Local turnout strong as voters set fall matchups for governor, 7th District

The stage is now set for November’s midterm elections. Local voters went to the polls Tuesday, Aug. 11 to narrow down the candidates for the 7th Congressional District seat currently held by Tom Tiffany (R-Minocqua), who is vacating the seat to run for governor, and choose the Democrat who will face Tiffany.
On the Republican side, voters chose the Trump-endorsed candidate Michael Alfonso, son-in-law of  Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and former producer for conservative podcast host turned deputy FBI director Dan Bongino. Besides podcast producer, the 26-year-old Alfonso lists construction as his  other work experience. Bongino, who was also appointed by Trump, left office in January and is once again a political commentator.
Alfonso received 48.9 percent of the vote, followed by Kevin Hermening with 26.6, Jessi Ebben with 15.7 and Niina Baum with 4.8. He will now test the power of Trump’s endorsement against former state legislator Fred Clark of Bayfield. Clark, a former forester and businessman who represented the Baraboo area in the state legislature from 2009 to 2014, has criticized the current Republican-controlled Congress for abandoning its constitutional role as a check on executive power, allowing for what he has called “staggering corruption.”
Clark survived a close race against attorney Ginger Murray and IT consultant Chris Armstrong. He received 37.6 percent of the vote while Murray received 31.8. Armstrong finished just behind with 30.3 percent of the vote.

In the race to succeed Gov. Tony Evers, who is not running for re-election, Tiffany will square off against Milwaukee County Executive and former state legislator David Crowley, who revived his campaign after receiving a late endorsement from Evers. Crowley came from behind to narrowly defeat state legislator Francesca Hong, a Democratic Socialist.
In the 34th Assembly District, incumbent Rob Swearingen (R-Rhinelander) will face Rhinelander school board member Merlin Van Buren. Neither faced primary opposition.
Turnout brisk at the polls
Turnout was strong at Rhinelander’s Hodag Dome polling site Tuesday, according to City Clerk Austyn Zarda. By mid-afternoon — ahead of the traditional after-work rush — poll workers had already logged 1,183 total votes, a figure that included all absentee votes. Zarda said the pace exceeded expectations for that point in the day, with some voters who typically cast ballots in the evening choosing to vote earlier instead.
That compares to roughly 1,500 votes cast in April’s spring election, the city’s last major election, which featured a competitive state Supreme Court race alongside mayoral, school board and council contests. Zarda attributed the turnout to the marquee statewide governor’s and congressional races. He also reported a steady stream of voter registrations Tuesday, including several first-time voters.
How Oneida County voted
In the Republican primary for governor, Tiffany dominated in Oneida County, taking 94.5 percent of the vote to Andy Manske’s 5.5 percent — a wider margin than his statewide showing. On the Democratic side, Crowley outperformed his narrow statewide win, carrying Oneida County with 41.3 percent to Hong’s 34.4 percent. State Sen. Kelda Roys followed with 8.3 percent, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes with 5.4 percent, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez with 5.1 percent and former Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan with 4.5 percent.
In the 7th Congressional District primary, Oneida County Republicans backed Alfonso with 47.4 percent, followed by Hermening with 26.6 percent, Ebben with 15 percent, Baum with 8.7 percent and Don Raihala with 2.2 percent — closely mirroring the district-wide results. Among Democrats, Clark carried the county by a wider margin than he did districtwide, winning 41.6 percent to Murray’s 37.1 percent, with Armstrong trailing at 21.1 percent.
A handful of local wrinkles emerged in the town-by-town numbers. Despite Crowley’s countywide win, Hong actually outpolled him within the city of Rhinelander itself, 355 votes to 311 — one of only five municipalities where she came out ahead, along with the far smaller towns of Pelican, Woodruff, Piehl and Lynne. Rhinelander was by far the largest of those, and the only place Hong’s local edge involved more than a couple hundred votes. A similar pattern showed up on the Democratic side of the congressional primary: Murray outpolled Clark in the city of Rhinelander, 351 votes to 294, even as Clark won the county and the district overall. She also edged him in six smaller townships, but Rhinelander again accounted for the bulk of her local advantage. Baum, who finished a distant fourth in the Republican congressional field countywide, ran strongest by far in Rhinelander, where she pulled about 20 percent of the GOP primary vote — nearly double her share in any other municipality. And while Alfonso won every township in the county, Hermening’s closest relative showing came in Minocqua, Tiffany’s home base, where he trailed Alfonso by just over 100 votes out of more than 780 cast between them.