Wisconsin lieutenant governor candidate Mandela Barnes wants you to know: He's not dead, white or off the ballot

MADISON - Mandela Barnes is alive, black and the winner of Tuesday's Democratic primary for lieutenant governor.

But several media outlets covering the primary reported otherwise. 

Barnes handily defeated Sheboygan businessman Kurt Kober Tuesday by 36 percentage points, but Barnes' victory has been marred by four separate media outlets — even forcing Barnes to confirm he was still alive after one gaffe. 

Last week, three newspapers in Kenosha and Oneida counties mistakenly left Barnes off a sample ballot published for readers to familiarize themselves with candidates. 

That prompted the Milwaukee native and former state representative to change his Twitter name to "Mandela Barnes is running for Lieutenant Governor." 

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Then, the night before the primary election, WDJT-TV (Channel 58) in Milwaukee displayed a photo of Barnes while reporting the death of a different man involved in a recent car crash. Barnes spent the final hours of his campaign convincing voters he was indeed alive. 

And on election night, Barnes' winning margin was reported by Green Bay's NBC 26 with a photo of Rep. Dana Wachs — a white 60-year-old attorney who dropped out of the race for governor in June. 

Barnes, who is 31 and black, said he couldn't explain why he is the subject of that many errors in such a short time frame. 

"I am alive and I am black," Barnes reported when contacted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, setting the record straight with tongue in cheek. "It's like a weird movie."

Luckily for Barnes, the incidents didn't seem to affect his race. Barnes won the primary with 68 percent of the vote.