In state's most closely watched race, Tollefson is counting on personal reputation, community work, to overcome negative ads

Years ago, when Brandy Tollefson visited the Amazon Rainforest as an archaeology student at Portland State, about the last thing she could have envisioned was that, two decades later, she’d be running for the most targeted seat in the Wisconsin State Assembly ... with Democratic control of the entire state government hanging in the balance.

But here she is today, embracing – albeit, reluctantly – the spotlight for the chance to help affect what she believes is much needed change in Madison.

She’s doing it with the eager blessings of her family, including an older son with diabetes who appears in one of her ads, and a husband who is minding the house when he’s not actively knocking doors on his wife’s behalf. Unlike Tollefson, those two actually do enjoy the notoriety. 

“My husband loves the attention,” Tollefson says with a laugh. “We are the opposite. We'll be at the grocery store and someone will be like, oh, you're Brandy, thank you so much for running, and he's like, I want that to happen to me. But he loves every second of it. He's so supportive. He knows how much I can accomplish.”

Then there is her 14-year old daughter – already an activist herself – who loves hearing her friends at school talking about her mom, and another son who is out of the house and also fully supportive.

But while Tollefson eschews the spotlight, she is not afraid at all of the challenge itself. She has plenty of ideas and passion and has clearly done her homework on issues ranging from education funding to health care to child care. Her motivation to step up was partly driven by what she sees as a lack of seriousness in the AD88 (a largely suburban, upside down-L shaped district that includes De Pere and Allouez) incumbent, Ben Franklin. That was especially notable, she says, when he failed to show up for a gathering of legislators and school administrators Tollefson herself convened to discuss funding issues for the area school districts as a member of the De Pere School Board. She says the silly ads they are running against her – calling her a socialist, for instance – don’t bother her as much as the fact that her representative doesn’t appear to be committed to doing the work.

'It’s personal'

“When it's time to actually do the work and you're not doing the work and you're not coming to the school board to talk about school funding, and you're not showing up in the community, that’s a problem,” she says. “I show up at everything in the community, whether it's volunteering at Pink Flamingo (charity softball tournament) or Hands Across De Pere. 

“So in the two years that Ben Franklin has had the opportunity to get out and shake hands and volunteer and show that he is supporting the community, I have not seen him anywhere, and no one I know has seen him. That's the part that's frustrating to me. It's not the rhetoric behind campaigning; it's the actual work.”

Another motivation for Tollefson is more personal. Ten years ago her family’s world was upended when her 9-year-old son was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. She entered the race after she saw Republicans, including her opponent, not taking seriously enough the plight of families with health care crises. Earlier this year, the GOP rejected a Democratic proposal to cap insulin costs at $35 a month.

In a current ad, she accuses Franklin of protecting special interest groups, one of the examples, she says, of him being a rubber stamp for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and a Republican legislature she maintains has done little to address pressing concerns.

The 'weight of the world' again

This is Tollefson’s second political campaign following her successful run for the De Pere School Board in 2024, on which she currently serves. Both races have been pressure cookers. She opted for her first run when two Moms for Liberty candidates made it onto the board and became a disruptive force, proposing book bans, rainbow flag bans and strictures on what could be taught. 

When two of those members’ friends, also part of the Moms for Liberty group, ran and threatened to become a majority on the board, Tollefson and another candidate stepped up. The disruptions had the community upset and worried.

“I regularly would get phone calls from teachers, from community members, just saying , "You have to win. If they take over our board, we just don't know what's going to happen. Like, I'm going to quit and go to a different district. I can't stay here if they have the majority.’

“Me and (another candidate) Matt Peterson felt like the weight of the world was on our shoulders. So when I was asked to run in the 88th, and they were saying this was going to be the most important district in the state, I just thought, ‘Okay, I've done this before.’” 

Underscoring Tollefson’s fearlessness, she organized an investigation into one of those Moms for Liberty board members and produced a censure against her for violating the board’s code of conduct. Included in that case were complaints regarding harassment of teachers and administrators. Tollefson says that, despite the turmoil, she has not regretted her decision.

“Sometimes all it takes is just being willing to say yes, to put yourself in that uncomfortable situation, and feel the weight of the world for a moment, so that you can push through that and get real work done,” she says, acknowledging that that same mindset is guiding her through her current battle. “I absolutely love when we make decisions and we hear ‘thank yous’ from our teachers or our staff. It makes me feel like I'm making a difference in people's lives, and I know I'm making a difference in the kids' lives.” 

Funding public schools

It’s no surprise, then, that one of Tollefson’s top concerns and areas of expertise are in regard to public education. Republicans accuse Gov. Evers of political gamesmanship with his so-called “400-year” veto that allows school districts – if they choose – to raise per-pupil spending each year, but Tollefson sees Evers’ actions as a response to Republicans’ own cynicism and gamesmanship. She points to their zero increase to state aid to schools in the last biennial budget.

