8th Congressional District GOP primary puts Trump backing to test

For the past 14 years, Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District has voted reliably Republican. This year’s election could test whether it’s also reliably in the corner of former President Donald Trump.

There are three GOP candidates vying for the seat — state Sen. André Jacque, former state Sen. Roger Roth and businessman Tony Wied. Each has presented himself as a different brand of Republican than former U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, who resigned earlier this year. But only Wied, a political newcomer, received Trump’s endorsement.

Republican voters in the district took notice when the former president chimed in. For Green Bay resident Matthew Belekevich, it sealed the deal. He said he supports Wied because of Trump.

“I trust his judgment,” Belekevich said of Trump. “If he endorses somebody, then trust the judgment.”

Not everyone feels the same way. Lloyd Miller, a member of the Connected in Christ Green Bay area faith group, said Trump’s endorsement shouldn’t be a factor.

“That isn’t what I’m buying,” said Miller, who supports Roth in the primary. “I’m buying what they’re gonna do, not who supported them.”

The Cook Political Report rates the 8th Congressional District “solid Republican.” In fact, Gallagher never received less than 60 percent of the vote in any general election.

“It’s quite possible that the person who emerges from the Republican primary will be the person who represents the district,” said Aaron Weinschenk, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

But Trump endorsements across the country have largely been seen as a double-edged sword, said Weinschenk.

“Trump endorsements are helpful to Republicans in primaries,” he said. “But then Trump-backed Republicans do worse in general elections.”

Wied was virtually unknown in Wisconsin politics before Trump announced his endorsement in April.

Since then, he’s framed himself as a political outsider standing up to “career politicians” and has leaned into his experience running Dino Stop convenience stores. He’s also promoted himself as the most closely aligned with Trump, putting the former president’s endorsement on his yard signs.

“We have career politicians who are self-interested in a go along and get along situation,” he said in a phone interview with WPR. “I have a history in business of going line by line in our budgets, and we need to have people that are committed to the fate of our country.”

Roth has promoted himself as the most well-rounded candidate, citing his time in the Wisconsin Air National Guard, his business experience as a homebuilder and his time in the state Legislature, including a stint as Senate president. Roth is the nephew of former 8th District U.S. Rep. Toby Roth, who held the seat from 1979 to 1997. Roth ran for the 8th District in 2010 but failed to advance past the primary.

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“I’m the one candidate that has small business experience, military experience and legislative experience,” Roth told WPR at a recent campaign event. “I can go to Washington and will, on day one, lead on those important issues, but time is of the essence.”

Jacque describes himself as a proven “conservative fighter” who has taken on the establishment and has leaned into conservative social issues, saying he’s “proudly pro-life.”

“My opponents might be better looking or have bigger wallets,” he told WPR after a July 25 debate. “But ultimately, I’m the guy that’s gonna stand by what he says and is willing to take on the establishment, as well as the special interests.”

Jacque, Roth and Wied all wholeheartedly support Trump. That’s to be expected in most 2024 Republican primaries. But Republicans who previously held the 8th District over the last 14 years clashed with Trump at times, sometimes forcefully.

Former U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble, who held the seat from 2011 to 2017, has been an outspoken Trump critic since 2016 when he warned that Trump had done lasting damage to the Republican Party. Earlier this year, he lashed out at both Trump and his supporters, telling WPR they were “populists” and not true conservatives.

Gallagher, who retired this year after first being elected in 2016, voted in line with Trump almost 87 percent of the time when Trump was president. But he publicly criticized Trump during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. At the time, he called the riot “Banana Republic crap” and implored the former president to call it off.

Gallagher angered House Republicans earlier this year when he voted against impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the Biden administration’s handling of the southern border.

The GOP backlash was swift. While he did not mention Gallagher by name, fellow Wisconsin Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden said he was “shocked and disgusted” by the votes of his colleagues, and the Brown County Republican Party said it was “deeply concerned” by Gallagher’s actions. Just three days later, Gallagher announced he would not seek reelection.

