Liam Beran
City council members sit in seats, taken Nov. 13, 2024.
There are 14 contested city council races on the ballot April 1.
With a seven-month old daughter, Noah Lieberman wasn’t thinking about running for public office.
But he changed his mind when Donald Trump won a second term in November. It became even more important, he says, for “cities like Madison to be progressive stalwarts,” and the “last line of defense when Trump and his administration wage war” against immigrants, transgender people, protesters, and people seeking reproductive healthcare.
Lieberman, who lost a tied race for city council in 2023 by luck of the draw, was also motivated when voters approved Madison’s $22 million budget referendum.
“The people of Madison have spoken that they want to keep this excellent quality of city services and to help out the less fortunate in our city,” Lieberman says, “and I want to make sure that that's something that we as a Common Council are delivering on.”
His race is one of 14 contested city council races on April 1 — Lieberman, who works for UW-Madison and is active in the Democratic Party of Dane County, faces southside District 14 Ald. Isadore Knox Jr., whom he lost to in 2023. Other high profile races include Lisa Veldran’s effort to unseat council president Ald. Yannette Figueroa Cole, Julia Matthews’ challenge to Ald. Amani Latimer Burris and Joann Pritchett’s attempt to unseat incumbent Ald. Nikki Conklin.
Pritchett, a former assistant dean at UW School of Pharmacy and Veldran, who ran the city council office for more than three decades, were motivated to run at least in part by their opposition to the $22 million referendum that passed with 57% vote in November. Others were too and they have been endorsed by former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, who led a public fight against the referendum and held a candidate workshop event in December.
Soglin has characterized the council elections as a fight between those beholden to “the MACHINE” — Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and other Madison “political bosses and elites” — and “independent, NON-MACHINE” council members and candidates. He’s recently shared donation links to those candidates on Facebook.
“I don't think it's surprising that they did a lot of recruiting,” says Lieberman, “but I think that the pro-housing, pro-people candidates have come out in just as equal force.”
Madison faces a number of challenges: federal funding for some projects is tenuous, the city’s population is projected to increase by 100,000 over the next 25 years while housing stock lags, and state funding, controlled by Republican lawmakers, continues to be sparse.
The battle lines on the council are drawn between those who want to welcome higher density and new construction — the “yes-in-my-backyard” (YIMBY), pro-development candidates — and “not-in-my-backyard” (NIMBY), anti-development candidates. Shortly before the February primary, Rhodes-Conway, a self-proclaimed YIMBY, shared on Twitter a ranking of “pro-housing” candidates made by city council enthusiast Mike Zenz.
Figueroa Cole, the most “pro-housing” candidate on the list, was neck and neck with Veldran in the February primary for District 10, which stretches from Arbor Hills to Nakoma on the west side, with former Ald. Sheri Carter coming in third. Given the similarities between the platforms of Veldran and Carter — both campaigned in opposition to the referendum — Figueroa Cole is facing a tough battle.
The similarly “pro-housing” Conklin, representing District 9, which includes such west-side neighborhoods as Wexford Ridge and Sauk Creek, faced challengers Pritchett and Rick Cruz in February. Unlike Figueroa Cole, the incumbent didn’t lead the preliminary race; Pritchett was the winner with 47% of the vote to Conklin’s 41% and Cruz’ 12%.
Both Pritchett and Cruz opposed the referendum, meaning Conklin may also have reason to worry. Pritchett was the only non-incumbent to receive an endorsement from the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, which represents Madison’s business interests. David Aguayo, the Chamber’s public policy manager, says in a statement that the Chamber’s 48-member board of directors endorsed candidates who “demonstrate strong leadership on business and economic issues.”
Hussein Amach, who was also running for District 12 on Madison’s east side, suspended his campaign before the Feb. 18 primary, but all three candidates still appeared on the ballot. Burris won just over half the vote, with Matthews coming in second at 42%.
The council has grown more diverse in recent years, except when it comes to age. The average age in Madison is 32 years, but a majority of the council is much older. That’s what 26-year-old Eli Tsarovsky is alluding to when he has called for a “new chapter of leadership” during his race for the Capitol and downtown District 4 against Ald. Mike Verveer, 56, who’s been a city council member for three decades.
Ian Jamison, 34, recently penned a letter to the editor in the Wisconsin State Journal about Madison’s upcoming city council races, criticizing the paper for its endorsement of largely older candidates.
Jamison sent it “in a moment of extreme frustration,” he says in an interview, after seeing U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, 74, “cave” by pledging to pass a stopgap bill critics said would enable Trump to further dismantle the federal government.
“It just kind of crystallized in me when I saw those endorsements, the fear that this seniority mindset is creeping into the local levels too,” says Jamison, a member of pro-development group Madison is For People. He says his most important issue is housing, and that it “hits differently” to hear renters’ perspectives on Madison’s housing shortage compared to someone who “has lived in the same house for 30 years and has a paid-off mortgage.”
He says he does not “think it's good to have 20 seats filled with people who are retired volunteers for council.”
Jamison says diversity in council members’ class, race and age would “naturally lead to some of the progressive policy, sustainable housing in Madison that works for everybody, that I would champion.”
Other contested city council races include:
- District 2: Matt Egerer | William Ochowicz
- District 5: Ald. Regina Vidaver | Ulrike Dieterle
- District 7: Badri Lankella | Abdirahman Siad
- District 13: Ald. Tag Evers | Robert Luther
- District 16: Sean O’Brien | Kim Richman
- District 17: Ald. Sabrina Madison | Sean Burke
- District 18: Carmella Glenn | Kevin Monroe
- District 19: Ald. John Guequierre | Anthony Nino Amato
- District 20: Ald. Barbara Harrington-McKinney | Sammy Khilji
