Candidates for governor sat down with WisconsinEye over a two-week stretch in July. They were asked many of the same questions: what would you tax, what would you fund, what would you do with the school choice program, and what happens to public safety and the prison system on your watch.

This document records what each candidate actually said. It separates the answers that came with a number, a mechanism, or a yes-or-no from the answers that did not. Two questions get extra attention throughout, because they carry the most weight for taxpayers and for families who use school choice: what does each candidate mean by “fully funding schools,” and what is each candidate’s position on public safety and incarceration.

David Crowley — Milwaukee County Executive

Interviewed July 22

WHERE HE GAVE A CLEAR ANSWER

• Repeal Act 10, repeal Right to Work, and enshrine collective bargaining in the state constitution. This was his firmest commitment of the interview.
• Repeal the minimum markup law on gasoline, which he says saves 30–40 cents per gallon. He would not extend that repeal to any other product “right now.”
• Expand BadgerCare with a sliding-scale premium, and give rural residents provider choice.
• No expansion of the school choice program. Voucher schools should be held to the same standards as public schools. He noted that roughly half of Milwaukee students are in the voucher program.
• Data centers: regulation yes, tax breaks no.
• On the Milwaukee County health insurance lapse, he said no one lost coverage, internal controls were missing, guardrails are now in place, and an employee was fired.

WHERE HE WOULD NOT ANSWER

• Millionaire tax rate. Asked what rate he would set for Wisconsin’s roughly 10,600 millionaire households, he refused to name one, saying the state “can’t tax our way out” while also saying higher earners should pay “a little more.” He cited competing priorities as the reason he could not give a figure.
• Cost of Act 10 repeal. Asked whether repeal means higher costs for taxpayers, he redirected to county labor negotiations.
• Reading scores. Asked about Wisconsin trailing Mississippi in fourth-grade reading, he offered spend on more reading programs with no mechanism.
• Transgender policy. Asked about the New Richmond bathroom investigation and Gov. Evers’ vetoes of girls’ sports bills, he took no position on either.

ON “FULLY FUNDING SCHOOLS”

Crowley defines fully funding schools as reaching the two-thirds state funding formula — he confirmed this directly when pressed. He also said 90 percent special education reimbursement is “our goal,” and that property taxpayers should not be the ones covering it. He proposed a blue-ribbon commission to review shared revenue and the school funding formula. 

PUBLIC SAFETY

Crowley wants to close Green Bay Correction and open something new. We need criminal justice reform and  lower our prison system capacity. We need to invest in mental health services. We use our prison system as the state’s largest behavioral health system. We need to invest dollars upstream. Milwaukee County has spent $2M for Credible Messenger Program and reduced violence among young people.  

ALSO ON THE RECORD

Crowley frames the surplus around an affordability crisis: property tax relief, child care, and BadgerCare expansion. For the workforce, he called for introducing more students to the trades and incentivizing entrepreneurs to hire locally.

Francesca Hong — State Representative

Interviewed July 13

WHERE SHE GAVE A CLEAR ANSWER

• A new income tax bracket on earnings above $1 million, pushing the top rate to roughly 17.5 percent. She claims this would reduce property taxes by 40 percent. She is the only candidate in the field who named a rate.
• Repeal Act 10, with no plan to restore the higher pension and health care contributions it requires from public employees.
• A statewide moratorium on new hyperscale AI data centers, backed by her own legislation.
• A ban on local law enforcement cooperation with ICE detainers, also tied to her own bill. She also supports in-state tuition for Dreamers and driver’s licenses for all.
• End the school voucher program. She calls for a “responsible end” to it, beginning with audits and disclosure of how much of each taxpayer’s property tax bill flows to voucher schools.
• Repeal the law guaranteeing utilities a profit margin — a direct yes, which no other candidate gave. She would also cap utility bills at 2% of annual income.
• She identifies openly as a democratic socialist and says she wants more democratic control of the economy in the hands of working-class people.

WHERE SHE WOULD NOT ANSWER

• Transgender policy. On the New Richmond investigation and the vetoed girls’ sports bills, she spoke only about “inclusion and belonging.”
• The reading gap. Her answer was about funding levels rather than a plan aimed at the gap.
• “A world without prisons.” Pressed on an earlier comment, she called safety “a human right” without describing what community safety would look like in practice.

