Amy Stocklein / Victoria Davis
Don’t let your Facebook feed fool you. The Madison mayoral race between Paul Soglin and challenger Satya Rhodes-Conway is shaping up to be a close one. The mayor enjoys universal name recognition. He shepherded the city through the contentious Walker years that tightened local budgets across the state. Soglin is running on accomplishments made in the past eight years and bold promises befitting the legacy he’s built over a four-decade political career.
Yet, the longest-serving mayor in city history won the five-way Feb. 19 primary by only a few hundred votes. Soglin, 73, has conceded in the past that two consecutive terms “is long enough” for any mayor to serve. Rhodes-Conway, 48, came in a close second and can expect support from many of the voters who cast 71 percent of the ballots against the mayor in the primary. Her experience on the Common Council and as director of the UW-Madison Mayors Innovation Project make her one of the most qualified people in decades to challenge an incumbent mayor. Rhodes-Conway argues the city faces new challenges, and stubborn old ones, that require fresh eyes.
Former Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, an Isthmus contributor, is one-and-one in elections against Soglin. He’s taken by the similarity of his first primary in 2003 — where he edged out the mayor by just 182 votes — and the results of the primary on Feb. 19. Just like Rhodes-Conway, Cieslewicz saw strong support in the politically active isthmus districts and the surrounding neighborhoods in the core of the city, while Soglin did well in the peripheral neighborhoods.
To win, Cieslewicz says Rhodes-Conway needs to do three things. “Hold on to the 10,000 voters she got in the primary — that shouldn’t be too hard,” says Cieslewicz. She also needs the lion’s share of the voters who went for Raj Shukla and Maurice Cheeks in the primary. And finally, she must convince the voters who skipped the primary, but will in the general election, to vote for her. “That’s a bit trickier.”
Tech executive Scott Resnick, who lost to Soglin in the 2015 mayor’s race, agrees.
“This race is not going to be decided by the 4,000 or so people who sit on Facebook and opine about the Madison mayor’s race,” Resnick says. “Although [Soglin] may not be super popular among some who are very active in the local political scene, he clearly has huge name recognition and is well liked by those outside of that group. Satya has to introduce herself to these voters.”
Since the primary, Rhodes-Conway has been courting voters wherever she can find them. Unlike the other primary challengers, she’s not framing the race as a referendum on Soglin, and instead provides “her own vision for the city.” Soglin, however, criticizes Rhodes-Conway for downplaying progress that he’s made. He argues that he is more “realistic” and politically courageous than his opponent. Soglin isn’t running as a candidate for mayor, he’s running as the mayor.
Is Madison ready for a new one?
A drab, third-floor classroom in UW-Madison’s Educational Sciences Building is full of college Democrats on March 7, the eve of International Women’s Day. The group is here for a panel discussion featuring state Reps. Shelia Stubbs and Chris Taylor (who represent Madison), Milwaukee County Supv. Felesia Martin, and Rhodes-Conway. They take turns explaining how they got into politics.
“It takes women being asked seven, eight, nine, 10 times before they take running seriously,” Rhodes-Conway tells the group. “Ask a woman in your life to run for something because we need to hear it.”
Rhodes-Conway got into politics after volunteering for one of Tammy Baldwin’s cgressional campaigns. In 2005, she joined the Mayors Innovation Project, which bills itself as a network “among American mayors committed to high-road policy and governance.” She ran for the city council in 2007, beating out three other candidates in a competitive race. Her work at the Mayors Innovation Project complemented her duties on the council, where she served three terms.
“It was very useful for me to understand how things really worked inside city government in terms of advising cities across the country,” she says. “And it was very useful to have time to study city policy to figure out what we needed to do in Madison.”
Rhodes-Conway says people have been asking her to run for mayor since she left the council in 2013. Two years ago, she began taking those requests seriously.
