Here & Now

It's a Crowded Republican Race for Wisconsin's 7th in 2026

Frederica Freyberg:
Aside from the race for governor, the state’s eight seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are also up for election this year. One of those races for the deeply red 7th district in far northern Wisconsin has attracted many candidates in the primary election. “Here & Now” reporter Steven Potter has this story.

Jackie Weissenburger:
There’s a lot of motivation to elect people in the 7th district that will be Make America Great Again Republicans.

Steven Potter:
The Great Northwoods of Wisconsin is known for many things: vast forests, abundant farmland, and some of the best lakes and rivers that the state has to offer. It’s also known as a very thinly populated region, but there is something that’s become far more crowded than usual. That’s the ballot for the upcoming Republican primary for Congress. In all, there are five candidates on the ballot for the 7th Congressional District Republican primary election, which takes place on August 11th. The candidates include a financial planner, an accountant, a public relations executive, a marketing specialist, and a homebuilder. They’re all after the seat being vacated by current U.S. House Representative Tom Tiffany, who’s running as the Republican candidate for governor. While they’re all Republicans, each of these congressional candidates has different reasons for why voters should choose them. Kevin Hermening, the financial planner from Wausau, was one of the Marines taken hostage for more than a year during the Iranian hostage crisis back in 1979. He’s one of the better-known candidates in this race.

Kevin Hermening:
I’m a grandfather, a business owner, a school board member, a community volunteer. So there are a lot of reasons why that I’m the best qualified to represent the voters here.

Steven Potter:
Another well-known candidate is accountant Michael Alfonso, who lives in Hayward. He’s the son-in-law of U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who held the same congressional seat that Alfonso is running for now.

Michael Alfonso:
I’m just, you know, an average kid from northern Wisconsin. I grew up in Land O’ Lakes. I bring the energy of a 26-year-old. I’m at every single county in the district. I’m, you know, representing every voter.

Steven Potter:
Then there’s public relations executive and Stanley resident Jessi Ebben, who has farming roots in the district.

Jessi Ebben:
I am a Christian conservative, a Trump Republican, a proud seventh generation Wisconsinite who is committed to getting the government off our back, out of our way of life so that we can flourish and prosper right here in rural Wisconsin.

Steven Potter:
Also on the ballot is Rhinelander resident Niina Baum, who owns a marketing agency and was born and raised in the Northwoods.

Niina Baum:
I grew up in the district in Price County on a dairy farm, a small farm with about 25 milking cows. And there were a lot of small farms in my community when I grew up and they all disappeared.

Steven Potter:
And finally, there’s Don Raihala, a native and current resident of Superior. He works in home construction.

Don Raihala:
This is my fourth time running for Congress. I did it in 2010, 2014, 2016. I have this time and all this energy still. I’m 58 years old, but I just know I can get out there and represent people.

Steven Potter:
The 7th Congressional District stands out for a few reasons. First is its size. As the state’s largest congressional district, it stretches across 20 counties and almost 19,000 square miles of northern and central Wisconsin. The economy here is anchored on agriculture, forestry, manufacturing and tourism. Politically, however, the area has seen significant change over the last couple of decades. Driven largely by redistricting, the 7th Congressional District is now the most reliably Republican stronghold in the state.

Jackie Weissenburger:
They’re very Republican.

Steven Potter:
Jackie Weissenburger is the vice chairwoman of the Rusk County Republicans.

Jackie Weissenburger:
People here really appreciate the values of hard work, having individual freedoms, being able to live their lives as they see fit.

Steven Potter:
She says this race for the 7th Congressional District of Wisconsin has national consequences.

Jackie Weissenburger:
There’s a very big risk at midterms that the House will turn blue, and I think that it’s this particular race itself in the 7th district will be — it’ll be somewhat of a barrier against that happening.

Steven Potter:
While it’s certainly possible that the 7th district could elect a Democrat, and there are three of them on the primary ballot, election experts say that’s fairly unlikely. In the 2024 election, voters of the 7th district chose both Republican Tom Tiffany for U.S. representative and Donald Trump for president by a 20-point winning margin. The candidates have been working hard to get voters’ attention and letting them know that they understand the issues that are important to them. According to recent polling, Michael Alfonso is leading the pack, and Alfonso does have the endorsement of President Trump.

Michael Alfonso:
We’ve seen kind of this mortgaging of the middle America, the manufacturing jobs, so that we can benefit the coastal elites. I don’t like that. When we talk about rising costs, maybe the tariffs contribute to that. but President Trump understands that this is a short-term plan. We’re going to be working to bring back the jobs we lost overseas, right back here to northern Wisconsin. And then we can start removing the tariffs.

