UWL professor Chergosky says it’s early to pick defining issues for next year’s La Crosse city elections

While La Crosse County officials elected this month have just begun their new terms, voters in the city of La Crosse have to wait another 12 months to choose a mayor and several city council members.

UWL political science professor Anthony Chergosky says a year out from the local election may be too early, to focus on one or two major issues for those city races.

“(It’s) kinda risky to make too many firm predictions, other than just to make the general observation that there may or may not be that signature issue,” Chergosky told WIZM’s La Crosse Talk. “You’ve gotta believe that it might be homelessness, or the housing situation more broadly.”

Chergosky says that an urgent community need, and a matter which can be handled by the mayor’s office, could be defining issues for the 2025 city campaign.

“I think that I would be looking for an issue that checks both of those boxes,” the professor says. “Is there an issue where the mayor has a lot of power over that issue, and is it an urgent issue that the voters need to weigh in on.”

Chergosky recalls that the COVID outbreak was an overwhelming and defining issue in the 2020 elections, when Joe Biden became president. For this year, he says border security might be an issue that decides certain races.