“The issues that were the most important to me were not being worked on,” Rhodes-Conway tells the college students. “I’ve never been comfortable telling somebody else what they should do to fix something. But I am the kind of person who wants to step up and put my hand to the plow and get to work. So that’s what I’m doing.”
When asked by Isthmus how she’d differ from Soglin, Rhodes-Conway says she’ll champion an agenda “critical to the future health of the city” that the mayor has been too slow to implement.
“Affordable housing. A rapid transit system. A real focus on achieving racial equity and supporting low-income communities. Dealing with the impacts of climate change. These are the challenges the city faces,” Rhodes-Conway says. “Besides basics services, we’re going to have to ask: What’s a want, what’s a need?”
Rhodes-Conway asks the students for their votes and offers some advice. “Nobody feels like they are ready when they run the first time. Really, what it’s about is bringing your experience and your perspective to government,” she says. “Do be prepared. Do get all your friends to help. Don’t be afraid to ask for money.”
Rhodes-Conway is doing all three in her bid for mayor. Since the primary, she has held a “multicultural meet and greet,” attended a fundraiser with state Democratic Party influencers in Milwaukee, and a “Girl Scouts cookies and wine pairing” event in Madison. She’s held yard sign making parties and canvassed neighborhoods. She’s taking time off from her day job to campaign and has been spotted working on her laptop during the lunch hour in the glass-walled study rooms at the Central Library.
“We have a strategy of contacting voters where they are. Whether that’s in the forums or events or literally door-to-door,” says Rhodes-Conway. “That worked really well for us in the primary.”
Soglin has been on the mayoral ballot 20 times since 1971 — the year Rhodes-Conway was born. He’s won 18 times (including the three times he advanced to the general election with second-place primary showings). He’s never lost a re-election race. Soglin has been mayor for more than two decades, with his current tenure starting in 2011.
Soglin’s campaign strategy is simple: Be the mayor.
One benefit of running for your ninth term is that you need no introduction. Unlike Rhodes-Conway, Soglin isn’t taking time off from his day job. But he is out in the public eye.
Mayor Soglin attended the groundbreaking of a 94-unit apartment complex, which the city contributed to, on the far-east side March 1. The apartments target families making $30,000 to $50,000 a year. In Soglin’s recent terms, the city has spearheaded the creation of more than 1,000 affordable housing units, 160 of which serve the formerly homeless.
Also on March 1, Soglin held a news conference to explain how Gov. Tony Evers’ proposed state budget would affect the city. On March 5, Soglin again called a news conference to announce that with the help of a state grant the city would add 20 electric vehicles.
Soglin, however, may have damaged his incumbent advantage last summer. While running for the Democratic nomination for governor, Soglin said in July 2018 that he would not seek re-election for mayor. (He also said he’d be “perfectly comfortable” endorsing Rhodes-Conway.) Two months after he finished seventh in the August gubernatorial contest, Soglin flip-flopped and entered the mayor’s race. That left longtime supporters like Stuart Levitan — who had been supporting Rhodes-Conway — in a bind. “Paul is an exceptional mayor and Satya has all the makings of an exceptional mayor,” Levitan, a local author, says diplomatically. “If you look at it like that, Madison should be in good hands either way.”
Bert Zipperer, a former council member who lost a mayoral bid in 2003, says that while he admires the mayor, he’s voting for Rhodes-Conway.
“I’m a fan of Paul’s. I have a lot of affection for him and I think he’s been a courageous mayor,” says Zipperer. But he can’t get beyond Soglin’s about-face to run again. “I’m sorry — I have a hard time with that one.”
Rhodes-Conway won many of the isthmus wards while Soglin performed well on the periphery.
Click here for a more detailed view of the map above.
Rhodes-Conway may be the challenger but the local political establishment is firmly in her camp. She’s been endorsed by Dane County Executive Joe Parisi as well as 50 current and retired elected officials. If elected, Rhodes-Conway would be the first openly gay mayor in city history.
Cieslewicz calls Soglin the conservative in the race.
