Primary to fill Mike Gallagher's seat pits a Trump-backed candidate against familiar names

WASHINGTON – Before voters in northeast Wisconsin knew of Tony Wied’s plans to run for Congress, the former gas station chain owner had already scored Republicans’ most sought-after endorsement: Donald Trump.

Wied met with the former president for the first time during Trump’s campaign rally in Green Bay early last month. Trump autographed a document Wied brought detailing his plans to run, and he publicly endorsed him soon after — one day before Wied formally announced his candidacy.

“We need political outsiders who are willing to put Wisconsin families first and deliver America First policies and stand with our next president, Donald J. Trump,” Wied said during his campaign launch. Among the reasons he listed for running: to give Trump “an ally he’ll need in Congress.”

The developments directly injected Trump’s influence into the primary race for an open, solid red House seat held most recently by Republicans not closely aligned with the current party leader. It also added an unexpected dynamic: powerful support for a political newcomer against two Republicans who have represented parts of the 8th Congressional District for more than a decade.

Now, the three Republicans in the primary to replace retired Rep. Mike Gallagher, including former Appleton state Sen. Roger Roth and De Pere State Sen. Andre Jacque, are plotting their own paths to Aug. 13. Still, all three Republicans have fallen in line with the former president, even as Trump called on Roth to drop out, in a sign of the direction of the Republican Party as a whole.

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Just how influential the endorsement will be remains unclear. Trump’s social media post of support (in which he misspelled Wied’s name) has been the extent of the former president’s involvement to date, though his son, Donald Trump Jr., plans to stump for Wied in Green Bay early next month. Other factors outside of the Trumps, like fundraising and advertising, will be key in determining who wins the primary.

But the district that once went back and forth between the two parties has become solidly red in recent years; Mitt Romney won it by just over three points in the 2012 presidential race, and Trump won it by about 18 points and 16 points in 2016 and 2020, respectively.

“Wied getting in the race and having Trump’s endorsement is probably the most important development of the race,” Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said of the early stages of the contest. “It doesn’t mean it’s necessarily over, but it’s a valuable endorsement to have.”

The first hints of the former president becoming a factor in the race came just hours after Gallagher announced his plans to retire. Roth, a more traditional conservative seen by many as a logical successor to Gallagher, endorsed Trump in his campaign announcement — something he didn’t do when he ran for lieutenant governor in 2022.

When Trump labeled Roth a “RINO” and “no friend of MAGA” and called on Roth to drop out of the race in his endorsement of Wied, Roth responded by doubling down on his support for Trump. “I will win this race and help win Wisconsin for Donald Trump in November,” he said.

The response was a window of sorts into the dynamics of the current Republican Party, where Trump has cemented himself as the face of the GOP and is set to meet President Joe Biden in a rematch of the 2020 election. Even under attack from Trump, Roth stood by him.

“He doesn’t want to get between the voters and Donald Trump,” former Republican Rep. Reid Ribble, who represented the 8th District from 2011 to 2017, said of Roth’s response. “And that’s indicative of how that district is.”

In interviews with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, all three Republicans aligned their goals with those of the former president, referencing Republican campaign priorities like the U.S.-Mexico border and attacking Biden’s handling of the economy. But they split in some instances.

Asked about Trump’s repeated false claims that he won Wisconsin and the election in 2020, for example, Roth was the only candidate to say Biden rightfully won. Wied said only that he is focused on winning his current race but claimed there have been “issues with elections.” Jacque did not say who won in 2020, claiming there is “plenty of evidence that would support the fact that there were Republican votes that were missed in that election.”

More: In interview, Trump doesn't commit to accepting Wisconsin election results if he loses

And while some Republicans in the district have lent much weight to Trump’s endorsement of Wied — “With the Trump endorsement, the race is over. But don’t treat it like that,” State Rep. Elijah Behnke of Oconto said at Wied’s launch — other factors are at play outside of Trump’s influence.

Roger Roth, Andre Jacque tout experience in state Republican politics

Notably, Roth and Jacque have experience in Wisconsin politics.

Roth, whose uncle represented the 8th Congressional District from 1979 to 1997, was first elected to the state Assembly in 2007, ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2010 and eventually joined the state Senate in 2015. He was Senate president from 2017 to 2021 and ran statewide as Republicans’ lieutenant governor nominee in 2022.

Roth in an interview pointed to service overseas in the Air National Guard as a detail that sets him apart in the primary and highlighted his background working in the district. He noted he has the backing of former Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

“A lot of people, they know my name. They remember me. They know my brand of conservatism,” Roth said of his conversations with voters. “People are — they’re looking for true leadership from people who’ve got real-world experience. I think in me they see someone who has those tangibles but also has the ability through proven experience in the legislature to go to Washington and lead on day one.”

