Brandy Tollefson is a mom of three who loves working, volunteering, and living in Brown County.
“People love to get out and spend time outside on the rivers—kayaking and boating,” she said, describing the 88th Assembly District, where she’s a Democratic candidate.
“We have great parks and a lot of community celebrations in all parts of my district. I really feel like it’s a community that’s truly a community. Not every town and city feels like a community, and this area really does.”
The pivotal seat could flip the chamber
Wisconsin’s 88th Assembly District is one of 99 districts in the Wisconsin State Assembly. Located in northeastern Wisconsin, the district comprises parts of central Brown County. It includes the city of De Pere, the villages of Allouez and Bellevue, and a small part of the city of Green Bay. The district also contains landmarks such as St. Norbert College. The 88th has been represented by small business owner and veteran Republican Ben Franklin, who won the seat against Democrat Chris Welch, since January 2025.
The battle for the district was exceptionally tight in 2024, decided by a razor-thin margin of just 220 votes (50.3% to 49.6%)—the narrowest margin of any State Assembly race in Wisconsin that year.
Tollefson is inspired by the close margins recorded in 2024. “It is a district that we know is winnable,” she said.
Democrats need to hold their existing seats and pick up five additional seats to capture a majority in the Assembly. Because the district lacks a locked-in partisan advantage and sits squarely in “toss-up” territory, both parties view the 88th District as a pivotal battleground that could tip the balance of power in the state legislature.
“This entire area of Green Bay, because of the new maps and just the changing environment and people recognizing that Madison has not been doing what it needs to do to make people’s lives here better, has been leaning more and more toward the left, and we believe that we’re going to be able to see that through and finally get this district flipped blue and have a Democrat representing this area in Madison,” said Tollefson.
Why she ran for the school board
Tollefson won a seat on the De Pere School District Board of Education in 2024. In her role as treasurer, she manages district accounting and education investments.
“Part of the reason why I decided to join the school board was because there were two members of our school board coming out of COVID that were Moms for Liberty, and were starting to push for things like banning pride flags and banning books and putting a lot of stress on our community and especially on our administration and teachers,” Tollefson said.
These distractions have since settled, leaving the board with more space to focus on its broader goals. As her board duties became less urgent, Tollefson shifted focus toward other ambitions.
“When the opportunity came to run for the Assembly, it was an easy choice for me to say ‘yes’. I know that I can go to Madison and do the same thing I did on the school board—which is fight for the community, make sure that I am taking care of this community, and that we are not doing any political games or running on people’s self-interests.”
Tollefson told UpNorthNews she’s devoted to “really doing what’s best for this community” and said she hasn’t seen that sort of commitment from Madison in the last few years.
Should the voucher program be scaled back?
In the race for District 88, Tollefson is focusing her campaign on priorities like public education funding, healthcare access, and lowering the cost of living.
She said the education of Wisconsin’s children will always be important to her—particularly in the public schools systems.
Tollefson argues that current Republican legislative policies have failed to properly fund public schools, forcing funding to fall behind inflation and driving up local property taxes.
She said the public school funding system is complicated. “There’s so many different pieces to it that I think a lot of people don’t really understand, and it’s easy to make it into talking points in whichever direction you want it to be,” she said. “And unfortunately, the talking points that have been coming out of Madison and out of the Republican Party have not been accurate.”
Tollefson said Republicans have not been forthcoming on “what they have done to put schools in the position that they’re in that continue to force us to go to referendum—to continue to force us to ask taxpayers to increase their own property taxes year after year so that we can give kids a proper education in this state, which is again stretching families’ budgets.”
She supports re-evaluating the state’s outdated school funding system, which remains benchmarked to 1993 spending levels. The system also fails to reflect present-day school costs and criticizes state-imposed revenue caps that have not kept pace with inflation, restricting local districts’ budgets and resource planning.
She said school boards like hers shouldn’t be blamed for property tax hikes and that administrators are doing the best they can. “They talk a lot about that the schools are mismanaging funds, and that is not true,” she said. “I sit on the school board, I go to state convention meetings, I talk to other school board members and other superintendents, and nobody is excessively spending just for fun.”
“Everybody is living within the budget that is set by the state. And that is not enough to give every student a chance at an equitable education in this state right now. I think that is where it’s really frustrating—that they’re trying to push a narrative that the school boards and the administrators are causing this problem in some way, and that’s just not the reality–the problem is coming from Madison.”
Tollefson also took aim at Republicans who want to see funds reallocated to private schools. She told UpNorthNews that while she supports families having a choice, and that private schools work well for some families, she opposes the reallocation of public tax do llars to private voucher schools.
“Right now, the funding that should be going to our public schools is being diverted to the private schools through the voucher system—not directly—but through the amount that is coming through property taxes is going into the private schools, ” Tollefson said. “I would love to see the voucher program, if not completely eliminated, scaled back to what the original intent was, which is to help the lower income families in our state have some say and have some options.”
Her drive for affordable medical access is personal
Tollefson’s stance on healthcare is deeply personal. “One of my other really big issues that is really close to my heart—is my son has type one diabetes,” she said. “My family was very affected emotionally, financially with the diagnosis when he was 9-years-old.”
Seeing the financial and logistical hurdles of managing a chronic condition firsthand led Tollefson to champion affordable, accessible care for all families.
“It was a huge financial hit on our family to all of a sudden have very expensive prescription drugs, so we had to learn how to navigate the system.”
She frames healthcare affordability as a critical component of lowering the overall cost of living for middle- and lower-income families.
“I would love for the state of Wisconsin to do everything it can to help lower prescription drug costs, to help create an environment where healthcare is more accessible and affordable to more families and individuals, and that we have that safety net in place for people like my son—making sure that BadgerCare is expanded, and if he comes out of college and needs that extra coverage, that it’s there for him.”
She said it isn’t something that should be negotiable. “We need to make sure that people’s healthcare is taken care of in this state—that we’re looking at those healthcare deserts that we have and making sure that we can do everything we can to help people be healthy and thrive in the state.”
If elected, Tollefson said she is dedicated to helping pass legislation that directly expands access to affordable care rather than treating affordability as a secondary issue.
“Franklin and the Republicans have spent their time trying to take away working families’ health care in favor of the insurance companies,” she said. “If elected, I will not only reject Republican attempts to eliminate health care protections, but I will fight to strengthen them. No family should have to worry about getting sick or injured and not being able to afford proper medical care.”
