Michael Alfonso repeatedly touted the president’s support, Kevin Hermening and Jessi Ebben played up their private sector credentials, and Niina Baum sought to portray an independent streak in the only televised debate featuring the 7th CD GOP contenders.

Alfonso, a former podcast producer, regularly noted that President Donald Trump has endorsed him, saying he would enthusiastically back the president’s agenda. He praised Trump’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and expressed support for legislation that would impose new restrictions on voting and expand the federal government’s authority over elections, known as the SAVE America Act. 

His support extended to the administration’s tariff policy, which Alfonso claimed was supported by farmers and manufacturers in the 7th CD. But he said he would “make sure the revenue generated by the tariffs will go to the businesses affected by the tariffs.”

A February analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that U.S. businesses and consumers had paid nearly 90% of the cost of the Trump administration’s tariffs. 

The 26-year-old pushed back on questions about his inexperience, citing 24-year-old right-wing influencer Nick Shirley, whose viral videos alleging fraud by Somali-run child care centers in Minneapolis preceded a federal immigration crackdown on the city. 

Alfonso also declared he has a job as an accountant for a Catholic church in Hayward amid reports questioning his employment status. 

“Yes, I still have a job. No, I am not unemployed,” Alfonso said. 

The four GOP candidates met onstage last night in Rhinelander for the first and, at this time, only scheduled televised debate in the five-way primary. Late entrant Don Raihala was not invited to the debate, which was hosted by WJFW-TV and moderated by anchor Dan Hagen.  

Ebben, an Ashley Furniture executive, billed herself as a “Christian conservative” and “Trump Republican.”

She played up her private sector credentials and said cutting red tape would bring manufacturing and families back to the district and “sustain and rebuild our way of life.” 

Ebben also railed against wind and solar developments, adding she would vote to end tax credits for renewables—though most of those subsidies were terminated under Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act.  

Asked about her decision to sign a petition to recall then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2011, Ebben said she was influenced by her teacher parents, who were “lied to by the teachers union,” and that she had since become a Christian and a conservative.

“Like President Trump and President Reagan, I chose to become a Republican,” Ebben said.

Baum, a digital marketing strategist who has cast herself as the moderate option, emphasized her refusal to accept corporate PAC money and said she was not beholden to “special interests.”

She acknowledged she had not voted for Trump since 2016 and said she would vote for the president’s agenda “if those priorities align” with the district’s needs. 

“I don’t think we all fit into neat little political boxes. And the job of the representative is to represent the people and what they need,” Baum said.

She backed federal regulation throughout the debate, particularly for artificial intelligence and data centers, on which she has called for a federal moratorium.  

Hermening, the oldest candidate on stage at 66, leaned into his decades of experience as a financial adviser and local party official, and said he would focus on “financial sanity.”

“Inflation is government spending way too much money,” he said. 

He said if elected he would only vote for a balanced budget.

He also criticized Congress’ use of omnibus legislation, saying that food stamps and agricultural subsidies—which have been bound together under the farm bill for decades—should be decoupled from one another. 

Hermening said he would support federal intervention to keep utility costs from data centers from being passed onto taxpayers and joined Baum to say the federal government was responsible for addressing PFAS contamination.

Alfonso and Ebben both said addressing PFAS should be left to states and municipalities, respectively.  

Hermening also made a point to thank Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Alfonso’s father-in-law, for his support while representing the 7th CD for legislation that authorized compensation to the Americans taken hostage in Iran in 1979, including the former Marine. 

A Waupaca County GOP official attacked Hermening on social media last week for accepting the compensation. Hermening said he had received around $700,000 and given the money to charity. 

All four candidates said they would not support cutting Social Security benefits, and none gave a direct answer when asked by Hagen if they would cut specific programs to address the national debt.

Baum alluded to the Pentagon’s yearslong failure to pass an audit, while the other three candidates said addressing “waste, fraud and abuse” would help address the country’s financial problems. 

Though Hagen indicated candidates would be allocated time to issue rebuttals, the four candidates largely refrained from attacks on each other or their policy positions.

Hermening made a brief swipe at Alfonso and Ebben when touting the former Marathon County GOP chair’s endorsements from state lawmakers. Hermenig said he’d gotten to know the lawmakers before campaigning “or since moving into the district.”

Ebben ran against Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden in the 3rd CD GOP primary in 2020 and voted outside the district last year, while Alfonso lived in Florida while working for podcaster and former FBI official Dan Bongino and reregistered to vote in Wisconsin shortly before he received Trump’s endorsement.