Jacque, first elected to the state Assembly in 2011 before entering the state Senate in 2019, also stressed his experience in the district, telling the Journal Sentinel he has a lot of connections “from all of the involvement that I've had in the past, the fights I've waged on behalf of the grassroots here.”

He sought to set himself apart as the most conservative candidate in the race, citing in part his staunch opposition to abortion and attacking Roth as having “very firmly been part of the establishment.”

Jacque touted the endorsement of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association and spoke of “election integrity” and “combating wokeism.”

Both men brushed aside Trump’s endorsement of Wied, claiming voters do not know who Wied is and noting he has not been involved in local politics prior to his run for Congress.

Roth said Trump made the “wrong call” in endorsing Wied and speculated that the Trump-aligned GOP political consultant Alex Bruesewitz was behind Trump’s social media post endorsing Wied. Bruesewitz had teased a run for Gallagher’s seat but ultimately recruited Wied to run after speaking with him at a GOP event in Oconto County. Bruesewitz now advises Wied’s campaign.

“At the end of the day, it’s a Trump endorsement of someone that no one’s ever heard of before,” Roth said of Trump’s post calling on him to drop out. “I think whoever put that together feels very threatened by me being in this race.”

Still, Wied has embraced his position as an outsider.

Wied, who sold his Green Bay-based, dinosaur-themed gas and convenience store chain Dino Stop in 2022, had not previously been active in local GOP politics. He voted in fewer than half of the elections in the state since 2014, including last year’s Supreme Court primary race in which Dan Kelly topped fellow conservative Jennifer Dorow, according to voting records, and federal election reports suggest he hasn’t been a major donor before he began considering a run for the 8th District.

Wied donated $2,800 to Trump’s campaign and political action committee in late February, Federal Election Commision reports show, and $500 to Trump-backed Georgia congressional candidate Brian Jack in late March.

“I’m not a politician, and I believe our career politicians are failing us,” Wied said in an interview. “For me, after almost three decades successfully starting and operating businesses right here in the district in northeast Wisconsin, I believe I can take those lessons to Washington and make a difference…”

He noted he’s “in a place financially where I can support myself in this race,” but declined to specify how much of his own money he’s willing to put into his campaign, saying only he is “committed to self-funding.”

“I will do whatever it takes to get my message out because my job right now is to earn the trust of the voters over the next several months,” he said.

Wied reported having $700,000 in cash on hand one week after he launched his campaign, though he did not share how much of that money came from donors. Roth reported raising $381,908 in the first quarter of the year and had $376,938 in cash on hand, and Jacque raised $127,044 and loaned himself another $16,000 and ended the quarter with $140,653 in his war chest.

De Pere OB-GYN Kristin Lyerly, the only Democrat in the race, said she raised $250,000 from more than 6,000 donors in the first week of her campaign in early April.

There are indications voters in the 8th District have interest in non-politicians. Ribble, the former congressman, noted neither he nor Democrat Steve Kagan before him or Gallagher, a Republican, after him had held elected office before representing the district.

And several local Republican officials in the district told the Journal Sentinel recently they were inclined to support Wied despite not having heard of the man before he emerged as the Trump-backed candidate last month.

“Honestly, I hate politicians right now. I can’t stand any of them,” said Oconto County GOP Chairman Ken Sikora, who has endorsed Wied. “People are sick of it. I’m sick of being told I don’t understand… It’s time for a change.”

No matter who emerges from the 8th District’s Republican primary, the GOP candidate is sure to be more closely aligned with Trump than the previous two congressmen. Ribble, a Trump critic, retired from Congress in part because of disagreements over the direction of his party. And Gallagher at times broke with Trump — notably calling on Trump to order his supporters to stand down as they stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The primary, however, will be decided over the next couple of months.

Mark Graul, a Republican strategist based in Green Bay, noted recently that the 8th District primary has been relatively quiet since Trump’s endorsement. Fundraising and boosting name recognition through advertising, Graul suggested, will be key for the three Republicans as they seek to set themselves apart.

On Wied, Graul said: “That’s one of the things he’s gonna need to do if he really wants to win this thing is to really establish who is he is, what he stands for, what does he want to do as a member of Congress, not just ‘I’m endorsed by Trump.’”

At Wied’s campaign launch last month, Bruesewitz, the Trump-aligned consultant, said he believed Wied would join the ranks of current conservative firebrands like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Anna Paulina Luna and Byron Donalds in Congress.

But when asked recently who he would associate with on Capitol Hill if elected, Wied declined to name names, instead saying he would make an effort to meet people like he would a new employee joining his business.

“I am not a politician,” he said, “and I’ve never been in politics.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: GOP race for Gallagher seat pits known names vs. Trump-backed newcomer