Paul R. Soglin (born April 22, 1945) is an American politician and former three-time Mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, having served a total of 22 years in that office 1973-79, 1989-1997, and 2011-19.

After spending three years in the UW History graduate program, he went on to earn a Doctor of Jurisprudence (JD) degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1972.

[2][3] In October 1963, Soglin joined 200 classmates at a rally on the steps of the Memorial Union protesting the presence of U.S. military advisers who were suspected of active participation in the Vietnam War.

[5] In the late spring of 1965 Soglin and a dozen other college students set out in suburbs such as Winnetka, Wilmette, and Kenilworth going door-to door with petitions calling for real estate agents to show and sell homes to "Negroes".

Much of this demonstration was captured on film, and an interview of Soglin by journalist and author David Maraniss served as the basis for several chapters of the book They Marched Into Sunlight, and for the PBS documentary Two Days in October.

In 2018, Soglin and Bowser, at the 86th winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C., announced they would join 160 other cities in signing the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact.

[22] Mayor Soglin jokingly said, using the rhetoric of his critics, "I'm the guy, if you can't tell the difference between us, who is identified as old, tired, gray and bland.

[24] Soglin eventually finished a distant seventh in the Democratic primary, losing to state superintendent Tony Evers, who would ultimately go on to defeat incumbent Governor Scott Walker in the general election.

[25][26] Despite initially stating during his gubernatorial campaign that he would not run for reelection as mayor of Madison, Soglin announced that he would be seeking another term in October 2018.

Rhodes-Conway won in over 80% of the city's wards, but ran up large majorities in the University of Wisconsin precincts that had first brought Soglin to office 46 years earlier.

[36] In 2018 the Brookings Institution found that of the one hundred largest U.S. cities, "...only 11 metro areas achieved inclusive economic growth and prosperity by posting improvements across every measure: Cincinnati, Des Moines, Detroit, Greenville, Madison, Minneapolis–St.