Sarah Holder is an editorial intern with politico magazine.

“When asked about the success of our launch, I often say, ‘I didn’t invent electricity, I just said my story.’ Everyone has a story,” says Randy Bryce, the Wisconsin Army veteran and ironworker who is making a long-shot bid for House Speaker Paul Ryan’s seat in Congress in 2018. Bryce’s story happens to be more popular than most other people’s, thanks to his online-only campaign ad that went viral late last month. The video netted $100,000 in campaign donations in 24 hours and $430,000 in 12 days, racked up more than 500,000 views on YouTube and landed Bryce, whose cheeky nickname is “IronStache,” appearances on cable news shows and write-ups in magazines.

So how exactly did this relatively unknown Wisconsinite become “IronStache, Paul Ryan’s Worst Enemy”? Bryce has always been IronStache, insists his campaign strategist Bill Hyers. The moniker has acted as his website URL and Twitter username for years, and the facial hair has been a key accessory for longer. But it’s the ad, which features Bryce’s mother and son and hordes of his blue-collar peers, that pushed both the man and the ’stache to transcend state politics. And some observers have said it could even make Bryce a model for a new kind of Democratic campaign strategy.


Hyers and producer Matt McLaughlin are the ideas men behind the spot itself. Hyers is best known for his work as campaign manager for progressive-populist candidates like New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, Boston city councilman and mayoral candidate Tito Jackson, and John Fetterman, the tattooed mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania. McLaughlin has collaborated on TV ads for all three—bearing clear resemblance to Bryce’s video. A 2015 spot for Fetterman, for instance, focuses on Braddock’s dying steel industry, and Jackson’s mayoral campaign announcement, like Bryce’s, is set in his own mother’s house. McLaughlin also worked on a 2016 ad for Bernie Sanders featuring Erica Garner, the daughter of a New York man who died after being put in a police chokehold.

“I’ve made a little bit of a reputation for representing the underdogs,” Hyers says in an interview with POLITICO Magazine. And for, he says, “Seeing past the kind of D.C. fundamentals where they just want to know how much money, how many rich people do you know … and really figuring out who the person is.”

This summer, the duo formally started a political media consultancy, called WIN, to create “strategic, video-centric campaigns.” But none of the underdogs WIN has represented so far has received the kind of sudden attention Bryce has. Hyers was introduced to the candidate in May by another Democratic campaign operative, David Keith. Bryce and Hyers connected over the fact that they had both been military police in the Army, on the same base in Alabama, Hyers says.

Bryce was a natural fit for Hyers’ underdog portfolio. A Democrat hasn’t represented Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District since 1995; Ryan has held it since 1999. Bryce, for his part, has never won an election. He got his political start when he was still a full-time ironworker, volunteering to become a political coordinator for his labor union in 2011. After Scott Walker was elected governor of Wisconsin shortly thereafter and Republicans took over the state Legislature, the Democratic state minority leader asked Bryce to run for state assembly; he lost that race in the primaries. In 2013, Bryce lost a bid for the Racine County Board of Education. And in 2014, a state senator asked him to run for a seat in that body; Bryce was again unsuccessful.

“He’s kind of a populist fighter. He’s strong on economic issues, and he was driven to activism in a real way because of Scott Walker’s attack on workers,” Hyers says. Most of all, he adds, Bryce is “the most authentic, genuine person.”

That’s the same reason Hyers thinks Bryce’s TV spot took off—not only the long format or the cinematography, but a sense of authenticity. Before creating the spot, Hyers and McLaughlin sat down to interview Bryce about his personal story—his job, his family, his past. Of the people in the ad, McLaughlin says, “Everyone is a part of Randy’s life,” and the iron factory is Bryce’s real workplace. “Those are just his work clothes,” Hyers adds.

“The point is that you don’t storyboard,” he says. “We found four big elements we wanted to put in: the health care angle with mom; the fact that he’s an ironworker; we were going to do more veteran stuff, but it didn’t work, but we’ll put that in another ad; and then his son, which is another big element. … That’s what defines him as a person.”

