Mandela Barnes exits Wisconsin governor race after struggling to gain traction

Mandela Barnes ended his Democratic campaign for Wisconsin governor on Thursday, less than two weeks before the Aug. 11 primary, after weeks of weak polling and a crowded field left him with little room to catch Francesca Hong. The former lieutenant governor and 2022 Senate nominee posted his withdrawal in a video on Facebook, closing a bid that had begun on Dec. 2, 2025.

Barnes’ exit sharpened the stakes for Wisconsin Democrats, who entered the race as one of the clearest tests of the party’s bench strength in a swing state that has repeatedly decided national power. Instead of consolidating support around a familiar statewide figure, Democrats watched the field fracture as almost half of primary voters remained undecided in a July Marquette Law School Poll and Hong opened up a wide lead in later statewide surveys. The remaining contenders were Hong, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, former state Sen. Kelda Roys and former state commerce secretary Joel Brennan.

The withdrawal also landed the same week as the race’s only televised debate and amid Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporting on a 2025 Wisconsin Democratic Party review involving allegations that Barnes had used his role in the party to pursue sexual encounters with young adult women. The Journal Sentinel said it was continuing to report the story. Barnes did not address that reporting in his exit, but he said, “It’s become very clear who our nominee is going to be,” and said he wanted Democrats to “do everything we possibly can to defeat Tom Tiffany.”

His departure leaves Democrats trying to rebuild a coalition that Barnes was once expected to help hold together: Milwaukee turnout, Black voters, labor and suburban moderates wary of Donald Trump. Barnes had the kind of statewide profile that usually gives a candidate a head start in Wisconsin, but the race never settled around him, and his earlier work leading the progressive PAC Power to the Polls Wisconsin did not translate into the broad primary support he needed.

With Barnes out, the party’s challenge is narrower and harder. The nominee who emerges from the Aug. 11 primary will have to stitch together the same blocs without the former lieutenant governor on the ballot, and then turn quickly toward a fall race against Republican Tom Tiffany.