John Winans (September 27, 1831 – January 17, 1907) was an American lawyer and Democratic politician from Janesville, Wisconsin.

Earlier, he represented Janesville and central Rock County for six years in Wisconsin State Assembly.

Winans was first elected to the State Assembly from Rock County's 5th Assembly district (the City of Janesville) in 1873 as a member of the short-lived Reform Party, a coalition of Democrats, reform and Liberal Republicans, and Grangers formed in 1873, which secured the election for two years of William Robert Taylor as Governor of Wisconsin.

[1] He received 741 votes to 633 for Republican incumbent Henry A. Patterson, and was assigned to the standing committee on the judiciary, of which he was elected chairman.

He was elected to the Assembly as a Democrat again in 1886, after being defeated in a run for the United States Senate by incumbent Republican Philetus Sawyer, who won the votes of 82 legislators, to 37 for Winans and six for Populist John Cochrane.

[8] He ran for Assembly again in 1896, but was defeated by William G. Wheeler, who had apprenticed in his law offices as a young man.