Democrat Ben Brist Defeats Bob Donovan to Help Flip Wisconsin Assembly

Ben Brist, a Democrat and seven-year Army veteran, defeated longtime Republican politician Bob Donovan on Tuesday night in a southwest Milwaukee County state Assembly race that helped Democrats flip control of the Wisconsin Legislature for the first time since 2010, Urban Milwaukee reported.

The result capped a sweeping night for Democrats both in Wisconsin and across the country, delivering the party a rare trifecta in state government just as Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley secured his own electoral victory. With all in-person votes counted Tuesday night, Brist won 55% of the vote, bringing an end to Donovan’s long run in Milwaukee-area politics.

Brist enters the Assembly with a resume that blends military service and elite policy training. He spent seven years on active duty as an officer in the paratroopers, a branch of the Army that demands rigorous physical and mental standards, before pursuing graduate studies at Harvard Kennedy School. There, he interned for U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, gaining firsthand exposure to federal legislative operations. That combination of national security experience and Capitol Hill training shaped a well-financed campaign that attracted substantial backing from a long list of unions and traditional Democratic allies, including Planned Parenthood, all of whom viewed the seat as critical to flipping the chamber.

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Outspending a Political Survivor

Donovan, a former alderman on Milwaukee’s south side who spent most of his political career surrounded by Democrats, had long been known for his knack for survival. As a longtime Milwaukee Common Council member and later a state legislator in Madison, he worked with city Democrats across party lines despite his Republican affiliation, earning a reputation as a practical negotiator who understood the city’s diverse ethnic and labor communities. That durability carried him through years of controversy, including scandals that have dogged him related to questions about his residency and a 1992 disorderly conduct ticket for peeping through a hole in the partition between restroom stalls in a men’s room at UW-Milwaukee—an incident that might have ended lesser careers but which he weathered to continue serving the south side.

Yet even Donovan’s survival instincts could not overcome the financial machinery arrayed against him this cycle. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin and its legislative campaign committees poured a combined total of more than $1.6 million into Brist’s campaign, a war chest that funded an aggressive ground game and media operation in a district where Democrats saw a clear path to flipping the chamber and ending sixteen years of minority status in the Assembly.

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Completing the Trifecta After Sixteen Years

Brist’s victory proved to be the decisive pickup in the Democrats’ bid to reclaim the state Assembly, giving the party control of the lower chamber for the first time since 2010. Combined with Crowley’s win at the county level and the Democratic governor’s office, the result establishes a trifecta that will allow the party to advance its legislative agenda in Madison without facing Republican obstruction in the Assembly for the first time in a decade and a half.

The shift carries immediate implications for southwest Milwaukee County residents, who will now be represented by a freshman legislator with direct ties to U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s office and strong labor backing. As Democrats prepare to organize the chamber, Brist’s roughly ten-point margin of victory suggests the district has moved firmly into Democratic territory, ending an era in which Donovan’s personal brand had kept the seat competitive despite broader statewide trends. With control of the Assembly secured, attention now turns to how the new Democratic majority will use its return to power to shape the state budget and legislative priorities after sixteen years in the minority.