The combination of a well-funded candidate with good name recognition and a blue wave building statewide has Democrats feeling optimistic about their chances of stealing House Speaker Paul Ryan’s district in November, now that he’s off the ballot.
The fact that Ryan’s likely opponent would have been Randy Bryce, who’s raised serious money and built a national brand since announcing his candidacy last summer, puts Democrats in a good position — at least on paper. In one morning, Bryce went from being a candidate with the longest of long shots to a legitimate contender.
After rocketing to viral fame off his campaign launch video last June, Bryce has ridden the wave to impressive fundraising hauls and a sustained national profile. The ironworker raised a stunning $2.1 million last quarter, almost doubling the $1.2 million he brought in during the previous quarter, and putting his total at $4.75 million so far. His campaign has $2.3 million cash on hand.
Bryce’s launch video went viral largely because Democrats saw him as proof they could still compete with the working class, and it’s certainly true his experience as a union ironworker, Army veteran, and cancer survivor gives him a certain amount of credibility when it comes to blue-collar voters. But Bryce’s past could also be a problem for him.
A steady stream of reports about his personal finances has plagued Bryce in local media since the fall. In November, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the state placed a lien on his property holdings in 2015 after Bryce fell two years behind on child support payments. He also filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 1999. Later that month, the Journal reported Bryce had failed to make good on a $4,200 loan from a former girlfriend, leaving the single mother high and dry after she helped him purchase a car years ago (he also allegedly failed to tell her he had been ticketed twice for driving with a revoked license). Neither his child support payments nor the loan were paid back by Bryce until after his campaign was launched. With his race suddenly turning competitive, it’s probably fair to expect more stories like this will emerge now that he presents a bigger threat to Republicans.
Bryce has also been forced to explain some of his past posts on social media, and he’s targeted some campaign efforts in liberal coastal enclaves hundreds of miles away from Wisconsin’s 1st District.
But Bryce’s biggest vulnerability is probably his platform. When it comes to policy, he’s not exactly Rep.-elect Conor Lamb, D-Pa.
Bryce has staked his candidacy on support for progressive economic proposals from so-called “Medicare-for-all” to a $15 minimum wage, along with calls to “abolish ICE,” pass a clean DREAM Act without funding for border security, and end the administration’s “travel ban.” He was arrested outside Ryan’s office last month during a protest in favor of the DREAM Act (so was his primary opponent). Bryce is a progressive’s progressive, and his anti-Trumpism is defiant and pronounced. Sen. Bernie Sanders I-Vt., also campaigned for Bryce, who has also been endorsed by major liberal groups like NARAL, the United Auto Workers, and the SEIU.
Trump won Lamb’s district by nearly 20 points in 2016, compared to 10 points in Ryan’s district. But that’s still a lot, especially for a candidate with little centrist appeal. Don’t forget that Ryan has coasted to victory in every election since he first won the district in 1998, with his 11-point margin in 2012 his smallest. Some of that stems from his personal appeal, yes, but internal polling shows a Republican should prevail easily even on a generic ballot.
Running openly as a working-class progressive is Bryce’s whole schtick, seeking to prove Democrats don’t need to moderate their platforms to compete outside coastal urban centers. Now he faces the daunting task of converting a campaign built around making waves and raising his national profile into one that can actually compete in a district Republicans have won for decades.
Oh, by the way, Bryce still has to win the primary, and his opponent seems to have no intentions of letting him off easy.
Depending on the candidate Republicans put up, Bryce’s performance could turn out to be a good test of whether Democrats are banking on bad bets by rallying around untested progressives running in red districts.
