George Petrovich
Randy Bryce told supporters in Racine: “Don't hang your head. We fought one hell of a fight."
Randy Bryce’s 17-month quest to succeed U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan came to an end this week, but on Tuesday night, the Democrat and 54-year-old Racine County ironworker reassured supporters who packed his election night party that he — and they — weren’t going to go away.
“No, we’re not done yet — we’re just getting started,” Bryce told a cheering crowd at a bank-turned-party hall in the Uptown neighborhood of Racine after taking the stage to acknowledge his loss in the 1st District Congressional race. Republican Brian Steil, a corporate lawyer, former Ryan aide,and member of the UW Board of Regents, was crowned the winner a little more than an hour after the polls closed on Election Day with 55 percent of the vote.
In the end, despite a well-funded campaign and an enthusiastic base of supporters and volunteers, Bryce was unable to crack the solidly Republican district.
In his concession speech, Bryce briefly alluded to one potential culprit — a series of negative ads from the Ryan-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund Super PAC that highlighted an old OWI arrest.
“Don't hang your head,” Bryce said. “We fought one hell of a fight, and the other side dropped a million and a half of attack ads right away. They saw it was close and they dropped another million dollars [on more negative ads]. But we still never gave up. And that's one positive thing.”
Former Racine state Sen. John Lehman pointed to another possible barrier Tuesday night. While the 1st District includes Racine, Kenosha and Janesville — all manufacturing towns with a history of strong Democratic ties — redistricting in 2000 and 2010 have gerrymandered the boundaries to draw in rural and suburban communities outside Milwaukee, tilting the balance in favor of Republicans, Lehman told Isthmus. “It was a real test whether a candidate [like Bryce] could prevail.”
Bryce’s loss followed a campaign unlike any in the district since Ryan first won the seat in 1998. A 20-year union construction worker, Bryce emerged as a leader in the protests against Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10, the 2011 legislation destroying most public employee collective bargaining rights. Along the way, he became adept at social media, adopting the nickname “IronStache” for his Twitter handle.
It was Bryce’s own working-class background — combined with his support for a strong progressive platform across the board — that helped inspire his support. He launched his candidacy in June 2017 with a stirring video on YouTube that focused on health care: Bryce is a cancer survivor, and his mother has multiple sclerosis. The ad tied Ryan to President Donald Trump, focused on their efforts to eliminate the Affordable Care Act and made the case for putting a blue-collar worker in the Congress. It also stirred a whirlwind of national media attention, helping Bryce raise $100,000 on the first day it aired.
But early this year Ryan declared he wouldn’t seek re-election. “We repealed Paul Ryan — now let’s replace him,” the Bryce campaign began to boast.
While the crowd at Bryce’s party was disappointed that didn’t happen, the mood wasn’t gloomy. Some remained inspired by the effort.
“Randy Bryce running for office changed this campaign,” Racine Mayor Cory Mason said in an interview shortly after Bryce conceded. “He had the ambition to believe that a working class guy can run a competitive race. I — like so many people — want to believe that that’s possible in America.”