The spot opens with President Donald Trump praising Paul Ryan, and fades into images of the sun-kissed fields of Wisconsin. A voice-over of Ryan plays: “This is repealing and replacing, Obamacare. Everybody doesn’t get what they want.” With his words still ringing, we meet Bryce’s mother, who tells the story of her battle with multiple sclerosis. “I’m on 20 drugs, and if I don’t take the one that takes thousands of dollars, I don’t know what would happen,” she says. She gives her son a bear hug. The message is clear: Ryan’s version of reform hurts real people.

It was McLaughlin who had the idea of making Bryce’s mother a central figure in the spot. Bryce says she was self-conscious about appearing in it—MS affects the way she talks. “I said, ‘It’s not about making you look bad. It’s for helping people like you,’” Bryce says. “I feel crazy telling her she’s lucky, but in some ways, she is—she has insurance, and she’s independent because she has that insurance.” She can go grocery shopping by herself, and visit the hospital to see Bryce’s dad, who has Alzheimer’s. “I said, ‘Think about the people who don’t have what you have. We need to help them get insurance to have that independence, too.’”

Bryce’s main platform rests on health care, but he has also promised to bring back good-paying jobs to Wisconsin, where the factories that once supported the economy have begun to shutter and move abroad. So, the next clips follow Bryce around southeastern Wisconsin: He’s welding iron, wearing a hardhat, shaking hands and sitting on porches surrounded by working people. These are the folks—and the jobs—he’s fighting for.

In its final seconds, the ad makes a direct, easily retweetable challenge to Ryan—“Let’s trade places”—but avoids engaging in the level of vitriol that characterizes other political spots. Bryce isn’t naturally nasty, Hyers says; he would have needed a script for that. The ad’s length— 2½ minutes—also sets it apart. “The first feedback we get from others in politics is: ‘It’s too long. You need to shorten it,’” Hyers says. “But at some point, you have to stick to your guns. If it’s compelling, they’ll watch it.” People did watch, and are continuing to.

Not all the attention Bryce attracted has been positive, however. Some of his old tweets resurfaced, in which he praised Louise Mensch, a British journalist who has been vilified for perpetuating conspiracy theories about Trump’s involvement with Russia. (Bryce’s tweet was later deleted.) The media has also highlighted his subpar political record. “This union Ironworker wants Paul Ryan's job. He’s got a great ad, but a losing record,” a Washington Post headline read.

But he has been praised for being “more in line with what voters were looking for in 2016 and with what the Democratic Party failed to provide,” as a Post op-ed writer put it, and being a litmus test for whether the party can successfully adopt a more progressive message. While Bryce leans closer to Bernie Sanders than Hillary Clinton on the political spectrum, his ad is clearly meant to appeal to blue-collar workers, too.

“It’s not the only answer [for Democrats]—there’s a lot more to take into account outside of media,” McLaughlin says. “But I definitely think that in the past, storytelling has taken a back seat to messaging points.” McLaughlin says his and Hyers’ strategy is more about having mass conversations with voters. Bryce—a.k.a. @IronStache—has 110,000 Twitter followers, and uses the platform to thank supporters, make iron-related jokes, post Bruce Springsteen songs and quip about the Trump administration.

Still, Hyers says, the campaign is about winning a seat in the House, not creating a brand or good TV. “It’s a long campaign,” he says. “It’s great that [the ad] is doing well now, and I think it’s gotten him attention that he desperately needs. … But I think the judges of success of this will be when Randy unseats Paul Ryan.”

Unseating him would be nothing short of a feat, given Ryan’s position in leadership and long tenure in the area—he last won reelection by nearly 65 percent of the vote. But it is still a swing district in a swing state: Barack Obama won it in 2008, and Trump won by about a point in November. And adds Hyers, “Paul Ryan has a lot to answer for.”

As for whether there should be more facial hair in the future of the Democratic Party? “Well, I kind of hope so,” McLaughlin says, laughing. “We worked with Jon Fetterman, who had some interesting facial hair, too. But honestly, I hope no. Because I hope that we see more females running.”