“Satya is going to have to attract at least some support outside of the isthmus. My guess is that [these voters] are liberal but not Green New Deal liberal,” says Cieslewicz. “Whatever you think of his demeanor, Paul comes off as the guy who can keep the lights on.”
School board candidate David Blaska, an actual conservative, says Soglin will likely carry his supporters. “He’s not quite as outrageous as Satya,” Blaska says. “I saw one Facebook post from Satya and she basically said, ‘vote for me because I’m a lesbian.’ It’s that kind of identity politics that’s hurting the country.”
Soglin counts several big developers in town as financial supporters: Steven Hovde, Terrence Wall, David and Leonard Simon (Veridian Homes), Bruce Bosben (Apex Property Management), and Gary Gorman have all cut Soglin checks for over $1,000. Some have given $4,000. The latest campaign finance reports cover spending before Feb. 4. As of that date, Soglin had $72,500 in his campaign chest; Rhodes-Conway had $10,100. Soglin is expected to run TV ads; the Rhodes-Conway campaign would not say whether it would run TV ads.
The next campaign finance reports are due March 25. Resnick says after his 2015 primary, raising money against a well-known incumbent was hard.
“I wasn’t able to raise the money to reach out to that larger voting base. Just getting your name out there is one part of the battle,” says Resnick. “The other one is having a message and setting a vision that 50.1 percent of Madison can get behind. [Rhodes-Conway’s] challenge is how does she reach people that, generally, think Madison is on the right track?”
Soglin emerged from his razor-thin primary victory with bones to pick.
“Having done such a great job the past eight years isn’t good enough compared to people who make exaggerated claims on what they think ought to be done,” Soglin said the day after the primary on WORT 89.9 FM’s A Public Affair.
In the primary campaign, Cheeks and Shukla painted Soglin as a stubborn leader unable or unwilling to address the deep racial disparities in the community. Basically, an old white guy who refuses to get out of the way.
Soglin eagerly defends his record.
“What occurred in this city in the prior decade, particularly in the previous four years following the Great Recession, was shameful and disgraceful,” Soglin tells Isthmus. “We were in terrible shape in disparities in regards to unemployment, household income and children living in poverty — particularly with African American families. The situation in 2011 was worse than it was in 2000 — after I left office the second time.”
Soglin says U.S. Census Bureau data shows fewer black households are living below the poverty line since he’s been back in office. There have also been employment gains for people of color. Soglin cites a Brookings Institution report that found that Madison was one of just 11 metro areas in the country in 2016 to achieve “inclusive economic growth and prosperity by posting improvements across every measure.”
Soglin highlights years that Rhodes-Conway was on the council. “I’ve been perceived as being disagreeable in the past eight years. But when it came time to redirect city priorities, I ran into a buzzsaw,” says Soglin. “Not only was there the challenge to take on disparities but there was the refusal of the city council to stop the reckless spending practices and focus on these challenges.”
On that, Rhodes-Conway pushes back.
“He really likes that narrative. I don’t think the story is as clean as Mayor Soglin likes to make it,” she says. “The capital budget has been growing fairly consistently, over a long time period, over multiple mayoral periods.”
The data shows the city’s debt load has been rising since 1999, even under Soglin. Ald. Larry Palm — who has served on the council since 2005 but is not running for re-election — says after the economic collapse in 2008, interest rates and construction costs “were ridiculously cheap.”
“It was absolutely logical to make investments in our infrastructure, in our community,” says Palm, who hasn’t endorsed a candidate. “At the time, I remembering thinking this can’t last but that we should take advantage of it now. It didn’t last and I do think some on the council got used to building three libraries, police stations and fire stations every budget.”
Rhodes-Conway has made bus rapid transit a centerpiece of her campaign. She says the lack of collaboration has stymied the launch of high-capacity, limited stop bus routes on major thoroughfares.