ON “FULLY FUNDING SCHOOLS”

Hong says Wisconsin schools are roughly $3,000 per pupil behind where they would be if funding had been indexed to inflation, and that the gap must be closed. She endorses the two-thirds funding benchmark and 90 percent special education reimbursement — which she acknowledged would cost about $2 billion, consuming essentially the entire state surplus. She also wants a new school funding formula.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Hong argues that a world without prisons is a world with safety, and that resources for communities are what produce it. She criticizes the shared revenue formula as inequitable. Her ICE bill would bar local cooperation with federal detainers outright — the most expansive sanctuary position in the field.

ALSO ON THE RECORD

Hong wants Medicaid expanded and a public option that both employers and employees could buy into, citing Sen. Tara Johnson’s bill and an Indiana transparency-and-competition measure she likes. She acknowledged that federal dollars have tightened and said the state must explore every remaining option to offer healthcare. On jobs, she argued the state should create employment directly by building hospitals, schools, and municipal facilities, saying corporations are taking tax credits without creating jobs. On housing she would make building easier by removing local ordinances and address Airbnb and private equity pressure in tourist communities. On child care she would raise provider payments and worker wages.

Mandela Barnes — Former Lieutenant Governor

Interviewed July 13

WHERE HE GAVE A CLEAR ANSWER

• Repeal Act 10.
• Opposes hyperscale AI data center tax incentives outright, calling the $2 billion subsidy indefensible and saying the state should not subsidize wealthy tech companies.
• Close Green Bay Correctional and replace it with a rehabilitation-focused facility.
• ICE detainers: local law enforcement cooperates only for violent or serious crimes.
• School choice: restore income caps, end the statewide footing of the program, and impose uniform accountability standards — which he claims would remove “over half” of voucher schools from the system.

WHERE HE WOULD NOT ANSWER

• Millionaire tax rate. Offered a range of 8.5–9 percent, he said he was “close to that number” but had not settled on a figure. Elsewhere he said only that the rate would not be at the top of the current range and would probably land nearer Minnesota’s rate.
• Act 10 pension and health care payments. He would not say whether public employees keep the higher contributions once the law is gone, saying it would be negotiated.
• Act 20 reading coaches. Asked directly whether the reading policy currently in Wisconsin classrooms is working, he never engaged with the program by name, pivoting to undiagnosed vision problems. 
• Utility profit guarantee. Asked point blank whether he would repeal it, he never said yes or no, pivoting to executive bonuses and lobbying costs.
• “Abolish ICE.” Confronted with his 2022 photo “Abolish ICE”  shirt, he called the soft-on-crime criticism “the understatement of the year” and blamed Republicans for taking it out of context, without clarifying his current position.

ON “FULLY FUNDING SCHOOLS”

Barnes puts the benchmark at two-thirds funding and equates that with fully funding schools. Beyond the number, his answers on education stayed at the level of poverty, health access, and root causes — he attributed reading failure partly to undiagnosed health issues — rather than classroom policy. Asked how he would close the racial achievement gap behind Mississippi, he offered no mechanism tied to test scores.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Barnes wants Green Bay Correctional closed and replaced with a rehabilitation-focused facility, and says he would put more resources into law enforcement rather than cut them. On immigration he draws a line at violent or serious crimes for local cooperation with ICE, while calling ICE the least popular federal agency and arguing for a more just and humane immigration system.

ALSO ON THE RECORD

Barnes has pushed a $15 minimum wage since 2015 and wants relief from the surplus to be ongoing rather than one-time. He would tax out-of-state corporations and condition tax breaks on paying a living wage to employees. Asked whether private school gave him a leg up, he said he attended private school first and public school later, and credited parents with education backgrounds who were active in parent-teacher organizations.

Joel Brennan — Former Secretary of Administration

Interviewed July 8

WHERE HE GAVE A CLEAR ANSWER

• Repeal Act 10, tying current staffing shortages in state government and prisons directly to it.
• Special education reimbursement at 60 percent — “the most reasonable place” to reach in the near term, and well short of the 90 percent others promised.
• Cap the statewide voucher program back at 10 percent enrollment and close the virtual school voucher loophole, while keeping Milwaukee’s 35-year-old voucher program in place.
• Pause approval of new hyperscale data centers for 60–90 days while the state writes cost and disclosure rules — not a full moratorium.
• Bar local 287(g) cooperation agreements with ICE, and create an accountability commission modeled on Illinois to track and investigate ICE conduct.
• Close Green Bay Correctional and shrink the prison population through supervision reform rather than new construction.

