Paul Ryan declares, 'We're going to win,' while Bernie Sanders urges Democrats to back Randy Bryce

The fight for the 1st Congressional district is on.

House Speaker Paul Ryan delivered an upbeat message to Waukesha County Republicans on Saturday night and said of the GOP nationally: "We're going to win," while U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders came to Racine and implored Democrats to keep up the fight in 2018 midterm elections and oust Ryan from Congress.

The back-and-forth provided a preview of one of the most highly charged races in the country. Ryan, the Janesville Republican, is facing a spirited Democratic challenge from Racine County iron worker Randy Bryce.

Bryce has already earned the endorsement of Sanders, the Independent from Vermont, but still faces a primary challenge from Cathy Myers, a teacher and member of the Janesville School Board.

During his remarks at the Country Springs Hotel, Ryan discussed the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., but made no mention of whether Congress will take up legislation.

Ryan said "we're all still praying and grieving; our hearts are still kind of sunk" because of the shooting.

Ryan said the 19-year-old suspect in the shooting "slipped through a whole bunch of cracks. So, number one, we have to make sure that doesn't happen again."

He added, "We have to make sure that people who are mentally unstable ... don't have the ability to go do this."

"It's important that we get to the bottom of this and fix this while preserving citizens' rights," Ryan said.

During his speech, Ryan pointed to Republican successes in the last year under President Donald Trump, including tax cuts, regulatory reform and approving a slate of new federal judges, and said more work needed to be done.

Ryan noted that midterm elections are often tough for the president's party and said Democrats "are going to try and psych all of us out, so that we can say, 'Oh, gosh, midterm elections are so hard.' "

Ryan said Republicans would work hard, pass reforms and win, drawing sustained applause from the audience.

Speaking to an overflow crowd at Memorial Hall in Racine, Sanders took aim at Ryan. He sought to portray Ryan as working for moneyed interests, including the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, while saying Bryce represents the interests of hard-working families.

"Randy is not just running against Paul Ryan .. he is running against all of corporate America," Sanders said. "He is running against Wall Street, he is running against the Koch brothers and the entire billionaire class."

Sanders resurrected many of the themes from his 2016 presidential bid, including income inequality, stagnant wages and the need for greater access to affordable health care.

"We see people working at starvation wages, of nine or ten bucks an hour, and they are falling further and further behind," Sanders said. "In America, nobody who works 40 hours a week should be living in poverty.”

Bryce said he was awe-struck to be on the same stage with Sanders, who saw a groundswell of support in Wisconsin before losing the Democratic presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

“This time last year I was hanging off the side of the Northwestern Mutual building, doing construction with my fellow ironworkers,” Bryce said.

“It was actually on that construction site that I first got a call from the Sanders campaign in 2016. They were calling to ask if there were any job actions where Senator Sanders could be helpful. And that just kind of blew me away.”

Sanders drew repeated cheers from the crowd as he ticked off his signature issues, including "Medicare for all."

“In every other major country on earth … health care is a right, not a privilege,” he said.

On gun control, Sanders said: "American people understand that there are common-sense gun safety laws that can and should be passed."

Bryce echoed many of Sanders' points, including raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and changes in health care.

“It is clear that this Congress has no idea of what it’s like to be in the middle class today,” he said.

“We need someone who will pass Medicare for all so that we aren’t paying for health insurance every month that has a deductible that’s too high for people to actually use. We need someone who will help pass the Butch Lewis Act so that the pensions that working people have been paying into their entire lives are secure,” Bryce said.

The Democrat said he also supports more funding for the opioid crisis "so that people who are addicted because of the greed of drug companies can get back on their feet" and a pathway to citizenship for young people brought to the United States illegally as children "so that the American dream doesn’t die."