Three Questions For Wisconsin’s 2025 Nonpartisan Elections

Today, the deadline for candidates to file nomination papers, marks the official start of Wisconsin’s nonpartisan election season. The Supreme Court race at the top of the ticket has already been described as one of the nation’s most important elections this year. That race, between Democratic-backed Susan Crawford and former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel, promises to be one of the most partisan and polarizing nonpartisan elections in recent memory. Partisan involvement in nonpartisan races is neither unexpected nor necessarily unwelcome, but it has intensified. In the past, both parties made noises about not endorsing nonpartisan candidates before the February Primary—this year, they did not even wait until the filing deadline for new candidates. Whatever happens, the media will use that race as a bellwether for how both Democrats and Republicans will fare down-ballot during the second Trump Administration.

Given this, it is not surprising that many greet nonpartisan elections with suspicion. How could nonpartisanship be meaningful when parties are so engaged and voters so polarized? But the Supreme Court race is only one of dozens on the ballot this April. Wisconsinites across the state will cast nonpartisan votes for mayor, city council, county board, school board, and more. These races will see far less partisan engagement, and their results will likely diverge significantly from partisan contests. There is more to understanding nonpartisanship than asking if these races are “polarized” and if they show Democrats or Republicans gaining ground.   

The next few years, beginning with the April Elections will be a crucial test for practicing—and studying—nonpartisan local politics. Building on my dissertation research into the history and current state of nonpartisan politics,  I’m looking at three things as these nonpartisan elections take shape and new city councils are seated this spring.

Keeping National Dysfunction at Bay

As Trump returns to office, he is threatening to undo many of the climate policies that Biden had hoped would be his legacy. Depending on federal grants, investment, standards, and regulations, local government projects will be unsettled if not upended by this 180. Climate investment is just one of a long list of local projects, policies, and practices that a new administration could undermine.

This uncertainty as one administration gives way to another is why Reformers advocated for nonpartisan local politics in the early 20^th Century. They argued that the modern city required strategic planning and investment that must outlast the whims of the partisan electorate and their representatives. Nonpartisanship was supposed to be a wall that kept the chaos of state and national politics away from the day-to-day operations of Wisconsin cities.

What will it take to insulate cities from state and national politics in the second Trump Administration? What will Trump’s policies demand from local governments? How will local politicians respond? Nonpartisanship is supposed to make resistance easier. The local officials who will decide how to respond to Trump’s policies are not directly beholden to him, his party organization, or his voters. Indeed, many on the left have grown increasingly frustrated with the inability to compel nonpartisan local government to act according to liberal values on housing, transit, policing, etc. However, that same ability to resist partisan demands will be crucial in the coming years. The question is, will it be successful?

Managing Internal Partisan Conflict

Progressive Reformers hailed nonpartisan elections as a more moral, efficient, and effective way to run a city. But there were less pure motives for reform as well. It is not a coincidence that 1912, the year that the Wisconsin State Legislature forced nonpartisan local elections on every city, was a shitshow for internal Republican politics. That year saw Teddy Roosevelt’s infamous challenge to incumbent William Howard Taft for the Republican nomination and doomed third-party campaign. Closer to home, Wisconsin’s favorite son, Fighting Bob LaFollette, also threw his hat into the ring. The decision of whether to support LaFollette, Roosevelt, or Taft tore apart Wisconsin Republicans and dominated nomination contests up and down the ballot.   

Nonpartisan elections should give local candidates some freedom from these internal struggles. Candidates don’t have to identify with a party at all, and they certainly don’t have to pick a side in a factional conflict. Because the local Republican Party doesn’t control the nomination process, it doesn’t matter if it’s controlled by Trump supporters or critics. But, of course, candidates often do speak their minds on national politics and frame their campaigns around support (or opposition) to national figures.

Both parties seem destined for crack-ups and conflicts in the next few years. Democrats are already debating the best path forward after a bruising defeat; Republicans will eventually have to figure out what comes after Trump. Nonpartisan nominations and elections should protect local candidates from having to take sides in these fights. But watching when and how local candidates wade into internal partisan divisions will be fascinating and important to watch.

Crushing Nascent Movements, Or Not

The thing that ultimately pushed Wisconsin to adopt nonpartisan local politics was the election of Milwaukee’s first Socialist Mayor in 1910. Democrats and Republicans had split the vote, allowing Emile Seidel to edge into office without a majority. Nonpartisan elections, Reformers argued, would prevent such an outcome by encouraging people to look past their partisan blinders and coalesce around the best candidate. More specifically, many hoped nonpartisan elections would deal a blow to the Socialists, whom they believed relied on the most intense forms of machine politics to mobilize and control disengaged and undereducated voters.

Nonpartisan Reform had a distinctly mixed record of quashing the growing Socialist Party. Cities across Wisconsin—Racine, Manitowoc, Eau Claire—had socialist operations that never truly recovered from the reform of 1912. In Milwaukee, on the other hand, nonpartisan reform would hold the Socialists back for just a few years. In 1916, Daniel Hoan would take the Milwaukee mayoralty, and Socialists would lead the city for decades—long after they had ceased to be meaningful players in partisan politics.

Nonpartisan politics are hard. Without the party’s role written into election administration, gaining control over the nomination process, securing a place on the ballot, and winning elections is difficult. Because of this, nonpartisanship has often been a boon to incumbent parties and organizations. However, there is freedom and flexibility in nonpartisan politics as well. It is easier to imagine alternative parties gaining seats in nonpartisan city councils in particular cities than to break the two parties’ hold on our national imagination. Will the next few years see new political movements on both the left and right gain footholds in Wisconsin’s local governments? Or will nonpartisan elections succeed at defusing the momentum for alternatives?

What Are We Doing Here?

That’s a metaphysical question about American politics that I can’t answer. This blog is an answer to a different metaphysical crisis. As I, hopefully, wrap up my dissertation over the coming months, I want to use this space to track new developments in local Wisconsin politics and contextualize them with my research. I’ll focus on the spring elections until April and then pivot to the work councils are doing in government. I’ll aim to post once a week, but we’ll see.