WHERE HE WOULD NOT ANSWER

• Millionaire tax rate. He said only that “the ultra rich” should “pay some more,” and explicitly said he could not give a number.
• Utility profit guarantee. He described tying return on equity to affordability without saying whether the underlying law needs to change.
• Data center costs. Asked whether Marquette poll respondents are right that data center costs outweigh benefits, he answered “who am I to tell a voter they’re wrong” instead of stating his own view.

ON “FULLY FUNDING SCHOOLS”

Brennan is the only Democrat who put a lower cost number on special education rather than adopting the 90 percent figure. His 60 percent target is a meaningful gap from the rest of the field: at roughly $1–2 billion for 90 percent, his position implies substantially less new spending. He is also the only candidate who would preserve the Milwaukee voucher program by name while capping the statewide program.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Brennan made the most data-driven case in the field: Wisconsin spends roughly $300 per capita on prisons against Minnesota’s $200 for a comparable crime rate. He would close Green Bay Correctional and reduce the prison population through supervision reform rather than build new capacity. On immigration, he would ban 287(g) agreements and stand up an oversight commission to investigate ICE conduct in Wisconsin.

ALSO ON THE RECORD

Brennan is the only candidate who used his administrative record as the through-line: he tied current staffing shortages in state agencies and prisons directly to Act 10, and reached for comparative spending data rather than principle when making his corrections case. His data center position — a 60-to-90-day pause while rules are written — is the narrowest in the field, positioned between Hong’s full moratorium and Roys’ outright opposition to any pause.

Kelda Roys — State Senator

Interviewed July 14

WHERE SHE GAVE A CLEAR ANSWER

• Special education reimbursement at 90 percent, matching what she says voucher schools already receive, at a cost of about $1 billion. She says the state can afford it.
• A three-step phase-out of the voucher program. Current voucher students would be protected for students in it and their siblings, but any school taking public money would immediately face transparency, licensing, and non-discrimination requirements.
• Opposes a data center moratorium, calling it a “political gimmick.” She wants permanent regulations passed immediately, data center tax subsidies ended, and upfront payments in the hundreds of millions to the state.
• ICE: local law enforcement honors judicial warrants only, never detainer requests.
• Close Green Bay Correctional and do not replace it, favoring diversion and reentry.
• Universal childcare: Cap parent child care costs at 7 percent of income, “Get Baked for Babies” by legalizing and taxing cannabis to pay for universal childcare.
• She supported Act 20 and says reading policy needs evidence behind it — the only candidate to engage the current reading law affirmatively.

WHERE SHE WOULD NOT ANSWER

• Millionaire tax rate. She said there “should” be a new bracket but refused to name a number, saying “I’m running for governor, not dictator,” and that she would work it out with legislators.
• Act 10 pension and health care payments. Asked whether she would keep the higher public employee contributions, she pivoted to an argument about health care being tied to employment.
• Utility profit guarantee. She talked about PSC staffing and consumer advocacy funding without saying whether the law itself must change.
• Transgender policy. On New Richmond and the vetoed sports bills, her answer stayed at “every child deserves respect.”

ON “FULLY FUNDING SCHOOLS”

Roys endorses the two-thirds benchmark and pairs it with the sharpest contrast in the field: she says voucher schools receive 90 percent special education reimbursement while public schools receive roughly 30 percent, and she would level that at 90 percent for public schools. Her school choice position is the most aggressive of any candidate — a full phase-out, not a cap or an accountability standard.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Roys would close Green Bay Correctional without replacing it, citing prison visits during law school, and would invest in diversion and reentry instead. She says Republicans defunded local government and that she would send money back to local communities to spend on public safety as they see fit. Her ICE position — judicial warrants only — is narrower than a full detainer ban but still bars routine cooperation.

ALSO ON THE RECORD

Roys proposed “KeldaCare,” a state-owned health insurance pool that individuals could buy into alongside private options, with employers able to buy in as well. On housing she wants more smaller single-family homes built so that more people can own rather than rent. 

