MIDDLETON — More than a third of Democratic Party of Wisconsin conventioneers voting in a WisPolitics.com straw poll favored state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout for the party’s 2018 gubernatorial nomination.
Vinehout, of Alma, was favored by 184, or 38 percent, of the 489 delegates, alternates and registered guests who voted in the straw poll. State Rep. Dana Wachs, of Eau Claire, was backed by 61, or 13 percent.
Bob Harlow, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in California last year, is the only announced Democratic candidate for governor. He received less than 1 percent of the vote.
Vinehout also won the WisPolitics.com straw poll at the 2015 convention. The party blocked WisPolitics.com’s efforts to conduct a straw poll at last year’s event.
Vinehout, in her third term as a state senator from western Wisconsin, was weighing a 2014 bid for governor when she was involved in a car crash and decided against a run as she recovered from her injuries. She also sought the party’s nomination in the 2012 recall attempt of Gov. Scott Walker, finishing a distant third in the Democratic primary with 4 percent of the vote.
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