Can Peter Barca flip the Republican congressional district? » Urban Milwaukee

Republicans have held southeastern Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District for 20 years, and the last Democrat to hold the seat is now trying to reclaim it. With a House majority in sight, he received some encouraging news in the primary election earlier this month.

No one has challenged the US congressman. Bryan Steil or his Democratic opponent Pete Barca in their partisan primaries. Barca won nearly 60,000 votes, compared to more than 52,000 for Steil, according to a Badger Project count of unofficial totals in the portions of the five counties that make up the 1st Congressional District.

The official figures will not be announced for a few weeks, but based on the past elections they are unlikely to change drastically, said Joel DeSpaina spokesman for the Wisconsin Election Commission.

These initial figures suggest that the parliamentary election could be close, said Barry BurdenProfessor of political science at UW-Madison.

“Since there isn't much of interest on the ballot other than statewide constitutional amendments, their vote totals in the primary election are some indication of enthusiasm to vote for either party,” he wrote in an email.

In 2022, when Steil had to defend his district for the first time since it was redrawn to be more competitive, he easily defeated his Democratic challenger Ann Roe with around 163,000 votes compared to 136,000 votes.

In this year's party primaries, both candidates ran unopposed and Steil received significantly more votes than his eventual challenger, with around 73,000 votes compared to 48,000.

However, one should be cautious and not draw too many conclusions from these initial results, said Joe LenskiCo-founder of Edison Research, a company that analyzes elections and other industries.

“In 2022, turnout in Wisconsin's Republican primary was driven by the hotly contested U.S. Senate primary, while turnout in the 2024 primary appears to have been driven by the (Democratic Party's) campaign to defeat the two ballot measures that would have limited some of the governor's powers,” he noted.

Democrats and their allies spent far more money than Republicans in the run-up to the 2024 primaries, attacking ballot proposals and urging people to vote no.

One Republican takes an even stronger position. Uncontested primaries rarely have predictive value, said Joe Handricka former state representative in the 1990s who represented Minocqua.

“The reason for this is that turnout in these situations, by definition, depends on races other than unopposed primaries,” he noted.

And the electorate will be very different in November, especially given that the presidential election is on the agenda.

“One complication is that the general election will attract many voters who are less attentive to the details of policy and tend to vote for well-known incumbents like Steil unless the challenger gives them clear reasons to change course,” Burden said. “For this reason, incumbents have a strong advantage in congressional elections.”

Despite this built-in advantage, Steil is facing the greatest challenge of his still young political career.

Barca, a 69-year-old Kenoshan native, is a veteran politician and well-known in the district. He served one term in Congress from 1993 to 1994 and later served as minority leader in the Assembly for several terms.

Steil, 43, of Janesville, first won the seat in 2018 after its former holder, then-Speaker of the House Paul Ryanretired.

The incumbent is not sitting idle, with the majority in the House of Representatives still up for grabs. He has a huge lead in donations, having raised more than $4.7 million as of July 24, the last day for candidates to file a report, while Barca has raised only about $650,000.

Democrats have included the district in their “Red to Blue” program aimed at electing seats. Republicans currently hold a slim majority of eight seats.

The problems

Both candidates have a long list of priorities, and they take similar stances on issues such as public safety, border security, efforts to lower prices and supporting veterans in the right-leaning district.

But the candidates disagree on partisan issues such as abortion, and each candidate is representing his party's side in the debate. On his campaign website, Steil also emphasizes the Second Amendment and the importance of cutting government spending to reduce debt and deficit.

Barca touts traditional liberal values ​​such as workers' rights, reproductive freedom and affordable health care on his campaign website, but running in a pink district, he also emphasizes his support for bipartisanship and other centrist positions.

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

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