CALEDONIA, WI. – Randy Bryce came out swinging Tuesday in announcing his return to the First Congressional District race – rattling millionaire incumbent Congressman Bryn Steil.
Here’s a wrapup of some of the early accounts of Bryce’s return to grassroots candidacy:
In an interview, Bryce named healthcare access as a top campaign issue and knocked Republicans on Capitol Hill for “going after Social Security” and seeking to make cuts to other social safety net programs as part of their current massive tax and spending legislation moving through Congress
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“I’ve always been an advocate for great-paying jobs, for raising the minimum wage, for making sure that people have enough,” Bryce said. “Because this country has enough to give, to share with other people who actually do the work to make things get done.
Bryce said he expects the top issues in the race to be preserving Social Security and other safety net programs, resisting President Donald Trump’s steep tariffs and attacks on immigrants and pushing back against the general climate of fear as Republicans enact the Trump agenda.
“I cannot sit and just watch this happen,” Bryce said in an interview Monday. “And with Trump it’s even worse now, with people literally being afraid.”
CBS 58 (Milwaukee)
Bryce, an iron worker from Racine, gained national attention in 2018 after taking on then-Speaker Paul Ryan. He became a rising star, known as “Iron Stash” on the campaign trail, for his support for unions, Medicare for all, and other popular ideas backed by progressives.
“Well, I’ve never left a job unfinished,” Bryce said in his campaign launch video.
“Trump promised to bring manufacturing back,” he said, walking over a shop floor, hard hat in hand. “Eight years later, we’re still waiting.”
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Bryce proved an adept fundraiser in his first run, raising $8.6 million. Democratic candidates in 2020 and 2022 failed to hit $1 million, while 2024 candidate Barca raised $2.3 million.
The Capital Times (Madison)
“What Trump’s doing, and what Bryan Steil is helping him do, is really scaring people,” Bryce explained in a pre-announcement interview. “I’m talking to veterans, to people who rely on Medicaid, to families that can’t keep up with rising prices, to workers. They’re all angry. You’ve got an administration that is strangling the Social Security system, laying off people, cutting services. The Republicans in Washington are pulling what’s left of the rug out from under us. I just think this is a going to be an election where people in the 1st District say: Enough!”
Inspired and encouraged by Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, which has drawn huge crowds at events to protest threatened cuts to Medicaid and other programs — including thousands at a March rally on the University of Wisconsin-Parkside campus, which is in the 1st District — Bryce says he will make a big deal of “running to save the safety net.”
Meanwhile, Steil, who has cast votes for trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the super wealthy and supports massive cuts to Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare, seemed rattled by Bryce’s entry into the race:
While radicals (sic) like Bryce continue to try and take our nation backwards (sic), Congressman Bryan Steil has a record of delivering real results (sic). Steil remains focused on securing our border (sic), lowering costs for Wisconsin families (sic), and supporting Wisconsin seniors (sic).
ABOUT RANDY
Randy Bryce is a native of Southeastern Wisconsin who worked for more than two decades on some of the state’s biggest projects (Miller Park, the Harley-Davidson Museum, the Hoan Bridge resurfacing) as an Ironworker and currently works to help people with disabilities find good-paying jobs.
He was a graduate of Rufus King HIgh School in Milwaukee, and was deployed to The Honduras in the Army in the 1980s. When he returned he worked to help find housing for other veterans in need. Recruited by Democratic leaders to run for the Wisconsin Assembly and Wisconsin Senate, he was the party’s 2018 nominee to run against Paul Ryan – who eventually retired.
Since his run for Congress, Bryce has remained in the fight for the Middle Class through groups such as Social Security Works.
He lives in Caledonia and has a teenaged son.
