The Recombobulation Area is a 19-time 21-TIME! Milwaukee Press Club award-winning opinion column and online publication founded by Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer.
In many ways, the race for control of the Wisconsin State Assembly goes through Assembly District 88, located in eastern Green Bay, De Pere and Brown County. This northeastern Wisconsin district was home to the closest Assembly race in the state in 2024, where less than 250 votes made the difference.
Republican Ben Franklin (no, not that one) won that race, but as Democratic Challenger Brandy Tollefson tells it, he didn’t always show up when the moment called for it. Tollefson serves as the Treasurer at the Unified School District of De Pere School Board, and held a listening session at the district before the budget was finalized.
“We invited all elected officials to come and listen to us and listen to community members … and hear what our needs were as we were heading into the last budget,” she said. “And almost all of the local elected (officials) showed up, Republicans and Democrats, but my representative did not. And he never followed up with our school district either to come and talk to us … which, I would think that being a school board member, my representative would have shown up to meetings, would have come and talked to us, would have really heard what our concerns are, so that he can be representing us in Madison. And that never happened, which really just tells me that he wasn’t taking his job seriously. He wasn’t actually there to represent the 88th.”
In our conversation, Tollefson talked about how she began getting involved in local politics in her community, how she’s seen legislative Republicans underfund schools, how her child’s diabetes diagnosis showed her how broken the health care system is, and about her campaign in the 88th.
Tollefson’s race is one of three races we’ve rated as a “TOSS UP” in the State Assembly. See our full preview of both the Assembly and Senate here.
For a beat-by-beat breakdown of this episode, see below.
00:00:14: Intro, early voting begins in Wisconsin, and the Brewers in the World Series
00:01:23: Welcoming Brandy, the 88th Assembly District candidate
00:02:12: Her background: De Pere mom, community volunteer, and school board treasurer
00:04:00: Why she’s running: the state budget and school funding
00:05:43: Stepping outside her comfort zone to say yes
00:07:00: What she’s learned on the school board about how school funding works
00:08:16: Wisconsin’s fork-in-the-road election and education as a top priority
00:09:27: Affordability, property taxes, referendums, and vouchers
00:10:58: Pro-family policies and the “shell game” of state underfunding
00:12:06: Referendum fatigue and listening to the community
00:13:09: Her opponent, Rep. Ben Franklin, and the school budget listening session he skipped
00:17:03: Voters across the district: West De Pere, De Pere, and Green Bay
00:18:53: Why this swing district is so close (the 2024 race was decided by under 250 votes)
00:21:57: Ticket-splitting, Moms for Liberty, and “all politics are local”
00:23:13: Election night plans and what the numbers might show
00:24:01: Health care: her son’s type 1 diabetes diagnosis
00:27:35: Health care for small business owners and pre-Medicare workers
00:30:04: Negative ads, billionaire spending, and the push to get money out of politics
00:32:43: The Scott Walker loophole and its effect on this election
00:34:08: Wrap-up and sign-off
Watch this episode on The Recombobulation Area’s YouTube Channel here:
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Dan Shafer is an independent journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. He worked with Civic Media from 2024 to 2026. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.