It was an abrupt change of political fortunes for Gallagher, who was once seen as a rising star in his party. But his recent breaks from Trump tarnished him in the eyes of some GOP voters in the district.

“I didn’t think he voted the way I wanted him to on a lot of subjects,” said village of Bellevue resident Edward Simpson, a volunteer for Roth’s campaign. “He didn’t vote the way I expected him to.”

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That split between Republican voters and Gallagher may have contributed to why all three GOP campaigns have been careful to avoid criticizing Trump. For example, they each released statements supportive of the former president when he was convicted of 34 felonies related to hush money payments he made to a porn star.

All three faced a Trump loyalty test of sorts during a July 19 debate, when the moderator asked all three to say whether they believed the 2020 election was stolen, a false claim repeated often by Trump.

Wied did not directly answer the question, and the moderator eventually cut his microphone.

Roth said “no,” but said he did have issues with how the election was conducted.

Jacque responded with an emphatic “hell yes,” to the delight of the crowd.

A statewide canvas, partial recount, nonpartisan audit and multiple court decisions all showed that Trump lost Wisconsin to Joe Biden.

Beyond rehashing 2020, all three candidates have also referenced how they would work with Trump in office, particularly on immigration.

Wied has said he would help Trump’s mass immigrant deportation effort, advocated for bringing back the pandemic-era “Remain in Mexico” policy and described himself as Trump’s hand-picked candidate.

Roth said he visited the southern border with former Trump administration officials and said he would go to Congress to “reinstitute the policies of the Trump administration.”

And Jacque has called for Congress to impeach the homeland security secretary again following the assassination attempt on the former president. He also accused some in the media of what he called “Trump derangement syndrome.”

When it comes to the economy, all three candidates said they would work to reduce federal government spending in order to reduce inflation.

Wied pledged to go through the federal budget “line by line” and also proposed “completely eliminating” some federal agencies, including the Department of Education.

“Our agencies are completely bloated,” he said. “I think we can cut each of them and cut spending in half.”

Roth said he would support working to rescind some of the unspent federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

“These are monies that have been allocated that haven’t been spent yet,” he said. “Let’s pull those out.”

Jacque said he would advocate for “zero-based budgeting,” a method where all expenses must be justified and approved for a specific budget period. In response to a question about interest rates, he also said he supports ending the Federal Reserve.

“We need to starve the beast, and the beast is government,” he said.

Given the makeup of the 8th District, whoever emerges from the GOP primary will have a built-in advantage. Trump himself received about 57 percent of the vote in the district in 2020.

All of the candidates are running for both a general and special election for the seat. The special election will allow whoever wins in November to finish Gallagher’s term in Congress.

The winner of the primary will face Democrat Kristin Lyerly, an OB-GYN and outspoken abortion rights advocate who is vying to be the first woman elected to the district. At a July town hall in Appleton, she told WPR she will continue to fight for abortion rights because she believes those decisions should be made between patients and doctors, not politicians.

Lyerly said the three Republican candidates are all “very different” and she’s excited to get through the primary to see who her opponent in November will be.

“Between now and then, we’re really focusing on what we can do and getting to places where Democrats haven’t been in the past,” Lyerly said.

Lyerly will offer a sharp contrast to the primary winner. All three GOP candidates describe themselves as “pro-life,” or anti-abortion. Wied and Roth both framed abortion as a state issue, while Jacque has indicated he’s open to cutting “federal subsidies” for abortions.

Weinschenk, at UW-Green Bay, said abortion is one issue where Democrats may have a leg up on Republicans, especially in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

“Don’t count Democrats out completely,” Weinschenk said. “I mean, it depends on the issues, and a lot can change.”

This story was originally published by WPR.

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Joe Schulz covers news in northeastern Wisconsin and statewide business, labor and economic issues for Wisconsin Public Radio.