Campaign spotlight: Common Council District 3

There are eight candidates running for the vacant Common Council District 3 seat on April 1. This race is officially non-partisan so the primary election on February 18 will narrow the field to two candidates, who will then vie for the seat.

Milwaukee Beagle sent all eight candidates questions on January 8. We haven’t received any replies, yet. To be fair, this project isn’t much more than a few scrappy dogs in a trenchcoat, so we don’t really expect busy campaigns to prioritize our provocative questions. Left to do our own research, we did.

Milwaukee Beagle doesn’t have an official endorsement process, but we make our opinions clear and back them with evidence. As an all-volunteer project, we don’t have time for bullshit, and we recognize that electoral politics can be a real drag. So, we’re going to cut to the chase and offer our readers actionable information in a straightforward way. To that end:

Only three of the eight candidates have a chance.

This is really a race between Daniel Bauman, Alexander Kostal, and Nas Musa. As much as we might admire Ieshuh Griffin’s attitude, she is a perennial candidate, having run for common council in other districts, and for mayor. Green Party and DSA candidates Josh Anderson and Alex Brower might make for decent protest votes, raising issues that deserve attention, but they are unlikely to rally sizeable support outside their marginal party cliques. Also, Brower has run and lost almost as often as Griffin, and he (like Griffin) doesn’t actually live in District 3. As we’ve discussed before, carpetbagging is unbecoming behavior in a democracy. 

If you want to hear more from the marginal candidates, a number of progressive organizations had a debate with them all on January 23. There is another public debate scheduled for Monday, February 3. 

The Oligarchy’s choice

Daniel Bauman is the candidate to beat. He used to work for Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who endorsed him. Bauman is also endorsed by Diana Vang Brostoff, the widow of Jonathan Brostoff, whose seat became vacant when he tragically died by suicide. Bauman works in marketing and calls himself a progressive, but the issues page of his website reads like it was written by AI bots or Thad Nation’s ghoul consultants. If he wins, Bauman will likely be another rubber stamp for our conservative, quasi-Republican mayor’s self-serving agenda.  

Milwaukeeans need to get better at recognizing conservatives who run as Democrats. Daniel Bauman is one. He moved back to Milwaukee in 2020 and joined the local machine, working as deputy campaign manager for Mayor Johnson, then staff assistant, where he focused on cooperation with business improvement districts. According to his initial finance report (covering November 22 - Dec 31), Bauman received 10 donations over $500. Only three came from inside District 3: $754 each (the maximum donation) from business owners Kyle and Ruthie Weatherly, and another maxed out donation from Diane Vang Brostoff. Meanwhile, $2,508 came from donors in Brooklyn and Washington DC. He also got $1,604 from the campaigns of former alderpeople Jim Bohl, Nik Kovac (both of whom now work for Cavalier Johnson’s office), and Jonathan Brostoff. 

You can probably guess Bauman’s largest expense by that misleading AI looking faux progressive slop on his “issues” page. That’s right, Daniel Bauman gave $2500 to Nation Consulting! Nation works with many corporate entities, oligarchs, campaigns and causes in the city and state. Their involvement in any campaign marks it as part of Milwaukee’s establishment political machine. 

The vanity candidate

Bauman’s loudest, best-funded challenger is local businessman Nasser Musa. Musa’s campaign is rife with anti-Trump events and messaging, like his Hate is a Drag Brunch and posts about resisting deportations. He doesn’t spell it out as clearly as we do, but these moves suggest that running against Bauman is not much different than running against a Republican. Musa’s campaign also organized an event decrying high rent and low wages. All of this populist rhetoric would be exciting (who doesn’t love a drag brunch?) if only Musa could be trusted to deliver on it. 

Behind the slogans, Nas Musa is a landlord and business owner in the service sector. He is paying the low wages and charging the high rents he decries. Some properties displaying his yard signs are just houses he owns. His campaign also engages in fear mongering rhetoric about crime, and celebrates the Milwaukee Police Department, an organization that has always perpetrated extreme racially targeted violence. He also has so very little political experience. In other words: he doesn’t vote. According to Milwaukee’s professional political gossip, Dan Bice*, Musa only cast three ballots in the last 10 years.

What Musa lacks in voting experience he makes up for with money. He has raised significantly more than any other candidate in the race. While little of this money is coming from out of state, only 7 of his 23 biggest donors (those giving $500 or more) live in Milwaukee, and only three of those live in district 3. It’s almost tragic, Musa clearly wants to take on the establishment machine, and does seem to earnestly care about people and issues that are often ignored here. Unfortunately, rather than pursuing that desire by raising money for a someone with the same values who at least actually votes, he’s dumping it into a pretty unqualified candidate: himself.

The people’s choice

If it’s not obvious yet, Alexander Kostal is the best candidate in this race. He is running on protecting renters, affordable housing, and preserving district 3’s income diversity, as well as preserving public safety by addressing the root causes of crime. Kostal is the only candidate born in the district and involved in public service his whole life. As a public defender, member of Milwaukee County’s Human Rights Commission, and former president of the Brady Street Neighborhood Association, Alexander Kostal has spent years working for others and the common good. 

Most importantly, Kostal has actually done substantive work. Meanwhile, someone like Alex Brower, the carpetbagging perennial candidate mentioned above, likes to throw around radical slogans, but in a strange desperate way that is both buzzword attention-grabby and deeply muddled. For example, in his interview on Cream City Social, the DSA’s podcast, he spoke about police (starting around 30 minutes in). He said: “I believe… and I want to share this with every listener here… I do believe we should abolish police as we know it.” He still talked about “apprehending criminals” though, and said, “obviously there are some things a person could do that deserve a consequence” and “we will obviously need someone to respond to violence and something like that.” He’s clearly seeking attention for saying “abolish the police” but then muddling it to reassure people who can’t imagine anything beyond an apprehension and punishment approach to public safety. His slippery words leave us with no clue what he’d actually do if any of his many attempts to gain office ever succeed.

In contrast, Alex Kostal is a public defender. He’s spent years actually protecting Milwaukeeans from the racist violence of the Milwaukee Police Department, the DA, and the Wisconsin prison system. He knows from working directly with people in the system’s sights how it harms them, and the steps necessary to actually reduce that harm. Kostal has also worked in local government on the county and city level. This means he will be well equipped to bring real change through the hostile and conservative-captured Common Council. This substance over surface approach is probably why Kostal beat others to the endorsement of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association. 

Alex Kostal’s biggest challenge is fundraising. His first report has only 10 donors, with only 1 giving $500 or more. Kostal entered the race later, so his initial fundraising didn’t start until December 12, three weeks after the other candidates. The good news is, Kostal is running a grassroots campaign. He is definitely not hiring consultants, but rather relying on endorsements, community connections, and volunteer enthusiasm. 

Of course, this is still politics in the United States, fundraising matters! If you want to see a grounded, effective, change-making candidate actually get into office, you can donate to Alexander Kostal’s campaign or sign up to volunteer.

Footnote: 

* We at Milwaukee Beagle are often criticized for being biased, while hacks like Bice are paid big money to imitate objectivity, and here we have an excellent example. Last summer, Bice wrote about another candidate’s pathetic voting record, but because that candidate was the centrist establishment pick (and a white man), Bice gave him the benefit of the doubt. Compare the Musa and Anderson articles, its quite revealing.