Tony For Wisconsin
Tony Evers campaigning with Sara Rodriguez in 2022.
Gov. Tony Evers shared the ticket with Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez in 2022. Now she's running for governor in 2026.
More than a dozen wannabe governors — in and out of public office, and working in Wisconsin and Washington — will spend the next three months deciding if they want to enter the first campaign for governor without an incumbent in 16 years. The tribe of ambitious dreamers grew last week, when two-term Democratic Gov. Tony Evers decided that 50 years of public service — from classroom science teacher to school administrator to superintendent of public instruction to governor — is enough.
Most of the wannabe governors will say something like this: “I’m considering running for governor. I’m encouraged by the encouragement I’ve received from family members, friends and members of my party.”
Two Republicans are already running — Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann and New Berlin business executive Bill Berrien. Two-term Republican Gov. Scott Walker floated a run on social media, but then said he won’t run.
Two Democrats, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, of Waukesha, and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, promptly said they will run for governor. Democratic Sen. Kelda Roys, of Madison, said she is “seriously considering” a run.
There will be weeks, maybe months of sifting, winnowing and betting about who will run in the August primary and November 2026 general elections.
In stepping down from the governor’s office, the low-key Evers, 73, is looking to spend more time as a euchre and pickleball playing family patriarch. He won his first term in 2018 with 49% of the vote and a second term in 2022 with 51%. “I’m damn proud I’ve devoted my career and most of my life to working for you, Wisconsin,” he said in a statement. “But the truth is that the only thing I love more than [being] your governor is being a husband, a dad, and a grandpa — and it’s time for me to focus on the things I enjoy and love doing with my family.”
But he could have run if he had wanted. Here are four reasons why.
First, a liberal state Supreme Court has sided with Evers more often than not in the last two years. And that four-justice majority isn’t likely to change until at least 2028, since the terms of two conservative justices are up in the next two spring elections.
The wins started when the Court ordered new legislative districts to be drawn before the 2024 elections and, most recently, continued when the four-justice majority struck down a decades-old practice that gave a legislative committee power to stall and block rules developed by state agencies controlled by Evers appointees.
Second, an Evers re-election campaign could have been helped in November 2026 by the historical trend of voters punishing the party that controls the presidency in off-year elections.
If Wisconsin voters want to reject the policies, executive orders and tantrums of Republican Donald Trump and Republicans who control Congress, they may side with Democrats in that election. With no U.S. Senate race in Wisconsin next year, Evers’ name would have been at the top of their statewide ballots.
Independent voters — who decide most Wisconsin elections for national offices — opposed the actions of Republicans who control Congress by a margin of 66% to 34% in Marquette’s July poll. Six of Wisconsin’s eight members of the U.S. House members are Republicans, and all six voted for the unpopular tax-and-spend package Congress passed one month ago.
Third, Evers remained overwhelmingly popular with his Democratic base — a base that won a U.S. Senate race in 2024, two Supreme Court elections and elected more Democratic legislators last November. In the June Marquette poll, Democrats favored a third term bid by Evers by a margin of 83% to 15%.
“Evers has been the most consistently popular state politician in Wisconsin since his election in 2018,” Marquette pollster Charles Franklin said. “He has maintained an average approval rating above 50%, with disapproval averaging 41%. He is also better known and better liked than most other office holders in the state.”
But the governor’s overall approval rating with registered voters in the latest Marquette survey was 42%, with 55% — a majority — disapproving. And, among independent voters, only 37% favored a third Evers campaign and 50% disapproved.
Fourth, a re-elected Evers may have had — for the first time — at least one house of the Legislature controlled by his fellow Democrats.
Republicans control the Senate by a 18-15 margin, but Democrats are already targeting three Republicans, which would give them control.
Getting back to the field of wannabe governors, two trivia questions may be relevant.
First, how many candidates ran in the last open primary — in September 2010 — for governor? Seven — two Democrats, three Republicans and two independents.
Second, how many Democrats ran in the last no-favorites primary — in August 2018 — for a chance to run against Walker in November of that year? Ten.
Steven Walters started covering the Capitol in 1988. Contact him at stevenscotwalters@gmail.com.