“In reality, the state could have chosen to take on a portion of that by increasing state funding, like they had done historically every year previously,” she says. “They did that in order to put that all on Evers’ shoulders as a property tax increase. So it really became a political game of messaging more so than actually looking at taking care of our kids in our schools.” 

Tollefson says the criticism that public schools are top heavy and could find savings by cutting what they deem administrative bloat are misguided. She points to ACT 20, which shifted the model for teaching literacy to a more scientific approach. While she hails the change as a good and necessary one, she says it came with enormous new requirements for schools, along with unfunded mandates.

“Act 20 came with zero additional funding, and you had to go buy a very expensive curriculum, and then you still had to train your teachers and get everybody up to speed,” she says. “And you don't get any additional funds for that training time for your teachers. Or you write your own curriculum and that requires hiring additional people that are literacy experts to get everybody trained and up to speed on what we need to do to be compliant with Act 20 by the deadline.

“And if you think we need to cut the fat at the schools, please come to school board meetings and let us know where that fat is because we don't see it. There are things that we would love to do more of at our schools that we know are working to get kids up to the level that they need to be at in their education, and there just isn't funding to do those things.”

Between more and more tax money going to voucher schools and revenue limits on per-pupil spending that, since 2009, have not even allowed for inflation, school districts have increasingly been forced to go to referendums to try to break even and offer the level of education mandated by the state Constitution.

Pressing issues have been ignored

Ben Franklin won the 88th Assembly race in 2024 by 221 votes, the smallest margin of all the Assembly elections that year. Despite being outspent significantly by Republicans flush with cash from billionaires Rich and Elizabeth Uihlein and Diane Hendricks, Tollefson believes the good will she has generated in the community – first leading a referendum to save a neighborhood pool, then as a member of the Parent Teacher Organization and later helping to spearhead a successful operational referendum for the district and, finally, as a member of the school board – will carry her on Nov. 3.

“It's going to be close,” she says. “But the feeling I'm getting at doors is that people are ready for change, that they're frustrated with the status quo, and they're frustrated with the fact that their property taxes continue to go up, and yet our schools are continuing to fail. They are frustrated that healthcare is on the rise, and there is nothing being done about it in Madison to try and curb that. And Medicaid and food stamps are going to be dropping off for a lot of people on January 1, thanks to the federal government. 

“Our state government needs to be stepping in and helping people. They're also frustrated with things like daycare costs. Families just cannot afford to have kids these days and have two parents working. There needs to be more help in our community, and they're not seeing any of that. What they are seeing is tax credits for data centers and tax credits for billionaires that are funding my opponent's campaign.”

With all that is plaguing the state, she can only laugh at the ads Franklin has been running that barely acknowledge those issues while painting her as extreme. What Tollefson says she’s finding at doors is that people simply don’t believe what they’re seeing about her. For those who aren’t sure, she hopes their conversation convinces them. Or she’ll advise them to go watch both of them on Newsmaker Sunday, separate 30-minute interviews with each of the candidates.

Tollefson says she is mindful that addressing long-neglected needs will cost money and that the state has finite resources. She is in favor of legalizing marijuana, which costs Wisconsin as much as $44 million annually in state revenue. She also favors cutting tax loopholes for the wealthiest donors.

“These billionaires that are putting $30 million into the Republican campaigns right now have historically made a lot of money back by keeping them in their pocket in the legislature and they have left those loopholes open.” 

'People are more aware'

Tollefson thinks the extreme gerrymandering Scott Walker and the GOP introduced in 2011, when they won all three branches, created a cycle of complacency among many voters in the district, the result, she argues, of a sense of futility. Most of the races, after all, were decided before they began after Republicans all but guaranteed perpetual incumbency. The redrawing of the maps in 2023 have put districts back in play and the voters feel they have a stake again, she says.

“I think people are more aware that you can't just trust that people are doing it for the right reasons, and you can't just trust that whatever's coming out of their mouth is what they actually mean and what they intend to do,” she says. “So more and more people are questioning, getting engaged, really trying to do the research.”

Tollefson says it will be a sprint to the end, that it will be a matter of talking to as many voters as she can. She says she loves the one-on-one interactions with voters, where she can show her authentic self to people who have seen her only as a caricature in Franklin’s ads. Those personal contacts, along with her reputation around the district, will carry her in November, she hopes.

“It's just having conversations with those people, so that they don't have to believe what's on the TV or what's coming in their mail,” she says. “They actually hear from me who I am and why I want to fight for this district. I do feel like I am winning votes. I've heard a lot from people that say they feel my authenticity and know my work ethic. 

“I also have worked hard in this community for a long time. So I do have a lot of people who know me personally, who are standing up and telling people they know me, telling people that none of the stuff in the ads is true. So I'm really lucky that I have built a good reputation in this community.”