Clockwise from top left: Brad Schimel, Susan Crawford, Charles M
Brad Schimel, clockwise from left, will face Susan Crawford for state Supreme Court. Nichelle Nichols, president of the Madison school board, is running for reelection unopposed. Ald. Charles Myadze did not file nomination papers.
Will he or won’t he? Up until Tuesday’s candidate filing deadline for the spring primary election it was unclear whether the embattled Madison Ald. Charles Myadze — who is facing eight felony charges, including battery, strangulation and false imprisonment — would run for re-election.
But Myadze missed the Dec. 27 deadline to file for noncandidacy, and, as of 5 p.m Tuesday, had not submitted nomination papers, according to a city statement. Under state law, Myadze is no longer eligible to appear on the Feb. 18 or April 1 ballots, though he could still run as a write-in candidate. Those looking to run for his old seat, however, gain an additional 72 hours to file for candidacy.
Three candidates have already signed on to the race: Carmella Glenn, Kevin Monroe and Anthony McNally. McNally has not yet submitted nomination papers as of Wednesday morning, but has until Friday at 5 p.m. to do so because Myadze failed to file papers indicating whether he would run or not.
As of Wednesday morning, candidate paperwork submissions indicate only three city council races will have primaries on Feb. 18. Yannette Figueroa Cole, elected in 2021 and the current president of the council, faces challenges from two city government alums: former Ald. Sheri Carter and Lisa Veldran, who ran the city council office from 1991 to 2021. In recent months, both Carter and Veldran were vocal opponents of Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway’s decision to pursue an ultimately successful $22 million tax property referendum in 2024.
Other local races look quiet. Only one of three Madison school board races on the April 1 ballot is contested: Disability rights advocate Martha Siravo and engineer Bret Wagner are vying for the seat held by retiring board member Laura Simkin; according to a city statement, Simkin did not submit her non-candidacy form which means other candidates have 72 hours to jump in the race if they want to. President Nichelle Nichols and board member Ali Mudrow are running for reelection unopposed.
Because of the timing of former Dane County Executive Joe Parisi’s resignation, Dane County Executive Melissa Agard won only a six-month term on Nov. 5. Though initially noncommittal on attempting another run, Agard’s challenger in that election, Dana Pellebon, did not file for reelection by the 5 p.m. deadline.
Yet Agard will have an opponent: Stephen W. Ratzlaff Jr. of DeForest, who ran for the Wisconsin State Assembly in 2021 as an independent. The winner of the nonpartisan race will serve a four-year term.
Two candidates will face off for Wisconsin Supreme Court in what many predict will be a bruising and expensive race. Both Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel hope to win outgoing Justice Ann Walsh Bradley’s Supreme Court Seat in a race that will determine whether liberal justices hold on to the 4-3 majority they gained in 2023.
Three people are running for state superintendent of public instruction, including four-year incumbent Dr. Jill Underly who has the endorsement of Wisconsin’s Democratic Party. Underly has recently faced sharp criticism for the department’s changes to standardized test score benchmarks. Throughout her tenure, Underly has made state funding of public schools a key issue and recently proposed an additional $3 billion in funding in the 2025-27 budget.
Her challengers, Brittany Kinser, an educational consultant and charter school advocate, and Sauk Prairie superintendent Jeff Wright have taken sharp aim at Underly’s tenure as state superintendent, accusing her of financial mismanagement and supporting low standards for Wisconsin students.
“Underly has mismanaged the department’s internal budget and failed to address the exodus of critical and talented employees across the DPI,” Wright said in a Nov. 22 statement addressing Underly’s endorsement by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.
Kinser said in a Jan. 6 statement that “she wants to restore high academic standards and make sure students have the skills they need for good jobs after graduation.”
[Editor’s note: This article has been corrected to note that current candidate filings indicate that three city council races, not five, will have a primary.]
