Nichols thinks working-class roots connect her to voters in critical race for State Assembly

The launch of Becky Nichols’ campaign to win a critical State Assembly seat this fall could not have been more fraught.

Already off to a late start, the campaign didn’t open its bank account until mid-June. It was July 22 when Nichols officially kicked it off. Five days later a tornado struck Menasha. Nichols house, while not in the direct path, suffered enough damage that the entire second floor will have to be replaced. While clearing out the debris, workers discovered asbestos.

“On July 27, the world changed forever,” Nichols says. “And so this is not at all the campaign I expected and it’s not something anyone could have planned for.”

Nichols isn’t complaining. She’s grateful. Grateful there were no fatalities and grateful that her home is finally on the calendar for repairs in early October and grateful that they were able to move into the house next door.

She says her team agreed that the only thing to do was to suspend the campaign while clean-up and recovery was underway.

“Just to take time to deal with our family circumstances, finding a new place to live, dealing with everything that needed to be dealt with,” she says. “Taking care of our neighbors was an immediate need in the days right after the storm. Bringing warm meals to people, bringing generators to people who really needed them, and focusing on cleanup efforts as well.”

When the campaign finally began about four weeks later, Nichols says, they avoided canvassing impacted areas out of respect. But they learned quickly that everyone had a story about the day the tornado struck, even those not directly impacted..

“People were coming in afterwards looking for loved ones, making sure that people were okay, picking up family, kids at daycares, things like that,” Nichols says. “And so when we returned to doors, we really took a careful approach to talking with our neighbors, checking in, being available to answer questions about resources that are available in the community, and just being present to listen and be helpful and understanding.” 

Her Republican opponent, David Daniels, also announced a suspension of his campaign during the cleanup but Nichols’ campaign manager, Keeli Mallory, has doubts about that claim. Two weeks after the tornado, Daniels mailers began showing up in voters’ mailboxes and ads began popping up on TV making what the Nichols campaign asserts are false claims about her. She points out that, according to financial filings, those ads would have had to have been ordered the week of the tornado.

Critical district in fight for control of Assembly

The 53rd is one of the top targeted assembly districts in the state. That’s because a Republican (the incumbent is not seeking re-election) won in 2024 by just several hundred votes and with the balance of power in the state assembly up for grabs a flip here for Democrats gets them one step closer to the coveted trifecta – majorities in both chambers sending long-deferred legislation to a Democratic governor.

It’s that opportunity that convinced Nichols to get into a race she initially shied away from after Democratic operatives came calling following the aborted campaign of an earlier Democratic candidate. Why on earth would I do this? was her first response.

“Then I thought, this is a real chance to make a difference for the people who live here, for the Fox Cities, and for people across Wisconsin, a chance to undo some really bad policies of the last 16 years that  have brought us here to a place where things are really unaffordable,” Nichols says. “Family budgets are stretched everywhere, and people are really struggling. And this is the time. This is the time to be able to deliver some real results.”

Nichols thinks having served 12 years on the Menasha City Council and four years on the Winnebago County Board gives her the name recognition, the experience, the understanding of governance and a positive record to run an effective campaign. Furthermore, as a public school teacher, she knows what it is to make ends meet, which allows her to connect to voters in the largely working-class district, she says.

Nichols highlights her work on the City Council that helped eliminate lead pipes throughout Menasha and her efforts behind the scenes to mitigate two-thirds of the $1.3 million cost of the project. Initially taxpayers were on the hook for all of that but they ended up being responsible for only one-third. The rest was covered through grants via the Safe Water Drinking Fund of the Department of Natural Resources, and by the water utility.

“We completed the work five years ahead of schedule, I believe, and we're able to save the community over a million dollars,” Nichols says. 

Funding disadvantage

The late start isn’t the only thing that is working against her campaign. Daniels has a significant advantage when it comes to campaign funds, as two conservative Wisconsin billionaire families – the Hendrickses and the Uihleins – are pouring big money into races across the state to try to hold off a potential blue wave.

While the Nichols campaign is relying on hundreds of unique donors – nearly 800 as October approaches – Daniels lists just 11, including his wife. They are being outspent six to one, according to Mallory. 

“They just funnel all the money from the millionaires and billionaires into these ads through the state party,” Mallory says. “We are more of a grassroots, people-powered campaign. But we definitely have ads coming up. We're on cable, broadcast, streaming.”

The deluge of Daniels ads accuse Nichols of raising taxes, which is standard Republican fare. Nichols counters that the services and amenities the city provides are what makes people want to live there. 

“We expect our roads to be in good repair,” she says. “We expect to have police protection. We expect to have fire departments because when we call 911, we want them to show up. We want our roads plowed and our garbage picked up. We want beautiful parks and trails to recreate in and enjoy. And so, those are the things that I voted for. 

“Those are the reasons people choose to live here to raise a family here. Those are the reasons businesses locate here, and how we're able to provide the workers for those businesses because they choose to live here because we have those things.”

Nichols says the problem for municipalities like Menasha is the Republicans’ refusal – for the past 16 years – to adequately provide state money, money that cities have always relied on. Nichols, who says that property tax relief is one of her top priorities and one answer to the affordability crisis, intends to fight for a restoration of that so-called shared revenue. After all, she argues, it is the taxpayers themselves who pay that money into the state coffers.

