The Democrats got the matchup they wanted and expected in the race to fill the congressional seat of Paul Ryan, who is retiring. Democrat Randy Bryce and Republican Bryan Steil each won their respective party’s nominations easily.
In short, Bryce is a blue collar, union ironworker, cancer survivor, and Army veteran who won instant favor with national Democrats after his campaign announcement video went viral last summer; Steil is a 37-year old manufacturing sector attorney, member of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, and former staffer in Ryan’s office. Both men won their primaries easily.
Bryce will cast Steil as an out-of-touch corporate attorney, a Ryan clone, and a member of the Republican establishment.
Though Ryan represented the district for two decades, and consistently won by wide margins, it’s probably not as dark red as those numbers suggest. Even so, comparing Steil to Ryan may only help the political newcomer given the speaker’s popularity back home.
And even if the district isn’t dark red, Bryce’s progressive platform— which has been endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.— puts him well outside the mainstream in southern Wisconsin. Bryce supports so-called “Medicare for all,” a $15 minimum wage, #AbolishICE, ending private prisons, and tuition-free public colleges.
More important than his ideological problems, Bryce’s candidacy has been plagued by a steady stream of bad press since last November, revealing that he declined to make delinquent child support payments and pay back a loan until after announcing his campaign. Reports also revealed he has a record nine arrests (two were for protesting), several of which stemmed from a drunk driving arrest back in 1998.
Unlike his Democratic counterpart, Steil’s primary was relatively uncompetitive. He only announced his candidacy after Ryan announced his retirement. By November, he’ll only have been officially campaigning for a little over half a year.
Steil talks about the successes Republicans have had in implementing conservative reforms in Wisconsin— and now in Washington— and casts himself as someone who will keep the momentum going. When it comes to Ryan, Steil told me in a May interview: “Paul was always a happy warrior. And so he didn’t have to play to the lowest common denominator. He played to the highest common denominator of what makes us great, why we’re wonderful, why we’re the best country in the world to live in, and why we can fully unleash the strength of the American economy.”
Like Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Steil pitches his experience in the private sector as a positive, explaining in my interview with him, “anybody that walks into a factory — every day you’ve got to bring in raw material, you’ve got to manufacture it, you’ve got to get a good product out of the door, you’ve got to get it on time, under budget, every time, or you’re fired.”
Trump won the First District by 10 points, and its voters handed Ryan easy wins every two years since the late ’90s.
Even so, Bryce has already had impressive fundraising success, so for all the “Iron Stache’s” problems, Steil is still likely to face a tough race, especially if the “blue wave” Gov. Scott Walker has warned about proves to be a very real threat. (Wisconsin has seen two particular “blue wave” harbingers.) Back in May, Steil told me he finds the challenges of this political climate “invigorating.”
If Democrat Tony Evers is able to make Walker’s re-election battle competitive, Bryce could benefit from higher turnout. But, then again, Walker’s base is loyal and well-organized, so enthusiasm for the governor could help Steil with turnout in a red district as well.