Steven Potter:
Number two in the polls is Kevin Hermening, who has given $1 million of his own money to his campaign.

Kevin Hermening:
When people decide to call central and northern Wisconsin their home, they’re saying to the rest of the state, we’d like you to be involved, but we don’t need you to control our lives. And so it’s a big reason that I love living up here because of the individuality and the willingness of people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

Steven Potter:
Jessi Ebben says her priorities center on land, wolves and jobs.

Jessi Ebben:
A lot of the issues here are a battle of our way of life. So it’s everything we’re seeing right now, with solar panels and windmills being targeted to be put on our farmland and the fight that we have to save our rural landscape, our family farms from bad energy, bad energy policy. There’s really a big battle to de-list the gray wolf. We need to make sure that that hunt can be localized right here in our state. And I work in manufacturing, so making sure that we have good manufacturing jobs, that the government isn’t the barrier for keeping those manufacturing jobs, keeping the manufacturers here in the rural communities.

Steven Potter:
For Niina Baum, who’s biking around the 7th district to meet voters, she worries about the country’s financial future and wants regulation changes.

Niina Baum:
Social Security Trust Fund has been projected to be insolvent in a few years, and if nothing’s done about it, it’s automatic cuts of about 23%. That is going to have a — if that happens, that’s going to have a huge negative impact on our Northwoods economy. I’d like to see more zoning deregulation, making it easier, more attainable for people to actually build homes and more cost effective and not all of these barriers, like minimum square footage requirements or outdated zoning regulation.

Steven Potter:
Don Raihala wants to make sure local residents maintain local control.

Don Raihala:
I’m a big believer in referendums and referendums stop data centers dead in their tracks. If a city – let’s choose Wausau or Superior – if the citizens want to get together and put out a referendum and stop it, it stops right there because the state has given the power to local municipalities to do that.

Steven Potter:
Just like names on the ballot, there’s no shortage of issues in this race.

Kevin Hermening:
Health insurance.

Michael Alfonso:
Costs of housing.

Jessi Ebben:
Loss of jobs.

Niina Baum:
War with Iran.

Don Raihala:
These tariffs.

Kevin Hermening:
Immigration.

Michael Alfonso:
Drug pricing.

Jessi Ebben:
On manufacturing and on agriculture.

Niina Baum:
Tough for small farms.

Don Raihala:
Epstein files.

Steven Potter:
But there’s one topic that’s on the top of mind for all voters. The increased cost of everything. Republicans running for the 7th Congressional District are careful about how they discuss the economy and inflation, and what can be done to bring down costs. Jessi Ebben says it’s all about energy.

Jessi Ebben:
Well, the cost of energy is really the baseline that starts a lot of the inflation. So the best thing we can do is have good energy policy to really start this. And that doesn’t mean solar or wind.

Steven Potter:
Michael Alfonso blames problems within government programs.

Michael Alfonso:
So inflation, it’s a scary one. It’s caused by government overspending. I think the easiest thing to cut from the federal government is fraud, waste and abuse. So much fraud in our system, so many people making money off of American taxpayers, scamming them. If we want to shrink the spending, the easiest place to do it is get rid of the cheats.

Steven Potter:
Kevin Hermening also blames the federal government but differently.

Kevin Hermening:
The government has a spending problem. Government should not be borrowing for its ongoing costs of operation. When you do that, you run into, in our case, a $40 trillion debt. And so the government needs to understand that these are dollars that are intended for our communities. These are dollars that are best spent by the people who live here, who earn them. And that could play a big role in bringing down inflation.

Steven Potter:
Niina Baum says pricing problems start with the White House.

Niina Baum:
Something that we’ve been seeing happen a lot more with the current and past administrations is that a lot more has been passed through executive order, and I think that creates a lot of volatility, which affects the affordability and the economy.

Steven Potter:
Don Raihala says he’s not sure what can be done about inflation, but residents need to do what they can for themselves.

Don Raihala:
If you’re going to build a home, be your own contractor, be your own general, you’re going to save 15% right off the bat. It’s going to take a couple of phone calls and maybe a weekend here or there but be your own contractor.

Steven Potter:
With five of them in the race, these candidates will be splitting the Northwoods Republican electorate, and voters here are spread far and wide across the rural district. That means that it may come down to just a few percent or even a few hundred votes, and each campaign has many miles to cover between now and August 11th. Reporting from Hayward, I’m Steven Potter for “Here & Now.”