seeking the party’s nomination for governor talk about many of the same goals when it comes to Wisconsin’s health care system: expanding access, reducing costs and ensuring quality.

Some of their proposals to those ends are almost identical. But key details vary. 

“If there’s one thing that’s a certainty, the context will change between now and when one of us takes office and has a Legislature that hopefully is going to work with us,” said Joel Brennan, former secretary of the Department of Administration, at a forum Wednesday conducted by Wisconsin Health News. “That context will change in the next nine to 10 months and we better be ready to change with it too.”

Brennan said his campaign’s health care policy will rest on four principles: broadening access to health care, particularly in rural areas; reducing costs; fostering a pathway to increase the health care workforce; and ensuring that mental health is “a basic part of health care.”

Other candidates have issued more detailed plans.

Former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO Missy Hughes announced a list of 10 proposals Wednesday.

“I’m really wanting to make sure that we’re addressing a very, very complicated problem in every different way,” Hughes said at the Wednesday forum.

Expanding Medicaid

Almost all of the seven major Democratic hopefuls have endorsed expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act — opening up the health insurance plan for low-income Americans to people with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty guideline.  When the ACA was enacted the federal government paid states that accepted expansion 90% of the additional cost.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers made repeated attempts to enact expansion after he took office in 2019, but couldn’t do it without the support of the Republican majority in the state Legislature because of a law passed the month before Evers was sworn in.

Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has made Medicaid expansion the central focus of his health care policy pitch. He has promised to veto the state budget if it doesn’t include Medicaid expansion.

“The fact that so many folks aren’t covered right now is a problem for everybody,” Barnes said at a forum Monday, because health care providers pass the cost of uncompensated care on to other patients or their insurance companies. The Monday forum was conducted by ABC for Health, a nonprofit law firm that assists low-income Wisconsinites trying to navigate health care coverage and medical debt.

Hughes also lists expanding Medicaid — referred to as BadgerCare in Wisconsin — among her 10 proposals. She would connect BadgerCare expansion to the creation of a public option health insurance plan that Wisconsinites could purchase through the ACA marketplace, HealthCare.gov.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley also favors combining expanded Medicaid with a public option for people to buy into the plan. “We already have the BadgerCare infrastructure that is already in place,” Crowley said at the Wednesday forum. “So I think it’s our responsibility to expand the people’s ability to actually pay into a BadgerCare public option.”

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez favors BadgerCare expansion as well as a public option health plan. Rather than combining them, however, she lists them as two of three health care initiatives she would pursue as governor. The third initiative is to institute a stabilization fund program to support struggling rural providers.  

The public option plan, to be sold on the ACA marketplace, “would be able to put downward pressure on costs across Wisconsin and have some price transparency within that,” Rodriguez said at the Monday forum. She pointed to examples in other states, including Colorado, where a public option health plan is also required to reduce its premium costs by 5% each year.

“Secondly, I do think that we should expand Medicaid in the state of Wisconsin,” Rodriguez said, noting Wisconsin is one of just 10 states that have not done so.

Rodriguez also observed that the 2025 “big, beautiful” tax and spending bill enacted by the Republican majority in Congress and signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, 2025, “makes it a little harder” for the state to expand Medicaid.

State Rep. Francesca Hong also included BadgerCare expansion and “a robust public option” health plan in a longer list of priorities during the Monday forum. Along with those, she called for lowering prescription drug costs, acting to “crack down on private insurers,” among other goals.

A Medicaid expansion dissent

An exception on Medicaid expansion is Sen. Kelda Roys. Although she has advocated Medicaid expansion going back to her years in the Assembly a decade ago, she argues now that it’s no longer practical.

An August 28 memo from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services declares that the 2025 tax and spending law includes “several traps making it cost and policy prohibitive for Wisconsin to expand Medicaid.”

The law requires Medicaid participants to prove they’re eligible every six months instead of annually as now — which advocates argue will lead more qualified recipients to be kicked out of the program. In addition, a $1.3 billion boost that Wisconsin would get for expanding Medicaid will end Dec. 31.

Expansion “is not feasible given the changes that the Trump administration has made right now,” Roys said Wednesday.

