WASHINGTON — One of the top Democrats is bowing out just 15 days before the primary and throwing his support to one of his rivals.

What You Need To Know

  • Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson announced on Monday that he was suspending his campaign for U.S. Senate
  • He endorsed Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes

  • Nelson was the first Democrat to announced his candidacy

 

Tom Nelson launched his campaign in October 2020. His early bid was inspired by his belief that it was “never too early to do the right thing.” Nearly two years later, the Outagamie County Executive is ending his marathon run for Senate before the primary.

“It wasn’t easy,” Nelson said. “But I think what this comes down to is — I’ll be honest — we ran out of money.”

Nelson’s campaign raised $230,000 from April to June according to Federal Election Commission filings and he raised a total of $1.4 million since he entered the race. But he’s well behind the leading Democrats in this election for campaign cash.

“If this is a battle between those who can self-fund their campaign and those who cannot, Nelson dropping out leaves [Mandela] Barnes and other candidates, Steven Olikara for example, who are also not self funding,” Dr. Charles Franklin, director of Marquette Law School Poll said. “So there is a gap there in financial resources.”

Polls consistently showed Nelson as the third or fourth choice among likely Democratic voters. He had hoped to pull a come-from-behind upset like Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, did in the 1992 U.S. Senate race.

“With Feingold, there were two much more well-known and much better-funded Democratic candidates who simply destroyed each other in a negative campaign for the primary,” Dr. Franklin said. “And that opened the door for Feingold at the last minute to walk through and win a solid victory in the primary and, of course, go on to win the Senate election in November. This year, we’ve seen the all of the Democratic candidates really be very reticent to directly attack one another in our Senate debate a week or so ago. The candidates really barely laid a glove on each other.”

Looking to push them to the left, Nelson often challenged his primary opponents on progressive issues. Now that he’s dropping out, he’s throwing his support behind Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.

“Even though we were competitors for 12 months and we had some disagreements, bottom line is we have a lot more common than then we don’t,” Nelson said. “Everything’s on the line and this is going to be the seat that’s going to decide control of the U.S. Senate and so much is at stake.” 

Barnes responded to Nelson’s endorsement and called for further unity among Democrats.

“I deeply respect Tom Nelson’s commitment to the working people in this state and I’m thankful for his endorsement,” Barnes said in a statement. “It will take all of us coming together in every corner of this state to beat Ron Johnson.” 

Nelson also plans to help campaign for Gov. Tony Evers’ re-election.