“We cannot absorb the increase in traffic that is projected to come with our population growth without the city having a bus rapid transit system. We are going to form partnerships with the county, surrounding municipalities, eventually the school district, with the business communities, with UW and other educational institutions,” she says. “These conversations are already happening. This is work that’s being done — but not by the city. We need leadership to finally make it happen.”
Rhodes-Conway claims the city has been working on launching a bus rapid transit system for 30 years. Soglin gripes that’s “a gross distortion.” In 2017, Soglin says he proposed committing $275,000 to plan for a bus rapid transit system “for the first time in city history.”
“It wasn’t done in 2007. It wasn’t done in 2008 or 2009,” says Soglin. “Nobody on the city council [proposed funding] it in 2010 or 2011, including Ald. Satya Rhodes-Conway.”
Unlike Rhodes-Conway, Soglin is hesitant to launch bus rapid transit without federal assistance, or creation of a regional transit authority that could fund the system. “I frankly have no idea why we haven’t nailed that yet,” says Rhodes-Conway, referring to the federal grants. “I think it’s a lack of focus on transit as a priority.”
Rhodes-Conway is less eager to implement a project that Soglin champions: the public market.
“Would it be nice for Madison to have a public market? Yes, absolutely. It would be a lovely thing to have. Is it at the top of the list of priorities? No,” says Rhodes-Conway. “People aren’t going to be able to afford to live here. We have to stay focused on what makes it possible for people to live in, work in Madison and enjoy our quality of life.”
That grinds the mayor’s gears. Soglin says the market isn’t intended to be a frivolous amenity, but instead addresses both economic development and nutritional needs for communities of color.
Soglin argues that the food policies he established have been key to closing disparities. “Before 2011, there was no discussion about nutrition. There was no discussion about areas that had a deficit in terms of access to food. We didn’t have a summer lunch program for children,” says Soglin. “We didn’t have the Healthy Retail Food Initiative, which has funded two areas that lost their groceries. Now we have Willy Street North and Luna’s at Allied Drive. Setting up that funding system, that vision was all mine.
“I’m not satisfied with the [level of disparities],” he adds. “But we’ve turned the direction in terms of the critical areas of disparities. We need to know what we’ve done right, in order to do more.”
Rhodes-Conway doesn’t see the progress that Soglin brags about. “When you talk to people of color in this community, they will tell you that we aren’t making progress. That’s who I believe,” she says. “The other thing is... I know that the sample size on the data here in Madison is such that you cannot draw those conclusions from the data.”
If elected, Rhodes-Conway says she would take a different approach. “It starts with admitting we have a problem and being willing to actually acknowledge the work that needs to be done and to talk to the most impacted communities on how to move forward,” says Rhodes-Conway. “It all starts with good community engagement.”
So there you have it: A seasoned veteran who says “he’s getting the job done” versus a worthy challenger who says she has the “experience and vision.” The debate is far from over.
Before the election, Soglin and Rhodes-Conway will joust over the issues at eight public forums. Isthmus, WORT 89.9 FM, The Progressive magazine, the Madison Public Library, Downtown Madison Inc. and Capitol Neighborhoods Inc. will grill the candidates at the Central Library on March 18. West High school students, Dane Dems, Centro Hispano and the East Side Progressives are also hosting forums.
Ruben Anthony Jr., head of the Urban League of Greater Madison, will moderate a March 15 forum with panelists from 100 Black Men, African American Council of Churches, Madison Black Women Rock and NAACP Dane County. “We will definitely be focusing on questions that are important to and impact African Americans and people of color,” Anthony says.
Anthony has lived in Madison most of his life. He says assessing whether racial disparities were worse in 2000, 2011 or 2019 is beside the point.
“Some days I witness how Madison, as a community, is making real progress in terms of achieving equity. Other days — when something happens nationally or locally — set us back and you wonder how much progress has really been made,” says Anthony. “The Madison community seems committed to addressing these issues. So why do African Americans and people of color always seem to be getting the short end of the stick? Slow progress is happening but we have not arrived yet.”
