Maggie Gau says she owes it all to debate club.
The Wausau, Wis. native and political science alumna (‘09), spent four years honing her rhetorical chops in high school debate meets—after a firm nudge from her mom convinced her to join.
“It was something I became really passionate about—and something I was really good at,” she says. “And it’s where my bug for politics got started.”
That bug has landed her in a very important and influential place: Since January, she has served as chief of staff for Wisconsin governor Tony Evers, a role she was offered after managing his campaign to victory in 2018.
Her road to the governor’s office includes more than a decade in Wisconsin politics, as an aide in multiple offices in the Wisconsin Assembly and Senate and as Wisconsin’s deputy political director of former President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. That decision to take the job as deputy political director gave her the confidence and experience to make the decision in 2017 to leave her job as an aide in Rep. Chris Taylor’s office to serve as Evers’ political director and eventually as campaign manager.
“When I look back on my career, it is always the gravity of one decision and the impact it can have on so many people’s lives,” Gau says. “It’s so incredibly overwhelming to me.”
It hasn’t been an entirely charmed journey. She ran—and lost—her first Assembly race in 2010 as the campaign manager for Dana Schultz’s race for the 87th Assembly District. Defeat taught her several valuable lessons.
“One of the things I really took away from that experience is listening to your gut,” Gau notes. “When you’re working in the Capitol, a lot of people have opinions. It’s really important to survey the field and know what you don’t know and talk to people who are smarter than you.”
Gau’s typical day in the governor’s office starts early, with a check-in call with the governor to go over the news of the day and highlight key policy issues. Her daily calendar is packed with meetings with department secretaries and various stakeholder groups. When Evers travels outside Madison, Gau looks for opportunities to accompany him—especially if Wausau is on his itinerary. Escaping the Capitol is rare for her, given that she’s always on call to handle crises and issues that arise.
“My job is always, I like to say, the problem solver-in-chief,” says Gau. “Making sure the trains stay on the tracks. Making sure he’s in the best position possible to make the decisions he has to make.” In some cases, those decisions crop up unexpectedly, like calls for new gun control legislation in the wake of a mass shooting in another state last August.
Gau is one of 30 women on Evers’ staff, including all three deputy chiefs of staff, and several department directors. She finds every opportunity to open the door for others.
“As a younger woman in politics, things have not always been easy,” Gau says. “People took chances on me and gave me opportunities, and I make it a point to try to pass that on.”
While Evers’ inauguration in January was obviously special to Gau, it’s the completion of this year’s state budget —a process that, while contentious, wrapped up much sooner than experts had predicted—that resonates most for her. Andrea Palm, the Secretary-designee of Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services, came up to Gau after the signing ceremony in late June. “She said, ‘You had this moment where you were just taking it all in, really letting it wash over you,’” recalls Gau. “That was just a really rewarding moment.”
Gau’s a first-generation college graduate, and she credits her time at UW-Madison for giving her the courage to always question and seek the input of others. But she also cites her job as a building manager at Memorial Union—she worked there for more than half her time as a UW student—as something that helped prepare her for the rough and tumble rigors of politics. As it turns out, dealing with difficult patrons on the Union Terrace and scrambling to manage major flooding in the Rathskellar aren’t so very different from the challenges of her current role.
“That experience, was, hands down, some of the most invaluable moments in my life,” she says. “That really helped me have the skills I need to be able to do what I'm doing today.”
Gau and her staff have a long list of goals, including an effort to expand the footprint of the governor’s office. Gau is reminded of how important that is every time Evers visits an elementary school.
“The kids get so excited,” Gau says. “That excitement never gets old for me. I love seeing it.”