2024 Wisconsin State Legislature Voter Guide: Assembly District 61

This is part of The Recombobulation Area and Civic Media’s 2024 Wisconsin State Legislature Voter Guide. Read the first part of the series, “New Board, New Game,” here. See the full district-by-district breakdown of the Wisconsin State Senate here. See the comprehensive Voter Guide here.

D: LuAnn Bird

R: Bob Donovan*

Longtime readers of The Recombobulation Area may recall our 2022 feature story on LuAnn Bird’s remarkable and unconventional campaign for Assembly, “Bird on a Wire,” a story that went on to win the silver award for “Best Long Hard Feature Story” from the Milwaukee Press Club. In 2023, Bird also hosted a 10-part podcast series at The Recombobulation Area, featuring conversations on civility, hope and action.

Bird lost one of the closest races on the map two years ago, coming up short by just over 500 votes. Prior to that campaign, she was the executive director for the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, and served on school boards in Oshkosh and at the Whitnall School Board and has also worked with the Wisconsin Association of School Boards. She’s also long been an advocate for people with disabilities, as her husband, a Vietnam War veteran, was paralyzed in a construction accident in 1990.

Bird is running again, setting up a rematch with Bob Donovan. This race took place in the 84th District under old maps, but is now the 61st, a district that includes the cities of Greendale and Hales Corners, and parts of Greenfield. This is again a pickup opportunity for Democrats, but Donovan is far more well-known than your typical Assembly candidate. 

Donovan served on the Milwaukee Common Council for 20 years, and ran two high-profile campaigns for mayor of Milwaukee, both times winning the primary to advance to the final two and losing in a general election landslide. Donovan has been on the move in recent years, to Greenfield after he retired from the Common Council, back to Milwaukee for his 2022 run for mayor, back to Greenfield to run for Assembly, and now again this year to run in the new 61st, as he was previously drawn into the Democratic-leaning 7th District. He launched his 2024 campaign at a bar outside of the district where he’s running. In the Assembly, Donovan has served as the Vice Chair on the Committee on Local Government. 

This again projects to be a remarkably close race, and it will be interesting to see how a slightly different district map might impact this toss-up race for this shifting Milwaukee County seat.

CNalysis: Tilt D (FLIP)

• Proj. margin: D+5

Modeled 2022 outcome: R+1.7