Instead, she has proposed allowing the general public to buy into the state health insurance plan that covers state employees. Wisconsin employers could buy into the plan to cover their workers, or individual Wisconsin residents could buy into it as an alternative to other private health insurance plans.

“We can lower costs, reduce uncompensated care, expand access to coverage, especially for small businesses,” Roys said.

Brennan has also proposed opening the state plan to the public, because it has broad participation as well as higher reimbursement rates for health providers, he said Wednesday. 

But he added that he thinks details on the public option should wait until the next governor takes office, so that experts in the state as well as from other states that have instituted a public option “can be part of that conversation.”

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Madison West High School brought Democratic candidates seeking the governor’s office to town halls last week where they answered questions from students. 

While Jackson Thomas and Clark Schrager, members of the school’s civics club, will not be old enough to vote in the upcoming election, they said students started hosting events with candidates a few years ago, seeking to give young people a voice and a way to participate in the electoral process. In 2024, West students hosted U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin for a town hall during her reelection bid. 

Thomas said not all of their peers, especially freshmen and sophomores, are necessarily paying attention to politics unless they are already interested in it, but they hope the events can bring more awareness. Many seniors heard from the candidates, Schrager said, and some will be 18 and eligible to vote in the August primary and in the November general elections.

“There’s a lot of passion in our school about issues,” Schrager said. “I think if you ask people if they cared about politics, they may say, no, but if you ask them if they cared about education or health care or gun reform, any of those issues, they would say yes. It’s kind of a generational thing for us that there’s a lot of disillusionment with the system as it is, but there’s not a movement away from participating in the political process. There are still people that care about a lot of the issues and want their voices to be heard.”

The students asked the candidates about some of the key issues that the next governor will shape, including affordability, the state’s stewardship program, health care accessibility, abortion, and funding for K-12 schools and the University of Wisconsin system.

Thomas, who is a member of March For Our Lives, said gun violence is among the issues he cares most about, and he hopes to see candidates take a stand on it and propose solutions. 

“It’s unfortunately an issue that I have to think about every day when I go to school,” Thomas said. “That’s something that’s normalized because many people feel it, but it’s a really terrifying thing to have to think about.” He said it’s an issue he wants to see elected officials “not just take a stand on, but put legislation towards changing.” 

Schrager said many students are also thinking about democracy and freedom. 

The students also asked candidates to name one thing that they agreed with Republicans on. 

“Digging into issues has kind of always been something that’s been taught to me, and I think seeing both sides is something really important to me,” said Schrager, whose parents are both journalists. “There’s been a lot of polarization that I think has moved us away from real policies that actually help everybody, and there’s been a lot of focus on hate and bigotry that I think drive us away from making actual changes that could help people.”

The race to succeed Gov. Tony Evers, who opted not to run for a third term, has become crowded on the Democratic side. Candidates who participated in the forums included Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, state Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison), state Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison), former Wisconsin Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, former Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation CEO Missy Hughes, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and former state Rep. Brett Hulsey. 

Schrager said something that gave him hope is “the fact that all these candidates came here and they seem genuinely curious about what students had to say.”

Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for governor, was not one of the participants last week, but the students said they hope to host him in the future. 

“We’re really committed to getting everybody’s viewpoint on all sides,” Schrager said. “We know Madison is a blue bubble. We know West High School is part of that blue bubble, but there are a lot of students here who will vote for him in the fall and will vote along Republican lines and they deserve to have their voices heard as well and hear somebody who aligns with them,” Schrager said. 

Thomas said he thinks that is especially important when they are “trying to bridge the gap between political polarization.”

Schrager agreed, adding that there are “students who will be voting for Democrats who will still fully benefit from hearing the other side.”

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Reading Time: 3 minutes

Democrat Mandela Barnes, who served four years as Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor and narrowly lost a 2022 U.S. Senate bid, jumped into the battleground state’s open race for governor on Tuesday.

Given his prominent name recognition and statewide funding network, Barnes enters the 2026 race as the presumptive front-runner in a crowded primary of lesser known candidates who have no built-in network of support.

Wisconsin is a politically divided state that elected President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2024 and President Joe Biden in 2020. All three elections were decided by less than a percentage point.

The message in Barnes’ campaign launch video will likely appeal to many Democratic primary voters. He highlights his father’s union background and attacks Trump, saying the Republican has focused on “distraction and chaos to avoid accountability.” He says Trump is focusing on “lower taxes for billionaires, higher prices for working people.”

