Race contrasts two approaches for the low-visibility state treasurer’s office

The 2026 race for Wisconsin state treasurer is a contest between two visions for the office — a Republican incumbent who has centered his case on doing the job without “growing government,” and a Democratic challenger who believes the position could take a higher profile.

The campaign website for Republican incumbent John Leiber, who is seeking reelection, says that in his first term he “hasn’t added programs or built a bigger office,” but instead stuck to the list of duties assigned to the state treasurer.

Democratic challenger Yee Leng Xiong is a Marathon County Board member and treasurer of the DC Everest School Board in Weston, Wisconsin, southeast of Wausau. His campaign website says he intends to “act as an independent watchdog for Wisconsin taxpayers” advocating “transparent management and investment of public funds.”

The state treasurer’s office is among those identified in the Wisconsin Constitution. “The office was first imagined by the state’s founders as a check on the government’s financial decisions and a steward of its public lands,” the treasurer’s office website states.

Over the years lawmakers have transferred or eliminated many of its duties, including cash and debt management, the state’s 529 education savings plan and the state local government investment pool.

In 2018, however, Wisconsin voters rejected an amendment that would have eliminated the elected office from the constitution.

After that vote, Sarah Godlewski, who had led the campaign against the amendment, ran for state treasurer in 2018 and won, stating the agency should be a fiscal watchdog. In office, Godlewski took on public-facing roles, including working with county treasurers and promoting retirement security programs.

Godlewski didn’t seek a second term, instead joining three other Democrats seeking the party nomination to run for U.S. Senate in 2022. In early 2023 Gov. Tony Evers appointed her as Wisconsin Secretary of State when the incumbent, Doug La Follette, resigned shortly after taking office for his 12th consecutive term. Godlewski is now the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor.

The state treasurer’s remaining official duties include signing state checks (technically done by machine) and serving with the secretary of state and the attorney general on the state Board of Commissioners of Public Lands.

The board manages 75,000 acres of former federal land now held in trust for Wisconsin schools and also manages four trust funds. The largest, the Common School Fund, makes annual donations to school library systems. Over the last four years the Common School Fund has grown to about $1.6 billion, and the annual payments to libraries from the fund have grown each year, reaching $73.5 million in 2025-26.

Republican John Leiber

When John Leiber ran in 2022 against a Democrat who campaigned on continuing Godlewski’s approach, Leiber emphasized instead focusing on the job of treasurer as it was outlined in the state constitution and statutes. Other than Sen. Ron Johnson, Leiber was the only Republican that year to win a statewide office in Wisconsin.

Leiber has been a state legislative aide and has worked in the state Department of Revenue in the tax division. On the job since 2023, he has emphasized maintaining a lean office and focusing on his role on the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands.

“This is the only dedicated funding for school libraries statewide and my top priority is to ensure the fund continues to thrive in the future,” Leiber said when he announced his reelection campaign a year ago.

Leiber’s campaign website states that in office, he “has not built a bureaucracy or invented new programs. He has administered the constitutional duties of the office, advocated for fiscal restraint with the Legislature, and focused on the assets he is charged to oversee.”

Democrat Yee Leng Xiong

Yee Leng Xiong has built a resume that includes election to multiple levels of state government as well as experience in running a nonprofit and membership on a state financial literacy council appointed by Gov. Tony Evers.

Xiong is a Wausau native whose parents were Hmong refugees from Southeast Asia. If elected he would be the first Hmong official elected to a Wisconsin statewide office.

Xiong says he can act as an independent watchdog over state finances.

“As Treasurer, you don’t answer to the Governor or the Legislature — you answer directly to the people,” Xiong said in January when he announced his candidacy. “I’m running to be an independent voice for taxpayers and to make sure Wisconsin’s money is managed responsibly, transparently, and in the public interest.”

On his campaign website, Xiong says that he has “experience managing budgets at every level of government” and is committed to “transparency and accountability.”

He also says he can bring his school board experience to bear in the decisions by the public lands board because he “understands firsthand how trust fund decisions impact local schools and students.”

Originally published by Wisconsin Examiner, a nonprofit news organization.