Mandela Barnes

J. Mandela Barnes (born December 1, 1986) is an American politician who served as the 45th lieutenant governor of Wisconsin from 2019 to 2023.

Barnes was born in Milwaukee on December 1, 1986, the son of a public school teacher and a United Auto Workers member.

Jesse is his father's name and his middle name, Mandela, is a tribute to the anti-apartheid activist and first South African black president Nelson Mandela.

Barnes says he has gone by his middle name since birth.

His legal name is J. Mandela Barnes.

Barnes attended Holy Redeemer Christian Academy in Milwaukee; Milwaukee Public Schools, including John Marshall High School; and Alabama A&M University.

Barnes was involved with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) during college.

He has also said that Barack Obama's keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention inspired him to rethink his post-college career.

In April 2012, Barnes announced his candidacy for Wisconsin's 11th Assembly district, representing the north side of Milwaukee and a small part of Wauwatosa, challenging incumbent Jason Fields in the Democratic primary election.

His campaign made major issues of Fields's support for the school voucher program and opposition to limiting interest rates charged by payday loan companies, which can exceed a 500% annual percentage rate.

Barnes defeated Fields in the August 2012 primary with 2,596 votes to Fields's 1,206.

In the November general election Barnes was unopposed.

He received 16,403 votes to 201 votes for others.

A member of the Democratic Party, he was the state representative for the 11th district from 2013 to 2017.

Barnes is the first African American to serve as Wisconsin's lieutenant governor.

Barnes was the Democratic nominee in the 2022 U.S. Senate election in Wisconsin, losing to incumbent Republican Senator Ron Johnson.

As a state legislator in 2013, Barnes sponsored a bill that would have banned assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Barnes was reelected in 2014 without a primary or general election challenge.

He served as deputy director of strategic engagement for State Innovation Exchange, a national progressive public policy organization based in Madison, from December 2016 to December 2017.

Barnes sponsored a 2016 bill to eliminate cash bail.

It would have barred judges from considering the "nature, number and gravity" of the charges and required the release of a defendant unless there was "clear and convincing evidence" of flight risk or of danger to an individual or witness.

In February 2022, his campaign told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Barnes still supports the proposal, and if elected to the Senate, he would support a bill to end cash bail nationwide.

Barnes served on the Assembly Committees on Corrections, Education, Jobs & the Economy, and Small Business Development.

He also chaired the legislature's Black and Latino Caucus and helped lead a number of international delegations to the Middle East and southeast Asia.

On April 11, 2016, Barnes announced that he would resign from the Assembly to launch a primary challenge against Lena Taylor, the Democratic incumbent in Wisconsin's 4th State Senate district.

Political science professor and former State Senator Mordecai Lee expressed surprise, noting both the rarity of Democratic Senate primaries and Wisconsin's 90% reelection rate for incumbents.

Lee framed the race as reflecting the broader struggle in the Democratic Party, pitting a young progressive challenger against an older, more centrist incumbent.

Barnes lost to Taylor in the August 9 election, with 7,433 votes to her 11,454.

In January 2018, Barnes announced his candidacy for lieutenant governor of Wisconsin in the 2018 election.

In June 2018, Barnes won the Democratic Party of Wisconsin straw poll with 80.9% of the vote, earning 617 out of 763 votes.

During the primary, his name was omitted from election notices in three newspapers in two different counties.

The day before the election, his picture was used in a local news report about a fatal motorcycle crash.

On August 14, 2018, Barnes won the Democratic primary in a landslide over Sheboygan businessman Kurt Kober, and became the running mate of Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tony Evers.

Evers and Barnes won the November 2018 election, narrowly defeating incumbent Republicans Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleefisch, 49.5% to 48.4%.

Barnes became Wisconsin's first African American lieutenant governor and the nation's youngest lieutenant governor.

In August 2019, Barnes admitted that he had never officially completed his bachelor's degree in 2008 due to incomplete coursework in one class that he called a "minor technical issue", contrary to previous statements that he had graduated from Alabama A&M.

Barnes was appointed chair of the governor's task force on climate change in October 2019.

He received his B.A. degree in communications media specializing in performance on May 1, 2020, after resolving the outstanding coursework issue with the university.

Barnes worked for various political campaigns and in the office of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, eventually becoming an organizer for M.I.C.A.H., a Milwaukee-based interfaith coalition that advocates social justice.

In December 2020, the task force released its report containing 55 policy recommendations to address climate change in the state.