Evers delivers State of the State 2026

It’s the end of an Evers Era. Governor Tony Evers delivered his 8th and final State of the State Address Tuesday night. In it, Evers told lawmakers itching to hit the campaign trail that work is still ahead in Madison.

“Folks, I know many of you are up for election, but here’s the deal: after years of delivering historic, bipartisan wins for our state, Wisconsinites have high expectations for the work we can do together over the next ten months—and they should. Just look at what we’ve accomplished over the last seven years.”

Evers touted successes

Evers signed more than 800 bills during his time as governor with more than 97-percent passing with bipartisan support. He touted bills to improve the justice system, expanded tax credits lowering the cost of child care, and Medicaid coverage for telehealth services.

“We’ve also managed to do all of this important work while still saving where we could and paying down our state’s debt. We’ve saved taxpayers over $600 million by paying off about $3 billion of our state’s debt. After 30 consecutive years of our state’s check account running a deficit, we’ve ended every fiscal year I’ve been governor with a positive balance.”

Evers added that bipartisan efforts to cut taxes will result in more than $2 billion dollars in tax relief annually.

“Wisconsin is as purple as ever, but we’ve shown we can put politics aside and work together to get good things done. Compared to all of the chaos, dysfunction, and recklessness in Washington, here in Wisconsin, we’ve worked to lead by example. And a big part of that is the fact that, today, lawmakers are elected under the fair maps I signed into law.”

Gov. Evers announced he is calling a special session of the legislature this spring to take up a constitutional amendment to ban partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin.

Civic Media covered the State of the State address live with Interim News Director John Scott heading a panel discussion prior to the speech.