$665,000 and Kelda Roys raised more than 527,000.
Aside from the race for governor, the state's eight
seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are also up
for election this year. One of those races for the
deeply red seventh district in far northern Wisconsin
has attracted many candidates in the primary
election. Here and now. Reporter Steven Potter has
this story. >> There's a lot of
motivation to elect people in the seventh district
that will be Make America Great Again. Republicans.
>> The Great North Woods of Wisconsin is known for many
things vast forests, abundant farmland, and some
of the best lakes and rivers that the state has
to offer. It's also known as a very thinly populated
region, but there is something that's become far
more crowded than usual. That's the ballot for the
upcoming Republican primary for Congress. In all, there
are five candidates on the ballot for the seventh
Congressional District Republican primary election,
which takes place on August 11th. The candidates
include a financial planner, an accountant, a public
relations executive, a marketing specialist, and a
homebuilder. They're all after the seat being
vacated by current U.S. House representative Tom
Tiffany, who's running as the Republican candidate
for governor. While they're all Republicans, each of
these congressional candidates has different
reasons for why voters should choose them. Kevin
Hermening, the financial planner from Wausau, was
one of the Marines taken hostage for more than a
year during the Iranian hostage crisis back in 1979.
He's one of the better known candidates in this
race. business owner, a school
board member, a community volunteer. So there are a
lot of reasons why that I'm the best qualified to
represent the voters here. >> Another well-known
candidate is accountant Michael Alfonso, who lives
in Hayward. He's the son in law of U.S. Department of
Transportation Secretary Shawn Duffy, who held the
same congressional seat that Alfonso is running for
now. >> I'm just, you know, an
average kid from northern Wisconsin. I grew up in
land o lakes. I bring the energy of a 26 year old.
I'm at every single county in the in the district. I'm,
you know, representing every voter.
>> Then there's public relations executive and
Stanley resident Jesse Ebben, who has farming
roots in the district. >> I am a Christian
conservative, a Trump Republican, a proud seventh
generation wisconsinite who is committed to getting the
government off our back, out of our way of life so
that we can flourish and prosper right here in rural
Wisconsin. Rhinelander resident Niina
Baum, who owns a marketing agency and was born and
raised in the Northwoods. >> I grew up in the
district in Price County on a dairy farm, a small farm
with about 25 milking cows. And there were a lot of
small farms in my community when I grew up. And they
all disappeared. >> And finally, there's Don
Rajala, a native and current resident of
superior. He works in home construction I.
>> This is my fourth time running for Congress. I did
it in 2010, 2014, 2016. I have this time and all this
energy Steil. I'm 58 years old, but I just know I can
get out there and represent people.
Congressional District stands out for a few
reasons. First is its size. As the state's largest
congressional district, it stretches across 20
counties and almost 19,000mi'!S of northern and
central Wisconsin. The economy here is anchored on
agriculture, forestry, manufacturing and tourism.
Politically, however, the area has seen significant
change over the last couple of decades, driven largely
by redistricting. The seventh Congressional
District is now the most reliably Republican
stronghold in the state. >> They're very Republican.
>> Jacque Weissenburger is the vice chairwoman of the
Rusk County Republicans. >> People here really
appreciate the values of hard work, having
individual freedoms, being able to live their lives as
they see fit. >> She says. This race for
the seventh Congressional District of Wisconsin has
national consequences. >> There's a very big risk
at midterms that the House will turn blue, and I think
that it's this particular race itself in the seventh
district will be it'll be somewhat of a barrier
against that happening. >> While it's certainly
possible that the seventh district could elect a
Democrat, and there are three of them on the
primary ballot, election experts say that's fairly
unlikely. In the 2024 election, voters of the
seventh district chose both Republican Tom Tiffany for
U.S. representative and Donald Trump for president
by a 20 point winning margin. The candidates have
been working hard to get voters attention and
letting them know that they understand the issues that
are important to them, according to recent polling,
Michael Alfonso is leading the pack, and Alfonso does
have the endorsement of President Trump.
