Do we like them?

Do we like Tony Evers?

Our score: 8 out of 10. He has stood in the way of anti-trans bills for years and found no harmful words or company, though his fact-check record is mixed.

Tony Evers is a governor on his way out the door. He beat Scott Walker to win the job, and then spent his whole tenure facing a Republican-controlled Legislature that never had the numbers to override his vetoes. He announced in July 2025 that he would not seek a third term.

The most famous fight is the so-called 400-year veto. In 2023 he used Wisconsin's partial veto to extend a school funding increase by 400 years, and Republicans tried and failed to override it. Fans see a governor getting schools funded against a wall of opposition. Critics see an aggressive use of a power that drew legal attention. Where you land depends on which of those you find more convincing.

On the harm test he comes out well. On 31 March 2026, Trans Day of Visibility, he vetoed five Republican bills targeting trans kids, including sports participation and names. He had already vetoed a ban on gender-transition care for minors in December 2023 and a school sports ban in April 2024. His stated line, per reporting on those vetoes, was that he would reject anything making Wisconsin less safe or welcoming for LGBTQ people and kids.

He has also taken the fight to the courts. In July 2025 the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in Evers v. Marklein that a legislative committee's power to block agency rules breached the state constitution. His office called it the end of Republican obstruction. It is a win about who holds power, but it is the sort of thing that lets rules on the environment and public health move.

He is not spotless on honesty. PolitiFact rated his 2018 boast about being the first Democrat to lead Walker in polling as False. Its scorecard of his first-term campaign promises came out as a mixed bag. The Republican leader of the state Senate says the surplus should be handled differently from how Evers wants. That is ordinary political scrapping rather than character trouble.

The good stuff is mostly public service. In 2021 he issued a formal apology for the harm done to Native American families by boarding schools in Wisconsin and across the US. He says more than 97 per cent of the 800-plus bills he signed passed with bipartisan support. That is his own figure, but it fits the picture of a man who kept dealing even when the other side wouldn't.