Donald Alexander McDonald (January 1, 1833 - February 11, 1906) was a steamboat owner and lumberman from La Crosse, Wisconsin, who served in both houses of the state legislature[1] as well as being a candidate for mayor of that city.
In 1873 McDonald, who had held various education-related local offices, was elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly from La Crosse County as a member of the Liberal Reform Party (a recently formed coalition of Democrats, reform and Liberal Republicans, and Grangers which secured the election of one Governor of Wisconsin and a number of state legislators) for a one-year term, with 1866 votes to 1740 for Republican R. M. Mooer.
[2] In 1874, he was defeated as the Liberal Reform candidate for the Senate's 31st District by Republican Sylvester Nevins, who won by 74 votes (1926 to 1852).
[3] He remained in the lumber and steamboat businesses, and also traded in groceries, in large part to supply his own boats, shanties and so forth.
[5] In 1882, he was elected as a Democrat (the Reform Party having collapsed in the late 1870s) to the Senate seat he'd sought earlier, with 2853 votes to 1618 for former Republican Assemblyman John Brindley and 231 for Prohibitionist John James (Republican incumbent Merrick Wing was not a candidate).