Wisconsin Senate Democrat Candidate Mandela Barnes: ‘Unfortunate’ Prisoners Do Not Have Voting Rights

Wisconsin Senate Democrat candidate Mandela Barnes stated last year it is “unfortunate” prisoners do not have voting rights, a video surfacing from the Republican National Committee revealed Sunday.

“We aren’t talking about people who get to make decisions. We are talking about incarcerated individuals who don’t have the right to vote, which is unfortunate of itself,” Barnes stated last year on Our Issues Milwaukee.

Barnes, who serves as the Democrat lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, is campaigning against Republican Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI). Barnes is mounting his campaign challenge to Johnson in the state of Wisconsin that fell to President Joe Biden in 2020 by less than one point. Polling indicates Barnes has a slight 2 point lead over Johnson, a gap that has been closing in recent weeks.

Biden’s narrow victory in the state has apparently not discouraged Barnes from pushing radical policy ideas. Barnes’ objection to felons losing the right to vote is just the tip of the iceberg. He has also advocated for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), permitting driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, giving in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants, and defunding “over-bloated” police departments. He favors an entirely government-run healthcare system, canceling the Senate filibuster, and packing the Supreme Court.

On Friday, Breitbart News reported Barnes supports the Green New Deal, which would destroy the American economy to reshape it into a socialist utopia. “The Green New Deal is the path to get us there, but we have to think so much deeper and so much broader,” Barnes said in a video.

Barnes also claimed last July that national parks “weren’t made for the enjoyment of people who weren’t white.”

Johnson’s campaign spokesperson, Alexa Henning, told Breitbart News that Barnes has tried “to hide his complete endorsement for the far left’s radical policies, just like he tries to hide from the press.”

“But he cannot hide from his own words of support for policies like defunding ICE and defund the police, low bail, higher taxes, and the Green New Deal,” she added.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.