 Incumbent Democratic Secretary of State Doug La Follette ran unsuccessfully for Lieutenant Governor and Phillips won the highly fractured nine-candidate Democratic primary with just 25.6%, though she did finish more than 10% ahead of the second-place candidate, Native American advocate and scholar Ada Deer.In the general election, she defeated Republican Frederic A. Seefeldt with 50.4% of the vote.During the absence of both the Governor and Lieutenant Governor, under Wisconsin law she briefly served as Acting Governor (she later joked that "the men hurried back" when they realized they had left a woman in charge).