1. Mandela Barnes was born on December 1,1986 and is an American politician who served as the 45th lieutenant governor of Wisconsin from 2019 to 2023.
19 Facts About Mandela Barnes
1. 2.
Mandela Barnes was the Democratic nominee in the 2022 United States Senate election in Wisconsin, losing to incumbent Republican Senator Ron Johnson.
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Jesse Mandela Barnes was born in Milwaukee on December 1,1986, the son of a public school teacher and a United Auto Workers member.
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Jesse is his father's name and his middle name, Mandela Barnes, is a tribute to the anti-apartheid activist and first South African black president Nelson Mandela Barnes.
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Mandela Barnes says he has gone by his middle name since birth.
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Mandela Barnes was involved with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People during college.
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Mandela Barnes has said that Barack Obama's keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention inspired him to rethink his post-college career.
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Mandela Barnes served as deputy director of strategic engagement for State Innovation Exchange, a national progressive public policy organization based in Madison, from December 2016 to December 2017.
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Mandela Barnes defeated Fields in the August 2012 primary with 2,596 votes to Fields's 1,206.
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Mandela Barnes received 16,403 votes to 201 votes for others.
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Mandela Barnes was reelected in 2014 without a primary or general election challenge.
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Mandela Barnes chaired the legislature's Black and Latino Caucus and helped lead a number of international delegations to the Middle East and southeast Asia.
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In January 2018, Mandela Barnes announced his candidacy for lieutenant governor of Wisconsin in the 2018 election.
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Mandela Barnes became Wisconsin's first African American lieutenant governor and the nation's youngest lieutenant governor.
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Mandela Barnes was appointed chair of the governor's task force on climate change in October 2019.
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In 2019, Mandela Barnes gave the Working Families Party response to the State of the Union address.
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On July 20,2021, Mandela Barnes announced his candidacy for the United States Senate in the 2022 election, contesting the seat held by Ron Johnson.
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Mandela Barnes was the eighth person to enter the race for the Democratic nomination.
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Mandela Barnes has branded himself as a progressive and voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 and 2020 Wisconsin presidential primaries.