Dylan Brogan
Paul Nehlen is urging voters to dump Paul Ryan in the Aug. 9 Republican primary. But a sitting U.S. House speaker has never been beaten in a primary in modern times.
It’s shaping up to be quite a summer for House Speaker Paul Ryan. As chair of the Republican National Convention, Ryan is tasked with uniting his party behind renegade presidential candidate Donald Trump in Cleveland this July. Back in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, the Janesville native faces an insurgent challenger of his own.
Enter Paul Nehlen. The 47-year-old Wisconsin businessman is mounting an effort to oust Ryan in the Aug. 9 partisan primary. Despite challenging the highest elected Republican in the nation from the right, Nehlen is striking a surprisingly apolitical tone on the campaign trail.
“If you want to pay your mortgage...pay your car payment and put food on your table, you want to vote Paul Nehlen. If you want to treat workers like indentured servants, Paul Ryan’s your guy,” says Nehlen during an interview with Isthmus at his campaign headquarters in Delavan.
Nehlen describes himself as an executive, an entrepreneur and an inventor. He is currently the senior vice president of operations at Neptune Benson, a company that manufactures water filtration and disinfection systems. He also owns a consulting business called Blue Skies Global LLC. Originally from Ohio, Nehlen married “a Wisconsin woman” and currently lives in Delavan.
Nehlen once supported Ryan. But he says his “head almost exploded” when Ryan became a leading advocate of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. The 12-nation trade pact is one of the only major policy issues from the Obama administration that Ryan supports.
“[TPP] is an absolutely insidious way for certain groups to win and almost all the rest of us to lose,” says Nehlen. “I refuse to stand by and watch it happen.”
Nehlen isn’t alone. Presidential candidates Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have all vowed to bat down TPP if elected (although Clinton did praise the agreement as secretary of state). Nehlen believes the trade deal will outsource American jobs overseas and erode U.S. sovereignty. He says the reason Ryan supports TPP is clear: money.
“Eighty-three percent of his campaign financing came from outside Wisconsin’s 1st [Congressional] District,” says Nehlen, “the vast majority of which came in the form of large donations from inside the D.C. Beltway. Big law firms, big insurance companies...they are pouring millions of dollars into Ryan’s campaign coffers.”
Nehlen says he’s taking a different path to Washington, putting in a “substantial” sum of his own wealth to finance his congressional run. His website recently touted accruing 4,000 donors in just the first few weeks of the campaign. Nehlen says he won’t be taking “big-money donations.”
“Paul Ryan had better be worried because I’ve built an unbelievable organization,” says Nehlen. “People, right now, are out knocking on doors, passing out information. I was doing it this morning.”
His campaign has garnered some national attention and endorsements too. Tea party darlings Sarah Palin and Michelle Malkin have pledged their support to Nehlen. “I think Paul Ryan is soon to be ‘Cantored,’ as in Eric Cantor,” Palin told CNN last month. The former vice presidential candidate was referring to the primary upset of Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) in 2014. Tea party candidate Dave Brat defeated Cantor despite being outspent 40 to one.
He might have the backing of tea partiers, but Nehlen says he’s a “small-government guy” who will strive to represent everyone. “This seat doesn’t belong to Republicans because Paul Ryan happens to be a Republican. It belongs to the Democrats too. It belongs to libertarians and people who consider themselves independents...tea partiers...liberal progressives. It belongs to Wisconsin’s 1st District.”
No House speaker has ever been beaten at the ballot box by a fellow party member. Only one speaker in modern times, Tom Foley (D-Washington) in 1994, has lost a reelection bid. Wisconsin does have an open primary process. This means people other than Republicans can vote in the Aug. 9 primary.
But Nehlen is betting his laser focus on preserving jobs and opposing TPP will help him defy the odds. A recent campaign ad shows off Nehlen’s tattooed arms as he drives a Harley past the now defunct General Motors plant in Janesville. The candidate looks directly into the camera and challenges Ryan. “Mr. Speaker, why don’t you come back to Wisconsin and debate me — man-to-man, face-to-face — on the realities of TPP,” says Nehlen in the ad. “And if you don’t want to debate me, maybe we can arm wrestle.”
The Ryan campaign did not respond to a request for comment on whether he’ll debate — or arm wrestle — Nehlen.