>> We've seen kind of this mortgaging of the middle
America, the manufacturing jobs, so that we can
benefit the coastal elites. I don't like that. When we
talk about rising costs, maybe the tariffs
contribute to that. But President Trump understands
that this is a short term plan. We're going to be
working to bring back the jobs we lost overseas,
right back here to northern Wisconsin. And then we can
start removing the tariffs. >> Number two in the polls
is Kevin Hermening, who has given $1 million of his own
money to his campaign. >> When people decide to
call central and northern Wisconsin their home,
they're saying to the rest of the state, we'd like you
to be involved, but we don't need you to control
our lives. And so it's a big reason that I love
living up here because of the individuality and the
the willingness of people to pull themselves up by
their own bootstraps. >> Jesse Evans says her
priorities center on land, wolves and jobs.
>> A lot of the issues here are a battle of our way of
life. So it's everything we're seeing right now,
with solar panels and windmills being targeted to
be put on our farmland and the fight that we have to
see our rural save, our rural landscape, our family
farms from bad energy, bad energy policy. There's
really a big battle to de-list the gray wolf. We
need to make sure that that hunt can be localized right
here in our state. And I work in manufacturing, so
making sure that we have good manufacturing jobs,
that the government isn't the barrier for keeping
those manufacturing jobs, keeping the manufacturers
here in the rural communities.
>> For Niina Baum, who's biking around the seventh
district to meet voters, she worries about the
country's financial future and wants regulation
changes. >> Social Security Trust
Fund has been projected to be insolvent in a few years,
and if nothing's done about it, it's automatic cuts of
about 23%. That is going to have a huge. If that
happens, that's going to have a huge negative impact
on our Northwoods economy. I'd like to see more zoning
deregulation, making it easier, more attainable for
people to actually build homes and more cost
effective. And not all of these barriers, like
minimum square footage requirements or outdated
zoning regulation. >> Don Raihala Halah wants
to make sure local residents maintain local
control. >> I'm a big believer in
referendums and referendums. Stop data centers dead in
their tracks. If. If a city. Let's choose Wausau or
Superior. If the citizens want to get together and
put out a referendum and stop it, it stops right
there because the state has given the power to local
municipalities to do that. >> Just like names on the
ballot, there's no shortage of issues in this race.
>> Health insurance. >> Costs of housing.
>> Loss of a job. >> Or with Iran.
>> These tariffs. >> Immigration.
>> Drug pricing. >> On manufacturing and on
agriculture. >> Tough for small farms.
>> Epstein files. >> But there's one topic
that's on the top of mind for all voters. The
increased cost of everything. Republicans
running for the seventh Congressional District are
careful about how they discuss the economy and
inflation, and what can be done to bring down costs,
Jessi Ebben says it's all about energy.
>> Well, the cost of energy is really the baseline that
starts a lot of the inflation. So the best
thing we can do is have good energy policy to
really start this. And that doesn't mean solar or wind.
>> Michael Alfonso blames problems within government
programs. >> So inflation it's a
scary one. It's caused by government overspending. I
think the easiest thing to cut from the federal
government is fraud, waste and abuse. So much fraud in
our system, so many people making money off of
American taxpayers, scamming them. If we want
to shrink the spending, the easiest place to do it is
get rid of the cheats. >> Kevin Hermening also
blames the federal government. But differently.
>> The government has a spending problem.
Government should not be borrowing for its ongoing
costs of operation. When you do that, you run into,
in our case, a $40 trillion debt. And so the government
needs to understand that these are dollars that are
intended for our communities. These are
dollars that are best spent by the people who live here,
who earn them. And that could play a big role in
bringing down inflation. >> Niina Baum says pricing
problems start with the white House.
>> Something that we've been seeing happen a lot
more with the current and past administrations, is
that a lot more has been passed through executive
order, and I think that creates a lot of volatility,
which affects the affordability and the
economy. sure what can be done about
inflation, but residents need to do what they can
for themselves. >> If you're going to build
a home, be your own contractor, be your own
general, you you're going to save 15% right off the
bat. It's going to take a couple of phone calls and
maybe a weekend here or there, but be your own
contractor. race. These candidates will
be splitting the Northwoods Republican electorate, and
voters here are spread far and wide across the rural
district. That means that it may come down to just a
few percent or even a few hundred votes, and each
campaign has many miles to cover. Between now and
August 11th. Reporting from August 11th. Reporting from