Parties and the primary, explained.

August 11 is a partisan primary. Its job is to narrow each party's field down to one candidate per office, who then advances to the November general election.

You don't register by party in Wisconsin. But when you get your ballot, you pick one party's section and vote only within it for partisan offices — governor, U.S. House, the legislature.

You can't split across parties.If you mark a candidate from one party for one office and another party for a different office, the partisan part of your ballot won't count. Pick one party's column and stay in it.

Any nonpartisan races or referendumson the ballot are open to everyone — no matter which party's section you used, or even if you skip the partisan part entirely.

Source: MyVote Wisconsin — the state's official system for what's on your ballot and how to vote.

On the ballot, candidates for partisan offices run under a party. In Wisconsin that's almost always Democratic or Republican, with the occasional third-party or independent candidate.

Words like progressive, moderate, conservative, libertarian, or democratic socialist are labels people use to describe themselves— not separate parties on the ballot. Here's roughly what each means to the people who use it:

• Progressive — favors active government, stronger public programs, and civil-rights protections to reduce economic and social inequality; left-of-center. Most progressives in Wisconsin run as Democrats.
• Moderate / centrist — mixes positions from each side and steers away from the far ends of either party.
• Conservative — favors limited government, lower taxes, free markets, and traditional values to expand individual freedom and economic growth; right-of-center. Most conservatives here run as Republicans.
• Libertarian — wants the smallest possible government in both economic and personal life. There is also a Libertarian Party some candidates run under.

A label is a self-description on the ballot — it never changes which party line a candidate runs on, and it doesn't pin down their specific positions.

These words get used a lot right now — sometimes as real description, sometimes as an insult — and they don't all mean the same thing. Here's what each actually refers to, so you can judge a candidate on what they support rather than on a label aimed at them.

• Socialism— a broad umbrella for the idea that the public, rather than private owners, should own or control major parts of the economy. It spans a wide range: some versions work through democracy and elections, others through one-party control. On its own, “socialist” is a broad word that doesn't tell you which.
• Communism — in practice, the 20th-century communist states (such as the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, or North Korea) were run by a single ruling party that controlled both the government and the economy, without competitive, multiparty elections. Ownership was concentrated in the state.
• Democratic socialism— the “democratic” part is the point: it commits to democracy — free, competitive elections, civil liberties, and more than one party — while pushing for a larger public and worker role in the economy. It rejects the one-party model. Its aims can include public programs, labor rights, and forms of public or worker ownership. Because it works through elections, its candidates in the U.S. usually run inside the Democratic Party, and the label is tied to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
• Social democracy (easy to mix up with the last one) — keeps a private, market economy but pairs it with a strong safety net and public services — the model often associated with countries like Denmark, Sweden, or Norway.

One clear difference between communism as it has actually been practiced and democratic socialism is who holds power: communist states have been one-party systems without competitive elections, while democratic socialists run in elections and support multiparty democracy. So the two terms are not interchangeable.

Heated labels get thrown in every direction, and they're often used loosely as attacks rather than descriptions. Our answer doesn't change no matter which way they fly: don't vote a label. Read what a candidate actually supports, linked to the source, on their page.

We don't summarize the parties for you — that's not our job, and any short version would flatten a lot of disagreement. Here's where to read it straight from the source, plus a neutral third-party overview:

• Democratic Party of Wisconsin — their platform and values, in their own words.
• Republican Party of Wisconsin — their platform and values, in their own words.
• Ballotpedia — a neutral, nonpartisan overview of Wisconsin's parties.

Two candidates in the same party can disagree on plenty. A party label is a shortcut — useful, but it doesn't tell you where a specific candidate stands on the things you care about.

That's what this guide is for. Every candidate's page shows their positions linked to the source, so you can see what they actually said — not what a label implies.