WASHINGTON — Several Republican and Democrat candidates from Wisconsin are making a similar point on the campaign trail: They’re not politicians.
Tony Wied is the Trump-endorsed candidate in the race to represent Wisconsin's eighth congressional district, which encompasses the Green Bay area. He’s a retired business owner running against Democrat Dr. Kristin Lyerly, who’s an OBGYN.
Eric Hovde is a banking executive and real estate developer running for U.S. Senate against incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin, who has decades of political experience.
And Rebecca Cooke is the Democrat running to represent Wisconsin's third congressional district, which encompasses Prairie du Chien. She's up against Republican incumbent Derrick Van Orden, who also ran on outsider messaging two years ago. Cooke has helped raise money for other candidates but has never been in office herself.
“It's a strategy that candidates try to use when they think there's some dissatisfaction with Congress, and they want to paint themselves as someone who's going to bring new ideas and shake things up,” said Aaron Weinschenk, a professor of political science at UW-Green Bay.
This Congress has been historically unproductive, and the candidates are stressing that their experiences outside of government are what will help them be effective on the inside. But Weinschenk is skeptical of that argument.
“I think actually a lot of research shows that people who don’t have experience are not as productive in Congress because it’s a hard job,” he said. “You have to work with lots of people, and so having some of those preexisting relationships might be a useful thing. And also, writing a bill is not an easy thing to do. You need to actually know stuff.”
But, Weinschenk said there are exceptions.
“Congressman Reid Ribble, who represented [the eighth congressional] district, was wildly popular,” he explained. “He was an outsider. He had never held office before, and even liberals in this district liked him. Like, if he had kept running, he would surely have won, and he did all kinds of interesting things in Congress. So, I think it can work if a person is willing to put in the work to be a good legislator.”
Kennan Ferguson, a professor of political science at UW-Milwaukee, said candidates who have not held office before still need some sort of record to point to.
“They need to say, I've been successful at 'X.’ Could be building a business. It could be, ‘I’ve been a police officer or a firefighter.’ It could be that they’ve served in the Army," he said. “If you're going to use the rhetoric of, 'I'm not part of the D.C. swamp,' then you actually do have to point to something that people appreciate, that you can show them you’re good at. I think, too often, the negative message of, ‘I'm not like them,’ gets favored entirely by candidates, and they ignore kind of making a positive case for themselves.”
Richard Hudson, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee (the House GOP’s campaign arm), told Spectrum News in July that they’ve looked for candidates with compelling life stories.
“People that Independents and Democrats will take a second look at,” he said.
Several members of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation – Van Orden and two other Republicans, Rep. Bryan Steil of Janesville, and Sen. Ron Johnson – had not held elective office before coming to Washington, D.C.