Mandela Barnes jumps into Wisconsin governor race - but baggage from his 2022 Senate bid follows

Former Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, a far-left Democrat who nearly unseated Republican Sen. Ron Johnson in 2022, launched a campaign for governor on Tuesday.

Barnes enters the race to replace retiring Gov. Tony Evers, D-Wis., as the likely frontrunner in a crowded Democratic primary field. But unlike his lesser-known rivals, Barnes brings the baggage of a nationalized, multimillion-dollar Senate race that exposed years of radical positions and a record Republicans have already used to define him statewide.

Fox News Digital reported extensively on Barnes during the 2022 midterm elections before he lost by one percentage point to Johnson, exposing ties to groups who called for defunding the police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). But Barnes is now putting distance between himself and those groups.

"I've had a strong record supporting and delivering resources to give law enforcement the tools and training they need to keep our communities safe and keep violent criminals off our streets, so I obviously disagree with any group calling to defund the police," he told Fox News Digital.

MANDELA BARNES ANNOUNCES BID FOR WISCONSIN GOVERNOR AFTER NARROW 2022 SENATE LOSS

Fox News Digital reported in October 2022 that Barnes has a long history with a liberal nonprofit group that aims to defund the police, get rid of law enforcement gang databases, treat 24-year-old criminals as juveniles and make Wisconsin a sanctuary state.

MANDELA BARNES HAS LONG HISTORY WITH GROUP THAT SEEKS TO BAN GANG DATABASES, MAKE WISCONSIN A SANCTUARY STATE

Barnes served on the board of directors for Citizen Action of Wisconsin (CAW) from 2014 through 2018 and was its secretary in 2017 and 2018. The group endorsed Barnes' campaign in June 2022, and he said he was "proud" to have its support.

"We've worked together for a long time now, and I'm excited about the idea that we can finally get rid of Ron Johnson together," Barnes said on CAW's podcast, "Battleground Wisconsin," in June 2022.

"You are someone who has been a part of our movement and a part of Citizen Action for a number of years," the podcast host responded. "Your agenda aligns with us."

CAW describes itself on its website as a social justice group working to "improve the lives and life prospects of all working class Wisconsinites, but at the same time disproportionately benefit communities of color because they are the most economically marginalized and impoverished."

Fox News Digital reported in September 2022 that Barnes has repeatedly advocated for cutting the state's prison population in half, eliminating cash bail and other progressive criminal justice reforms.

Before entering public office, Barnes previously worked as an organizer for Milwaukee Inner City Congregations Allied for Hope, a Milwaukee-based social justice group, when he teamed up with another organization, Wisdom, to launch a 2012 initiative aimed at cutting Wisconsin's prison population in half.

The initiative, called the 11x15 Campaign, sought to reduce the state's prison population to 11,000 inmates by 2015, Barnes told local media at the time.

When reached for comment following his campaign launch, Barnes told Fox News Digital that as "someone who lost several close friends to gun violence growing up, I believe deeply and personally that everyone has a right to feel safe in their community, and as Governor I'll work closely with law enforcement to protect Wisconsinites."

"Meanwhile, Donald Trump pardoned a high-profile drug trafficker just this week," Barnes said, referring to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández. 

But also in September 2022, Fox News Digital reported that Barnes was endorsed by a radical anti-police group that has called for defunding and disbanding law enforcement, as well as abolishing ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

On its website, Color of Change PAC celebrated Barnes' experience as a former field organizer and state representative, as well as the current lieutenant governor of the state, while calling for voters to make him the first Black senator from Wisconsin.

The group touts itself as the "nation's largest online racial justice organization," and has engaged in sharp rhetoric aimed at law enforcement, as well as policing policies and institutions it claims are "racist."

However, Barnes' gubernatorial campaign emphasized his "strong record supporting law enforcement funding to keep Wisconsin communities safe."

In August 2022, Fox News Digital reported that Barnes chaired a government climate change task force that recommended anti-racism education.

The so-called Task Force on Climate Change - which Evers created and appointed Barnes to lead in October 2019 - was designed to develop strategies for the state's government to pursue to combat climate change. Barnes and the task force's other members delivered a final report more than a year later in December 2020 which laid out 55 solutions to fight global warming and promote "environmental justice."

"In order to address this crisis and the environmental injustices associated with it, we must take urgent action, and we must ensure those actions are equitable and inclusive-anything less will continue the long pattern of environmental racism we have witnessed in this country," Barnes said in a statement after the report was published.

Barnes has a lengthy list of policy goals on his freshly launched gubernatorial campaign website, which includes commitments to banning assault weapons, making "Roe v. Wade the law of the land" and fighting back against President Donald Trump's "tariff disaster."

Upon launching his campaign, Barnes said he is running because "this moment demands bold leadership for Wisconsin."

Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wisc., the most high-profile Republican in Wisconsin's upcoming gubernatorial contest, on Tuesday took a "trip down memory lane on why far-left extremist Mandela Barnes would be WRONG for Wisconsin."

"Mandela Barnes is a far-left extremist. The fact that he is the Democrat frontrunner shows just how radical and out of touch the party has become. Wisconsinites rejected him in 2022, and they will do it again in 2026," Tiffany said in a statement. 

Fox News Digital's Jessica Chasmar, Brandon Gillespie and Thomas Catenacci contributed to this report.