WASHINGTON — Congressman Bryan Steil, a Republican who has represented the Janesville area since 2019, trying to hold onto his seat this November. He will face former Congressman Peter Barca, a Democrat, in the race for Wisconsin’s first congressional district. There are 56 days until Election Day.
In the next two months, Steil said he’ll “crisscross Southeast Wisconsin,” and Barca said he’ll “campaign extremely aggressively.”
The district spreads across the southeast corner of the state, including Kenosha and Janesville.
“Any election in Wisconsin is always a close race, and you run hard; you run to the finish line,” Steil said. “I take nothing for granted, and that's why I'm out every day talking with voters about the issues that we need to put in place to move our country ahead and get our country back on track.”
Steil is a 43-year-old Republican who was first elected to Congress six years ago.
Barca is a 69-year-old Democrat who served in the state assembly and held this same congressional seat after winning a special election more than three decades ago. Most recently, he led the Department of Revenue in Democratic Governor Tony Evers’ administration.
When asked what made him decide to run for elective office again, Barca said, “we have a do-nothing, dysfunctional Congress, and it's just a great disservice to the people of America, who really count on people working together across the aisle to get things done.”
“That's the way I've always approached my job,” he continued. “I have a history of working with people across the aisle and focusing on the key issues of the day and moving forward making progress.”
Steil said he is seeking a fourth term this year because he hopes to get more done, especially to secure the border.
“We could end abuse of the parole system,” Steil explained. “We could stop ‘catch and release.’ We could reinstate Stay in Mexico. We could restart border wall construction immediately.”
Barca said he would have voted for the landmark bipartisan legislation to tighten the southern border, had Republicans not killed it earlier this year, after former President Donald Trump urged them not to support it.
“We have five families and our circle of friends that have lost kids to fentanyl,” Barca said. “So I can't believe anybody would feel content to say, ‘Well, we'll just wait a year and see what happens in November.’ That is shameful.”
Both candidates also say they hear from people in the district that the cost of living is too high.
To solve the problem, Steil says it’s time to reign in government spending.
“If we address the reckless spending, if we unleash American energy, if we get our regulatory framework under control, we can bring costs down for American families,” Steil said.
Barca would like to improve the access and affordability of childcare to bring down costs for the middle class.
“Also, steps like making sure that prescription drug costs are more affordable for people, so that they’re not spending so much money for their basic health care needs,” Barca said. “And then, just to grow and expand the middle class… First of all, get rid of these disastrous trade deals that are helping to de-industrialize the United States and taking away good-paying, family-supporting jobs.”
Eric Loepp, an associate professor of politics at UW-Whitewater, said Barca’s political history in the district and national Democrats’ interest in flipping the seat will make this Steil’s most competitive election yet. He explained that it’ll be up to Barca to mobilize voters in the district, since persuasion is less effective in a divisive political environment and it’s hard to unseat an incumbent.
“A good strategy these days is not to go necessarily into really deep red areas and try to convince people and spend hours at the doorstep trying to win an argument, but really to work with local committees and other political organizations that can help get the word out and maybe promote that engagement to get more people to show up on Election Day,” Loepp said.
The Cook Political Report rates the race as “likely Republican.”
“It's been pretty consistently right of center, on average,” Loepp said. “But it's also never been a slam dunk, and that will especially be the case this year.”
Campaign filings show Steil had nearly $5 million in his campaign account at the end of July, more than seven times the amount Barca had. But both candidates raised the same amount of money in July, about $125,000 each.
“It's certainly going to give representative Steil a run for his money,” Loepp said.
Both candidates said they’ll keep up the pace through Election Day.