Democratic candidate Yee Leng Xiong was elected the next Wisconsin state treasurer Tuesday, edging out Republican incumbent John Leiber. 

With 98% of the votes counted, AP called the race at 12:40 a.m. Wednesday.  Xiong led with just under 52% of the vote to just over 48% for Leiber.

Leiber had been the only Republican to win statewide office, other than Sen. Ron Johnson, in Wisconsin’s 2022 election.

The state treasurer is a relatively low-visibility office, but is included in the Wisconsin Constitution. An amendment that would have eliminated the office failed in 2018.

Besides signing state checks (technically done by machine), the primary duty of the treasurer is serving with the secretary of state and the attorney general on the state Board of Commissioners of Public Lands.

In his reelection campaign, Leiber emphasized focusing on the job of treasurer as it was outlined in the state constitution and statutes. He prided himself on not expanding the duties of the office and instead simply focusing on the job of treasurer as it was outlined in the state constitution and statutes.

Xiong campaigned saying he would seek to act as a watchdog over state finances, serving as “an independent voice for taxpayers and to make sure Wisconsin’s money is managed responsibly, transparently, and in the public interest.”

He cited his experience as a member of the Marathon County Board as well as a local school board treasurer. 

A Wausau native and the son of Hmong refugees from Southeast Asia, Xiong is the first person of Hmong descent to hold statewide office in Wisconsin. 

The 2026 race for Wisconsin state treasurer is a contest between two visions for the office — a Republican incumbent who has centered his case on doing the job without “growing government,” and a Democratic challenger who believes the position could take a higher profile.

The campaign website for Republican incumbent John Leiber, who is seeking reelection, says that in his first term he “hasn’t added programs or built a bigger office,” but instead stuck to the list of duties assigned to the state treasurer.

Democratic challenger Yee Leng Xiong is a Marathon County Board member and treasurer of the DC Everest School Board in Weston, Wisconsin, southeast of Wausau. His campaign website says he intends to “act as an independent watchdog for Wisconsin taxpayers” advocating “transparent management and investment of public funds.”

The state treasurer’s office is among those identified in the Wisconsin Constitution. “The office was first imagined by the state’s founders as a check on the government’s financial decisions and a steward of its public lands,” the treasurer’s office website states.  

Over the years lawmakers have transferred or eliminated many of its duties, including cash and debt management, the state’s 529 education savings plan and the state local government investment pool. 

In 2018, however, Wisconsin voters rejected an amendment that would have eliminated the elected office from the constitution.

After that vote, Sarah Godlewski, who had led the campaign against the amendment, ran for state treasurer in 2018 and won, stating the agency should be a fiscal watchdog. In office, Godlewski took on public-facing roles, including working with county treasurers and promoting retirement security programs.

Godlewski didn’t seek a second term, instead joining three other Democrats seeking the party nomination to run for U.S. Senate in 2022. In early 2023 Gov. Tony Evers appointed her as Wisconsin Secretary of State when the incumbent, Doug La Follette, resigned shortly after taking office for his 12th consecutive term. Godlewski is now the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor. 

The state treasurer’s remaining official duties include signing state checks (technically done by machine) and serving with the secretary of state and the attorney general on the state Board of Commissioners of Public Lands.

The board manages 75,000 acres of former federal land now held in trust for Wisconsin schools and also manages four trust funds. The largest, the Common School Fund, makes annual donations to school library systems. Over the last four years the Common School Fund has grown to about $1.6 billion, and the annual payments to libraries from the fund have grown each year, reaching $73.5 million in 2025-26.

Republican John Leiber

When John Leiber ran in 2022 against a Democrat who campaigned on continuing Godlewski’s approach, Leiber emphasized instead focusing on the job of treasurer as it was outlined in the state constitution and statutes. Other than Sen. Ron Johnson, Leiber was the only Republican that year to win a statewide office in Wisconsin.

Leiber has been a state legislative aide and has worked in the state Department of Revenue in the tax division. On the job since 2023, he has emphasized maintaining a lean office and focusing on his role on the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands. 

“This is the only dedicated funding for school libraries statewide and my top priority is to ensure the fund continues to thrive in the future,” Leiber said when he announced his reelection campaign a year ago.

Leiber’s campaign website states that in office, he “has not built a bureaucracy or invented new programs. He has administered the constitutional duties of the office, advocated for fiscal restraint with the Legislature, and focused on the assets he is charged to oversee.”

Democrat Yee Leng Xiong

Yee Leng Xiong has built a resume that includes election to multiple levels of state government as well as experience in running a nonprofit and membership on a state financial literacy council appointed by Gov. Tony Evers.

Xiong is a Wausau native whose parents were Hmong refugees from Southeast Asia. If elected he would be the first Hmong official elected to a Wisconsin statewide office.

Xiong says he can act as an independent watchdog over state finances.

“As Treasurer, you don’t answer to the Governor or the Legislature — you answer directly to the people,” Xiong said in January when he announced his candidacy. “I’m running to be an independent voice for taxpayers and to make sure Wisconsin’s money is managed responsibly, transparently, and in the public interest.”

On his campaign website, Xiong says that he has “experience managing budgets at every level of government” and is committed to “transparency and accountability.”

He also says he can bring his school board experience to bear in the decisions by the public lands board because he “understands firsthand how trust fund decisions impact local schools and students.”

A Wisconsin Democratic Party lawsuit is part of a broader response to the Trump administration’s use of taxpayer funds to pay for partisan ads, a lawyer whose organization is handling the case told reporters Monday.

“It is important to pursue multiple angles of attack and ensure that there is a clear court order” to block the administration’s action, said Norm Eisen, a co-founder and board member of Democracy Defenders Action, during an online news conference Monday afternoon.

Democracy Defenders Action and the law firm Hecker Fink are representing the Democratic Party of Wisconsin in a lawsuit filed Friday. The ads, aired on broadcast, cable and streaming platforms, were labeled as paid for by the U.S. government but promoted the actions of the Trump administration and criticized opponents of President Donald Trump, the lawsuit charged.

“Using that taxpayer money to pay for political ads is illegal, unconstitutional, and just wrong,” Eisen said Monday. Other ads “actually were recycled Trump campaign ads simply relabeled ‘paid for by the United States government.’”

Despite Trump administration claims that the payment for the ads was being shifted from the federal government to a Trump-supporting super PAC, Devin Remiker, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said he saw some of the government-funded ads as recently as Sunday’s Green Bay Packers football game.

“It is very clear that we cannot take this administration or Republicans at their word and we have to hold them accountable through the courts,” Remiker said.

The Wisconsin Democrats’ lawsuit is one of three that have been filed against the ad campaign. The political watchdog group Common Cause and the Democratic National Committee filed suits last week demanding that the taxpayer-funded ads stop. A New York federal judge issued an order Sunday blocking the ads.

Eisen said a hearing to seek another temporary restraining order against the ads is scheduled this week in Washington, in the Democratic National Committee’s lawsuit, and that the Wisconsin plaintiffs would join that effort.

He said the state party’s lawsuit reflected the fact that elections are not merely national, but are administered at the state and local level as well. “We felt it was very important even though other litigation was going on to have a state party that was speaking out, to have a state candidate that was speaking out,” Eisen said. “Ours is the only case involving a state party and a state candidate.”

Along with the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, the Democratic candidate for state treasurer in November, Yee Leng Xiong, is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit. He joined the lawsuit “to hold the Trump administration accountable for using your taxpayer dollars for ads promoting himself,” Xiong said. “Our tax dollars should serve the people, not promote a politician.”