A conservative independent-expenditure group is launching a new radio ad in the Milwaukee area starting Wednesday, arguing that Democrat Ben Brist did not grow up in the 61st Assembly District, did not vote in that district for the first time until spring of this year, and did not accidentally end up in Greendale. Instead, he moved there in order to run for office.
The first spot is a deadpan, Bob Newhart-style conversation with a “neighbor” who talks like he has lived in southwestern Milwaukee County his whole life. The neighbor cannot quite place Brist. That is the point.
Brist is the Democratic candidate running against Republican Representative Bob Donovan in a closely contested suburban district that includes Greendale, Hales Corners, most of Greenfield, and parts of Milwaukee and Franklin. He won the primary on August 11 with 44% of the vote, beating two other Democrats who lived in the district. The November election is one of the races that will determine whether Republicans can retain control of the Assembly.
From 2013 to 2017, Brist was at West Point. From 2017 to 2024, he was on active duty in the Army, and from 2024 until May 2026, he was at the Harvard Kennedy School. On January 16, 2026, a Facebook post referred to him as being in Wisconsin ‘on break’ from graduate school in the East. Ten days later, on January 26, he set up an Assembly campaign committee. He did not register to vote in Greendale until February 12 — after having already filed to run. He announced his candidacy on March 17. The new campaign website stated that he and his wife were ‘excited to be putting down roots here’. He cast his first ballot in the 61st a few days later, using an in-person absentee vote, for the April 7 election. He declared his intention to run for the seat before he had ever voted in it.
That is not a 20-year Greenfield Little League coach who finally got talked into running. That is a candidate who has barely unpacked and has no roots in the district.
The word “here” is used frequently in Brist’s own statements. His website states, “I was born and raised here in Wisconsin.” He describes himself as a sixth-generation Wisconsinite. This is true. Wisconsin is a large state, while the 61st is only a small part of Milwaukee County. He did not, however, grow up there.
He grew up in Madison. He attended Edgewood High School. As a student, he organized a protest against Act 10, Gov. Scott Walker’s 2011 law that has saved taxpayers billions of dollars since it took effect. His father, Steven C. Brist, served as a Democratic state representative for western Wisconsin’s 67th District, which includes the Chippewa Falls-Colfax area, before moving permanently to Madison in 1988 to head the Tavern League of Wisconsin, the lobbying arm of bar owners. Later, Steven Brist became an assistant city attorney in Madison, focusing on lobbying, elections, and ethics. It’s a political family, not one from Greendale.
Brist met his wife, Hannie, while they were in the Army and claims that he persuaded her to move to Wisconsin. Campaign aides will say the couple chose Greendale so they could settle down and start a family after his time in the Army and at Harvard. The radio advertisement asks why an officer who grew up in Madison, attended Harvard, and had a father already familiar with the Capitol has chosen this district rather than the city he actually knows.
Madison had an open seat in the Assembly this term. Since Rep. Francesca Hong is running for governor, she has given up the 76th District. Five Democrats entered that primary, but Brist did not; instead, he went to a suburban district in Milwaukee County, which Assembly Democrats have regarded as a target and in which Donovan has held office only by outrunning the partisan lean. The Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee funded Brist’s primary campaign. What matters is the order: first the campaign committee, then voter registration, then the announcement, and finally the first local vote.
Brist has ironically used the carpetbagger charge himself. In a June interview, he described Donovan, a longtime Milwaukee Common Council member who later won an election in the suburbs, as a politician who “magically reappeared” in the district. Donovan has lived in the Milwaukee area for decades, and this was Brist’s first winter as a voter in Greendale.
The new buy argues the 61st assembly district is not a finishing school for the children of Madison families and Harvard graduates. Voters in that district already have a representative who doesn’t need a map to find Greendale Village Hall.
Brist says he is not a career politician. The radio neighbor is not so sure. He wants to know which house the new fellow lives in and how long the boxes have been broken down.
