Candidates to face off Tuesday for 7th District
After eight months without representation in Congress, voters in the Northwoods will decide who will be their voice in Washington next week.
The choices they face couldn’t be starker.
Republican Tom Tiffany of Minocqua has spent a decade in the state Legislature pushing for iron mining, limiting the power of the state Department of Natural Resources and fighting unions.
Democrat Tricia Zunker, the president of the Wausau School Board, attracted attention after calling for schools across Wisconsin to retire their Native American mascots and pushing legislation to ban the mascots. That measure earlier this year was struck down at a meeting of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, though, and was not forwarded to state lawmakers.
Zunker also serves as an associate justice on the Ho-Chunk Nation Supreme Court, in addition to teaching law classes remotely for several universities.
The winner of Tuesday’s special election will replace Sean Duffy, who stepped down in September after nearly a decade in Congress. Duffy retired before the end of his term after learning the child his wife was about to have would require open-heart surgery not long after her birth.
Duffy, a Republican, represented the district for nearly eight years. He carried the 2018 election over his Democratic challenger, Margaret Engebretson, by more than 23 points.
The district, which covers all of 21 counties and portions of five others in northern Wisconsin, tilts toward Republicans. President Donald Trump won the district by 20 points in 2016.
Whoever is elected will face a quick turnaround — they’ll be expected in Washington as early as May 19. Whoever wins will also have to shift right back into campaign mode. Like every other seat in Congress, this one is on the ballot in November.
Zunker plans to run in that race as well, according to campaign staff. Tiffany did not respond to questions about whether he was planning to run again if he were to finish second on Tuesday.
Tiffany has the money edge. He has raised more than $1.2 million and spent more than $950,000. Zunker has raised more than $450,000 and spent just over $328,000.
Tiffany was elected to the state Assembly in 2010 and within months the state was thrown into turmoil over Act 10, the 2011 law that limited collective bargaining for public employees and sparked a wave of protests and recall elections. Tiffany was a strong backer of the measure.
During his time in the Assembly, he led the effort to ease mining regulations to clear the way for a massive, $1.5 billion open-pit mine in Ashland and Iron counties.
His legislation was stalled initially, but he got it approved in 2013, shortly after he was elected to the state Senate. The company behind the proposed mine, Gogebic Taconite, abandoned its plans in 2015.
Zunker was elected to the Wausau School Board in 2018 and voted president shortly after. She was elected as an associate justice in 2013 and again in 2017. She is the first Native American woman to run for Congress in Wisconsin since Ada Deer lost to Republican Scott Klug in 1992.