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Three young Democrats have already cast their hats into the ring for the chance to challenge incumbent Rep. Bryan Steil in November to represent southeastern Wisconsin in Congress.

No Democrat has won Wisconsin’s 1st District since 1993 when current Wisconsin Secretary of Revenue Peter Barca held the seat. Racine native Roger Polack and Kenosha County natives Josh Pade and Angela Cunningham want to change that.

All four candidates have law degrees and are age 40 or younger, but come from varied backgrounds.

The Democratic primary is scheduled for Aug. 11 with the final election against Steil on Nov. 3. The 1st District includes all of Racine and Kenosha counties, as well as parts of Walworth, Rock, Waukesha and Milwaukee counties.

Meet the candidates

Steil, a 38-year-old Republican, is still in the middle of his first two-year term as congressman. After growing up as part of a politically engaged and well-known Janesville family, Steil became former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s recommended replacement.

Steil had a career working as an executive of a plastics manufacturer in Milton, becoming its legal counsel, and being appointed to the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents in 2016.

Pade ran for governor last year, but received less than 1% of the vote in a loaded primary that ended up propelling Tony Evers toward unseating Scott Walker. Pade is a self-professed policy nerd whose family was politically engaged in Kenosha County. He later interned with Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., in Washington, D.C.

Cunningham is a Kenosha attorney who used to work as a prosecutor before opening her own practice.

She became a single mother at age 20 and still went on to earn a law degree and is engaged in a handful of community groups, including serving on the Board of Directors at Catholic Charities as well as working with Building Our Future and the Coalition for Dismantling Racism in Kenosha.

“From what I can find historically, everyone who has held this seat has been a white man … As a woman of color, I would bring a unique perspective,” Cunningham said. “Most of the time, it’s easier to understand a person’s plight when you’ve experienced it yourself … A lot of people who end up elected into office have no idea what it’s like to struggle with not knowing where your next meal is going to come from.”

A Racine native, Polack candidly talks about the struggles his family faced growing up: his dad has bipolar disorder and his family lived on welfare and got by with the help of food stamps for a time.

“We relied on government handouts,” Polack said as one of the reasons he aligns himself with the Democratic Party, the party more well-known for defending those protections for low-income families.

Polack also worked alongside the American military in Afghanistan to try to find out how the terrorism was funded in the Middle East and worldwide. He even interviewed captured Taliban combatants during those investigations.

“I worked in a war zone,” he said in an interview with The Journal Times. “I have the chops … I have a history of service.”

Attacking Steil

Polack made a splash when announcing his campaign by promising never to take money from any PACs, a promise that Pade also made.

PACs, or political action committees, are groups that raise money for political candidates. They’ve grown in popularity and notoriety since the 2010 Supreme Court case Citizens United v. FEC allowed corporations and unions to make support political campaigns via PACs.

That campaign touch point is how Polack and Pade think they can win. Both grew up low-income — Polack in Racine, Pade in Kenosha — and plan to paint Steil as in league with “corporate interests.”

“My campaign is going to be for the people. That’s who I want to support me in this thing. I’m going to go into Congress completely free and independent of corporate special interests. They’re not going to dictate my legislative agenda whatsoever because I will take no money from them,” Polack said. “Who do you think Bryan Steil has interest in if he’s taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporate special interest groups?”

Although Cunningham didn’t rule out taking money from PACs, she said she is not a fan of them. “Historically, I think a lot of PACs are known for corporate interests,” she said. “I’m not for corporate interests.”

Steil has more than $1 million in cash-on-hand in campaign finances right now, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

When that $1 million mark was published by a Milwaukee newspaper, Polack posted on Facebook and tweeted: “Unlike Bryan Steil, who has raised hundreds of thousands from corporate PACS (sic), my campaign won’t be funded by corporate PACs. When I’m in Congress, I’ll only be beholden to the people ...”

Less than $30,000 of that is directly from the PAC directly linked to Steil’s office, but more than $1 million has come from committee fundraising, with the largest donors being investment management companies (namely Charles Schwab Corp.), a handful of law firms, a couple hedge funds and La Crosse-based Kwik Trip Co.

Although his campaign does take money from PACs, Steil says they don’t have an effect on how he votes in Washington.

Regarding PACs, Steil referred to the current state of campaign financing in America as “frustrating” during a meeting with The Journal Times Editorial Board last month.

His campaign still takes the money because it’s “the world we live in,” he said, while noting that PAC money can help make the difference in an election because it “helps you get the message out.”

The campaign of Randy “Iron Stache” Bryce had momentum early in the campaign and had a chance to beat Steil to replace Ryan in 2018, but it sputtered in the final months, in part due to aggressive online and television campaigning from a conservative group that reminded voters Bryce had been arrested nine times — several of which were the result of peaceful protests.

That ad campaign was led by the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC that spent more than $158 million during the 2018 election cycle.

Steil doesn’t want the conversations surrounding his re-election campaign to be focused on how his campaign is funded. He’s focusing on the work he’s doing in D.C., with the No. 1 goal of shrinking the deficit.

He also is quick to point out how available he has been with constituents, having hosted at least one listening session in every municipality he represents since being elected.

He wants voters to pay attention to what he’s doing in Washington, not what his opponents are claiming.

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