Barnes’ Heavy Baggage

In what will compete for the least surprising story of 2025, Mandella Barnes officially entered the race for Wisconsin governor yesterday.

There had been an effort to keep him out. The Black-owned Milwaukee Courier newspaper, which endorsed Barnes in his 2022 U.S. Senate bid, wrote an October editorial urging him against a gubernatorial run.

“Mandela had his opportunity,” the outlet wrote. “He didn’t close. And that means it’s time for a new chapter. A messy 2026 primary is a gift to the GOP — and a risk we simply can’t afford. We can’t waste energy on that.”

In addition, there was a behind-the-scenes effort by some Democrats to convince Barnes to take a pass. Their concern is that Barnes had a good chance to win the primary, but was among the weakest potential candidates in a general election. There is also some unhappiness with Barnes — as the Courier expressed — that he lost to Johnson, who had appeared to be vulnerable. While he lost by a narrow 27,000 vote margin, Tony Evers easily defeated his Republican opponent by 80,000 votes. Barnes even ran behind Evers in Milwaukee County.

I also have a concern that, because Barnes is popular with the hard-left, the other candidates in the field might feel the need to run to their left to capture some of that vote, making the ultimate nominee less electable, no matter who it is.

A recent poll found that Barnes, even before he announced, led the crowded Democratic field, but with only 16%. Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez was second with 8%.

This is shaping up a lot like that 2022 Senate race. Another Democrat should replace Evers just as a Democrat should have defeated Johnson. Next year should be good for Democrats with an unpopular Republican in the White House. And the GOP has become not so much a party as the cult of Trump. A lot of his voters don’t show up when he’s not on the ballot. Finally, the presumptive Republican nominee, Congressman Tom Tiffany, appears at this point to be a weak candidate.

So, most any Democrat who wins the nomination should have a leg up going into November. It’s really a question of which candidates among them would have the best chance of holding the advantage through election day.

And this brings us to the main trouble with Barnes. HIs greatest weakness is not likely to be anything he says between now and next August when the primary will take place. Rather his problem is everything he’s ever said in the past as a state legislator and a lieutenant governor. It’s the same problem Kamala Harris had last year. She couldn’t outrun her past, even while she made a strong attempt to move to the center.

Barnes has been a leader in the Working Families Party, an unapologetically hard-left organization. Opposition researchers will scour everything anybody in that party has ever said or done and place it squarely on Barnes’ shoulders. In fact, Barnes tip toed right up to supporting the “defund the police” debacle when that was popular on the left. He claims to never have said it, which appears to be true, but that’s hardly convincing when he did, in fact, support reduced funding for the Milwaukee police and he was supported by groups who did fully embrace the defund slogan. So, Barnes was for actually defunding the police as opposed to just saying he was for defunding the police.

I’ve talked to some people active within the party who tell me that the Courier has it right, that even activists remain disappointed in Barnes for not beating Johnson, and that they just want to win this time.

Maybe so. It’s much too early to tell. But what’s certain is that Barnes has complicated the calculation for Democrats and not in a good way.