U.S. House seat in NE Wisconsin appears out of reach for Democrats, experts say

The dominoes seemed in place for, it not a Democratic win, at least a close race.

The 8th Congressional District was open after the popular incumbent retired. The Republican candidate was a political novice who struggled to fundraise. The Democrat was riding a powerful issue that many thought would lift her party to victory.

But the end result was the same as it has been for years: the Republican won in a near landslide.

Tony Wied, the Donald Trump-endorsed, former owner of a Green Bay-area chain of dinosaur-themed gas stations, easily defeated De Pere OB-GYN physician Kristin Lyerly by nearly 15 points.

Wied, also of De Pere, got 240,214 votes, or 57.4% of the total, to Lyerly’s 178,621 votes, or 42.6% of the total.

“That is certainly not a good sign if you are the Democratic Party and thinking about trying to win that district in the future,” Aaron Weinschenk, a political science professor at UW-Green Bay, wrote in an email. “Most political scientists would characterize (anything around) a 15-percentage-point margin as a landslide victory.”

Like many political watchers of the district, Weinschenk said while he thought the Republican would win the right-leaning district, he believed the race would be closer. He guessed maybe 5-10 points.

The district has been mostly Republican-dominated for decades, and several reasonable Democratic challengers have lost there over the years, said Ed Miller, a political science professor emeritus at UW-Stevens Point, in an email.

Lyerly also did not have much political experience and had hoped that the abortion issue would be more effective for her than it was, Miller said.

“Apparently it paralleled the national vote,” Miller said. “(Vice President Kamala) Harris didn’t get as much mileage out of the abortion issue that some had expected.”

Wied was somewhat politically fortunate. He won the Republican primary with about 42% of the vote after two experienced state legislators split the remaining vote against him. One of those politicians, former state Sen. Roger Roth, was directly targeted by Donald Trump, who apparently believed Roth to be insufficiently loyal, publicly calling him a “RINO,” a common insult hurled within the GOP that stands for “Republican In Name Only.”

Wied also struggled to fundraise, bringing in only about $1 million by mid-October, not including a contribution of $500,000 he gave to his own campaign. Lyerly raised $2.4 million in the same time frame.

The former holder of the seat, U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, regularly won reelection with huge margins. The last time Democrats challenged the seat was 2020, when Gallagher won with more than 64% of the vote.

By that measure, Democrats did much better this time. But knocking out a veteran in future elections could be even harder, Weinschenk noted.

“Once a candidate is elected to Congress, they start to build the incumbency advantage and it is usually hard to beat an incumbent,” he said. “In the House, I think the incumbent re-election rate is hovering in the 98% range these days. The size of the incumbency advantage has decreased over time, but it certainly still exists and is hard to overcome.”

“It certainly seems like a district that will be hard for the Democratic party to win anytime soon,” he added.

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.

This article first appeared on The Badger Project and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.