“The Republican legislature decided we're not going to give those funds back to your community, to your local government, and we're not going to give all of those funds back to your school district,” she explains. “When that happened, the cost burden shifted to us as local property tax payers, and we have been bearing the brunt of that burden ever since. The state has a surplus, and so we, as a legislature, can decide to send that money back to our communities, and back to our school districts.

“That is real property tax relief for people.”

False claims

Though the campaign is more interested in talking about issues such as lowering property taxes and the cost of healthcare and childcare, and making investments in other long-ignored priorities, it is being attacked by the Daniels’ camp through TV ads and mailers for two things the Nichols campaign insist are outright lies. One claim is that Nichols has received tornado relief assistance, even though no government assistance has even been authorized. 

The other accusation by Daniels hints at a home renovation loan from a program the city of Menasha authorized to shore up housing stock. Though elected officials are not barred from participating in the Strong Neighborhood Program, Nichols says she never considered doing so because of the potential conflict of interest. 

“I never applied for the program,” Nichols flatly states. “I never took taxpayer money, and I chose that because I knew if I did, that would look bad. That is a lie. It's public record. People can look that up.”

Requests to the Daniels campaign to respond to their claims went unanswered.

The campaign is putting out a TV spot that addresses core issues as well as Daniels’ “lies” about her. 

While Nichols says she is angry at the lies, voters at the doors are telling her they are sick of negative ads and don’t believe them anyway. In fact, from what she’s hearing, it is making them want to vote for her.

“I've had Republican voters who know me personally who tell me, ‘I know who you are, Becky. I know how you work with people. I know how much you care about this community, and I am so disgusted with the things they are saying about you,’” Nichols recounts. “‘I cannot vote Republican. I'll be voting for you. I'll be voting for a Democrat for the first time in my life.’”

Lowering Costs

Nichols says her top priority when she gets to Madison is to address the affordability issues, the topic that she says is uppermost on voters’ minds. Restoring adequate shared revenue from the state to municipalities, she says, is the fastest way to address high costs, in that it will allow cities to provide property tax relief. As a school teacher, Nichols says she understands first-hand how state cuts to public education force local property owners to fill the gaps. 

Nichols says the surplus in Madison (estimated at around $ 3 million) can also be used to address issues beyond expanding shared revenue, such as investing in healthcare and childcare to help lower costs. The childcare industry is in crisis in Wisconsin and that is impacting the entire economy, she points out. She recently met with a local childcare center owner in Neenah and came away with a better understanding of what they’re facing.

“I learned a lot more about their struggles in terms of recruiting and retaining employees, and the increased costs that they have to deal with as well that get passed on to families,” she says. “And when you think about how our economy works, parents need to go to work every day to pay the bills, and childcare becomes one of those bills. If we want people to participate in the workforce, we need to have childcare that's affordable, childcare that's accessible, childcare that can offer the same level of pay and benefits to their employees that other industries can provide. It's literally the foundation that our economy is built on.”

Nichols says she understands that money is finite and that Democrats will have to be selective when it comes to their wish list of programs that address critical matters. But, she argues, it is time to reassess our values and priorities as a state and as a society. 

“Do we want to continue to give huge tax breaks to big corporations at the cost of investing in our communities, in our families and in our future, in education, public education?” she asks. “So there has to be a realignment of how our dollars are spent, where they're invested. And also making sure that the folks who can pay their fair share do so. 

“So I will be happy to have that conversation with anyone who wants to enter into it with me in the legislature, and make sure that we are investing in the folks who live here, making sure that they have the things that they need, like a great public education, like access to affordable healthcare, and lower prescription drug costs, and holding insurance companies accountable, so that ordinary people don't continue to shoulder the burden.”

Working-class connections

While Nichols says she feels good about the state of the race, pointing out that the district has been trending blue for the last couple of years, she also recognizes it is a fifty-fifty district. There is an independent in the race, which makes it all the more unpredictable, although that candidate has received the backing of the Republican Party in her previous campaigns for county board. 

Nichols thinks her advantages lay in the work she has done in the community for more than a decade, her name recognition, the anti-Republican winds that are sweeping the country and the grassroots campaign she is running. Getting in front of voters and listening to their concerns, she says, is more powerful than any negative ad her opponent chooses to run against her.

She also says voters connect with her as a worker, as a mother and as someone who understands the impact of the tornado on their lives.

She says those connections are bearing fruit. She recounts a recent interaction with a voter who didn’t understand why it mattered if he voted for the State Assembly. After she pointed out to him all the ways in which policy decisions impacted his life, she brought up the tornado.

“It matters even more right now because we are all going through this,” she told him. “And I will be there to make sure that you are not forgotten, that you are heard, that you have what you need to to get through this moment, to make sure we stay on the road of rebuilding and recovery. Because I'm walking this with you right now. I'm in it with you, and I'm going to make sure I'm an advocate for these communities all the way through.” 

He listened and said he would vote for her. Such moments energize her, she says. And they are not all that rare, not with the way voters are feeling five weeks out from the election.

“I've had a lot of people say, ‘you know, I used to split my ticket, or I used to vote only Republican,’” Nichols says. “But I've given them a fair shot, and I'm done. They've proven time and time again that they just aren't willing to do the work; they're not willing to stick up for me, and they would rather argue amongst themselves. 

“‘And so, I now vote Democrat.’”