'Not taking a single vote for granted': Barnes believes he can win governor's race despite 2022 defeat; shifts stance on school vouchers
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- When we last saw Mandela Barnes on the campaign trail, he fell short in his effort to unseat Republican Sen. Ron Johnson four years ago. Now, Barnes is one of the most recognizable figures in a crowded Democratic primary race for governor.
Barnes sat down with CBS 58 Thursday to discuss his campaign. In 2022, Barnes lost to Johnson by about 26,000 votes. On the same ticket, Gov. Tony Evers won a second term, defeating GOP challenger Tim Michels by more than 90,000 votes.
Even in his native Milwaukee County, Barnes captured a smaller share of the vote than Evers. On Thursday, Barnes said he's applying lessons from that campaign to the 2026 gubernatorial race.
"My race was the closest Senate race in [Wisconsin history]. It was the closest [Senate] challenge to an incumbent in the entire country," Barnes said. "And I'm not taking a single vote for granted. I'm showing up as if people have never heard of me before."
Barnes said a conversation with former President Barack Obama helped him move on from the 2022 defeat. He said Obama reminded him he'd lost a U.S. House primary race in 2000 and encouraged him to continue his community organizing work.
What has Barnes done in the four years since? He pointed to his efforts around voter registration efforts, noting Milwaukee had the largest turnout of the 50 largest U.S. cities in 2024, as well as his advocacy for public schools.
Prior to launching his Senate run, Barnes was elected lieutenant governor in 2018. He was elected to the state Assembly in 2012 and re-elected in 2014 before losing a primary race for state Senate in 2016.
Plans for schools, including a shift on vouchers
Barnes was a prominent support of Milwaukee Public Schools' (MPS) push in early 2024 for a $252 million referendum that narrowly passed.
When asked how the state can help MPS improve academic outcomes that currently rank among the worst in America, Barnes said the most important role of state government was addressing inequalities between students and school districts.
"We have issues of [student] homelessness," Barnes said. "We have issues of mental health access and physical health access that goes unaddressed."
Barnes said his top priority for improving student outcomes in Milwaukee would be providing more wraparound services and improving access to healthcare for families.
"It's not the brick and mortar of the school building that determines the outcome," Barnes said. "It's what our children are coming from and what they go back to after the school day has ended."
Nearly half of Milwaukee's children go to either charter or private voucher schools, so eliminating Wisconsin's School Choice program would affect thousands of the city's families.
At a candidate forum Wednesday, State Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) proposed a "sunset" of publicly funded vouchers, which allow low-income families to send their kids to private schools.
In 2015, Barnes co-sponsored a bill as a member of the Legislature that would have phased out the Milwaukee, Racine and statewide voucher programs.
When asked Thursday if he supported a sunset of the School Choice program, Barnes would not go that far. Instead, he said the state should place stricter standards on voucher recipients, including state oversight of their curriculum.
"I support a system of accountability, of a certain set of standards," Barnes said. "If you have public money, you should have public scrutiny, and I think about the number of students who are in these schools. If you were to close them overnight, where would a lot of our students go?"
On ICE? A call for enforcement standards but no ban on detainer deals
Barnes said he wanted to see the state impose stricter standards on how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operates in Wisconsin. Specifically, he called for laws prohibiting immigration officers from covering their faces and establishing officers must have a judicial warrant in order to make an arrest.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a suit last fall asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to rule detainer agreements between ICE and local police agencies are unconstitutional.
When asked if he'd sign a bill prohibiting such agreements, Barnes said he believed there are situations where it's permissible for police to cooperate with ICE.
"If we are explicitly, very specifically talking about people who have committed a violent crime? Sure," Barnes said. "That's the case with criminal justice in general."
Barnes said his bigger concern was ICE's treatment of American citizens. He pointed to the arrests of protestors in Minneapolis and reports of ICE officers raiding homes without a warrant.
"It has a become a system of enforcement that goes beyond immigration," Barnes said. "This is to cause fear and chaos in communities."
Budget priorities start with Medicaid expansion
Perhaps the most important role of the governor is proposing a state budget every two years, then eventually signing a budget while applying the use of powerful partial veto powers.
Barnes said if he's elected governor, his biggest non-starter would be the Legislature sending him a reworked budget that doesn't include an expansion of BadgerCare, the state's application of Medicaid for low-income residents.
"I will not sign a budget if BadgerCare is not expanded in this state," Barnes said. "It is a day one priority for me."
Barnes said his next biggest budget priority is restoring school funding to the point where the state covers two-thirds of K-12 districts' costs.
He noted that because of Wisconsin's school funding formula, increases to general state aid automatically lower the property tax limits school districts are allowed to levy.
"If we are funding our schools the level we are supposed to, school districts won't have to go to referendum to keep the doors open," Barnes said. "Ensuring that burden is not falling on people's property tax bills."
In the current state budget, Evers and GOP leaders agreed to not increase general school aid while also not addressed Evers' 2023 partial veto that allows districts to raise property taxes every year for the next 400 years.
You can watch past CBS 58 interviews with the following candidates:
David Crowley
Kelda Roys
Francesca Hong
Missy Hughes