But with an eye toward independent and swing voters, who will be key in the general election, Barnes pitches a moderate stance focused on the economy.

“It isn’t about left or right, it isn’t about who can yell the loudest. It’s about whether people can afford to live in the state they call home,” Barnes says in the video.

Barnes has met with some opposition among Democrats who have publicly expressed worries about him running after he lost the Senate race to Republican incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson three years ago. If he wins next year, he would become Wisconsin’s first Black governor.

“Mandela had his opportunity. He didn’t close. And that means it’s time for a new chapter,” the Black-owned Milwaukee Courier newspaper wrote in an Oct. 25 editorial. “We need a candidate who can unite this state — and win. Mandela Barnes already showed us he can’t.”

Barnes lost to Johnson by 1 percentage point, which amounts to just under 27,000 votes. He does not mention the Senate race in his campaign launch video.

After the defeat, he formed a voter turnout group called Power to the Polls, which he says has strengthened his position heading into the governor’s race. He also has a political action committee.

Barnes joins a crowded field in the open race for governor that already includes the current lieutenant governor, two state lawmakers, the highest elected official in the Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee County and a former state economic development director.

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, a staunch Trump supporter, is the highest-profile GOP candidate. He faces a challenge from Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann.

Tiffany called Barnes a “dangerous far-left extremist” and said voters “rejected him in 2022, and they will do it again in 2026.”

It will be Wisconsin’s highest-profile race next year, as Democrats angle to take control of the Legislature thanks to redrawn election maps that are friendlier to the party. They are targeting two congressional districts, as Democrats nationwide try to retake the House.

The governor’s race is open because current Democratic Gov. Tony Evers decided against seeking a second term. Barnes, a former state representative, won the primary for lieutenant governor in 2018 and served in that position during Evers’ first term.

The current lieutenant governor, Sara Rodriguez, was the first Democrat to get into the governor’s race this year. Others running include Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley; state Sen. Kelda Roys; state Rep. Francesca Hong; and former state economic development director Missy Hughes.

An August primary will narrow the field ahead of the November election.

The last open race for governor in Wisconsin was in 2010, when Democratic incumbent Jim Doyle, similar to Evers, opted not to seek a third term. Republican Scott Walker won that year and served two terms before Evers defeated him in 2018.

Evers won his first race by just over 1 percentage point in 2018. He won reelection by just over 3 points in 2022.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Democrat Mandela Barnes enters the Wisconsin governor’s race is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, a Milwaukee Democrat, announced Tuesday he’s running for governor in 2026.

Barnes served as lieutenant governor under Gov. Tony Evers from 2019 to 2023, the first African American to hold the position. He previously served in the state Assembly from 2013 to 2017.

Barnes’ entry into the race has long been anticipated, especially after a poll in early October showed him with the most support (16%) among a wide open field of Democratic contenders.

Wisconsin Watch has checked several claims related to Barnes during his unsuccessful 2022 campaign against Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson. Here’s what we found:

Defunding police: Barnes did not say that he supported defunding police, though in 2020 he backed reduced spending for Milwaukee police.

Gun rights: Barnes did say in a 2013 social media post he “could not care less about a 2nd Amendment ‘right.’ Bear arms all you wish, but you should pay for your mishandling.” In 2022, he said “we can respect the Second Amendment” while increasing “common-sense” gun control measures.

Immigration: Barnes did not say that he wanted to open U.S. borders. He backed a policy that “secures the border and also includes a path for citizenship.”

Abortion: Barnes did oppose the government legislating a limit on abortion, though a spokesperson at the time told Wisconsin Watch he didn’t support “abortion up until birth,” noting the standard before Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022 allowed limits on abortion after viability. He emphasized the abortion decision should be between a woman and her doctor.

Taxes: Barnes did not support raising taxes on the middle class, but rather backed middle-class tax cuts.

Criminal justice: As a state Assembly member in 2015, Barnes did vote against a law that expanded penalties for battery and threats against public officials.

Climate: Barnes did support the Green New Deal in 2021. During the 2022 campaign, he supported elements of the federal proposal to fight climate change while not referring to it by name.

Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes is running for governor. Here are 7 related claims we checked … and the facts is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.