RGA Statement on Mandela Barnes Entering Wisconsin Gubernatorial Race

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Republican Governors Association (RGA) released the following response to Mandela Barnes launching a gubernatorial campaign in Wisconsin:

“The Democrats’ race to the left continues in Wisconsin with Mandela Barnes’ entry into the governor’s race. Peddling dangerous, soft-on-crime policies and a disastrous economic agenda, Barnes has already been rejected by voters once and has proven he is too far left for Wisconsin. As prices continue to rise under Democrat leadership in the governor’s office, it’s clear that Wisconsin can’t afford Barnes in power,” said RGA Communications Director Courtney Alexander.

• Barnes supported the disastrous economic agenda that caused inflation to skyrocket and has devastated Wisconsin families.

• Barnes, a backer of the Green New Deal, said to a United Nations audience that the United States should “stymie capitalism” in order to fight climate change.

• Even though Barnes has a history of delinquent tax bills, that has not stopped him from pushing for higher taxes on everyone else. Barnes wanted to raise the gas tax by 24 percent, opposed tax cuts for middle-class families, pushed for a billion-dollar tax hike on Wisconsin families, and even advocated for a 70% tax bracket.

• Barnes’ dangerous soft-on-crime policies would be disastrous for Wisconsin. He sponsored a bill to end cash bail and wanted to eliminatecash bail nationally.

• Barnes supported defunding the police and abolishing ICE. He even wants to empty Wisconsin’s prisons.

• Barnes would allow biological men to compete in girls’ sports and use girls’ bathrooms.

• Mandela Barnes criticized fellow progressives looking to compromise, then said he “could not care less about a 2nd Amendment ‘right’” to bear arms, and likened people who support “God, country, and guns” to the terrorist group ISIS.

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