Wisconsin’s spring election cycle has begun — a vote that’s important locally and nationally

Early voting has started and we’re less than a month from a new mayor of La Crosse.

Some people may have voter fatigue, or campaign fatigue from last fall’s election cycle, or just the constant barrage of news and, perhaps, campaigns, for next fall’s election.

But this election might be important on two levels. First, locally, these candidates will affect your life as much, if not more, than those national characters.

Speaking of those characters, though, this is also the first big election in the U.S. since November and could be a test case nationally for the Republican agenda on the federal level.

Democrat Rebecca Cooke has declared she’s running for US House again in Wisconsin’s 3rd District against, presumably, Republican Derrick Van Orden , and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is trying to do Congressional Republicans’ jobs by going to different districts in Iowa and Wisconsin, to hold town halls for their missing representatives.

Meanwhile, we have a couple of statewide elections happening, headlined by the Wisconsin Supreme Court Race between Brad Schimel and Susan Crawford, as well as what’s basically the schools’ superintendent in Wisconsin, between Jill Underly and Brittany Kinser — officially to head the Department of Public Instruction or DPI.

It doesn’t end there statewide, there’s another partisan constitutional amendment on the ballot over Voter ID put there by Republicans.

And then we get local, with over half the city council on the ballot (District 5 and 7-13), plus the mayor’s race between Chris Kahlow and Shaundel Washington-Spivey.

One may seem more important than the other, but when we live in a city that’s deemed “strong council, weak mayor,” it may be worth knowing if your city council district is on the ballot and who’s running.

So, head to the WIZM election page and see what your candidate is all about — if they decided to fill out our questionnaire.