Andrew Manske — Republican Primary

Interviewed July 17

WHERE HE GAVE A CLEAR ANSWER

• Eliminate the tampon tax now; cut the income tax and the gas minimum markup over time.
• Legalize marijuana with age limits, designated use areas, and DUI enforcement, as a new revenue source.
• Consolidate some of the state’s 70-plus agencies, beginning with the two veterans’ agencies, and return the savings to taxpayers.
• Outright ban on new hyperscale data centers, citing rural character and grid reliability. He would require data centers to source their own energy, avoid farmland, and sign binding local contracts.
• Expand nuclear power, citing Japan and Finland.
• Supports a “third option” bathroom approach in some settings, citing safety concerns for women and girls alongside concerns about suicide risk among transgender youth.
• A roughly $100 per month state-adjacent supplemental insurance plan covering deductibles, copays, and out-of-pocket costs, funded by broad enrollment rather than income-scaled premiums.

WHERE HE WOULD NOT ANSWER

• Act 10. He said he has not followed the Act 10 era closely and is waiting on the pending Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling rather than staking out a position.
• Utility profit guarantee. No position; he said rates could be addressed “over time” within the existing system.
• School funding benchmark. He said schools should be fully funded but gave no figure and no formula.
• ICE detainers. He does not see this as something states can meaningfully act on, citing federal preemption.

ON “FULLY FUNDING SCHOOLS”

Manske is the only candidate who used the phrase “fully funded” without attaching a benchmark to it — no two-thirds commitment, no special education percentage. His education answers focused instead on post-secondary structure: reducing general education requirements in favor of career-specific tracks in nursing, finance, and the trades, and introducing more trade programs at the high school level.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Manske would review the Green Bay Correctional population for anyone incarcerated for conduct that is no longer illegal, marijuana specifically, but rejects significant downsizing of the prison system generally. On immigration he personally favors self-deportation paired with a faster legal reentry pathway over enforcement actions, and raised concerns about family separation and asset seizure during deportations.

ALSO ON THE RECORD

On jobs, Manske would focus on manufacturing and the trades and use gas tax relief to lower logistics costs for manufacturers. His answers ran long and personal — his response on transgender students in schools was among the longest and least policy-specific in the interview, drawing on friendships and concerns about suicide risk before arriving at a bathroom policy. Across the interview he offered fewer numbers and mechanisms than any other candidate, and left several positions open pending court rulings or further development.

The Field at a Glance

The two questions that decide this race for taxpayers

What the pattern shows

One rate, five refusals. Five Democrats were asked point blank what income tax rate they would set on Wisconsin’s high earners. Only Francesca Hong answered: roughly 17.5 percent on income above $1 million. Crowley, Brennan, and Roys explicitly declined to give a figure; Barnes came closest, saying he was near 8.5–9 percent but had not decided. Voters who want to know what they would pay under each of these administrations cannot learn it from these interviews.

“Fully funded” means the same thing to almost everyone. Four of the five Democrats converged on the two-thirds state funding formula as the definition of fully funding schools, with 90 percent special education reimbursement attached — a commitment Hong herself priced at roughly $2 billion, or effectively the entire surplus. Brennan broke from the field at 60 percent. The legislature has been at ⅔ the last two budgets. 

School choice is on the table in every Democratic answer. The proposals range from a cap (Brennan) to an accountability standard the candidate himself says would eliminate more than half of participating schools (Barnes) to an outright phase-out (Roys) and an end to the program (Hong). Crowley would freeze it in place under public school standards. Only Brennan committed to preserving the Milwaukee program by name.

Corrections consensus, with one exception. Every Democrat who addressed it wants Green Bay Correctional closed. They divide on what follows: Barnes would build a replacement, Brennan would reduce the population through supervision reform, and Roys would build nothing. Manske is the only candidate who rejects reducing the prison system, limiting his review to offenses that are no longer crimes.

The dodges cluster. Three questions produced non-answers from nearly everyone: the millionaire tax rate, whether repealing Act 10 means restoring higher public employee pension and health care contributions, and whether lowering utility rates requires repealing the profit guarantee. Hong was the only candidate to answer the utility question yes. On transgender policy, Crowley, Hong, and Roys all declined to address the New Richmond investigation or the vetoed girls’ sports bills.