Democrat Randy Bryce, known as 'Iron Stache,' is launching a challenge to Rep. Bryan Steil
Randy Bryce is taking another shot at a run for Congress.
The Democratic labor advocate and former ironworker known as Iron Stache, who gained national attention in 2018 with his campaign against then-Speaker Paul Ryan but eventually lost to current U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, said he is launching a new campaign for Wisconsin's southeastern 1st Congressional District.
Bryce's move makes him the first Democrat to announce a 2026 challenge to Steil, whom national Democrats have marked as a top target this cycle as they seek to regain control of the narrowly divided House.
'Right now we have a representative in the 1st District that he could care less about everything that's crumbling all around us,' Bryce told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 'There's a lot going wrong, and it's just gonna get worse.'
Bryce, 60 of Caledonia, is making his return to the campaign trail eight years after he grabbed attention with his campaign launch attacking Ryan on efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Ryan announced his retirement from Congress during the race — Bryce's X bio says he 'helped Paul Ryan retire' — though Steil defeated Bryce by more than 12 points in the general election.
At the time, Bryce ran on supporting 'Medicare for All' legislation, raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour and boosting unions. He remains a member of the Ironworkers Local 853 and in the years since his first campaign, he said, has served as a union representative, worked with Social Security Works, an advocacy group seeking to expand Social Security, and more recently has helped people with disabilities find work.
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.
Bryce told the Journal Sentinel that 'universal healthcare is something that everybody definitely needs' but shied away from the term 'Medicare for All,' saying he does not want to 'attach labels that have other connotations to them.'
'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.'
Asked about his past calls for abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Bryce declined to say whether he still supports getting rid of the agency that has taken on a high-profile role in President Donald Trump's second term.
'I feel vindicated that my take, you know, my fear was they were going to become brownshirts for Donald Trump,' he said, referencing a Nazi paramilitary group. 'And that's what they're doing now.'
'I'm not in favor of snatching people off the streets,' Bryce said when asked again if he supported abolishing ICE. 'If somebody does something that's illegal, I don't have any problem with them being arrested. If they're not here with documentation and they commit a crime, I have no problem with them being sent back to their country of origin, but that's not what's happening now.'
'These people are getting sent back to countries that they've never lived in without due process,' he added. 'I'm in favor of due process for everyone. And I don't care, if they want to deport a million people, we need to have a million cases.'
Bryce also said this cycle's race against Steil is different. While Steil in his first run for Congress in 2018 was a 'no name guy,' Bryce said Steil has grown into 'Paul Ryan's clone' and now has his own voting record. He accused Steil of hiding from constituents.
'He absolutely has a record now, and he's all in with Trump,' Bryce said of Steil. 'Let him carry Trump around like an anchor.'
Republicans in 2018 attacked Bryce over his legal history, which included decades-old arrests connected to incidents of drunken driving and possession of marijuana.
Wisconsin's 1st District is one of just two competitive House seats in Wisconsin. Redistricting in 2022 moved the seat from a nearly 10-point GOP advantage down to a 2-point lean as the district absorbed the historically blue city of Beloit and lost the Republican suburbs of southern Waukesha County.
While Democrats see the state's western 3rd Congressional District, held by GOP U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, as a better pickup opportunity, a new challenge this month to Wisconsin's congressional maps could make both districts more favorable for Democrats.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who has been involved in helping Democrats unseat Van Orden, speculated that other Democrats could enter the 1st District race.
'I think you're going to see more primaries than you've probably seen in a few decades because people are so concerned about what's going on,' Pocan told the Journal Sentinel. 'One of the avenues for people to express that concern is by running.'
Bryce, though, faces an uphill battle in his attempt to unseat Steil. Steil, 44, has won each election by nearly double digits and has proven to be a solid fundraiser. The Janesville Republican currently has more than $2.7 million in cash on hand.
Still, Bryce raised more than $8 million to Steil's about $2.3 million in 2018 — something he'll again have to tap into to be successful this cycle. 'That's because people cared, people believed, and I want to get people to believe again, too,' he said of the fundraising.
In a campaign launch video this week, a narrator says Bryce 'refused to back down' against career politicians in 2018.
'Now, as old enemies come out of the shadows, we need him one more time,' the narrator said, referring to Bryce as 'someone who actually works for a living.'
'We need to bring people together because it's the billionaires that are buying our country piecemeal in order to make slaves out of all of us, and that's something I can't accept' Bryce told the Journal Sentinel.
"I'd love to be sitting on my couch, you know, hanging out with my dog,' he added. But things are just too important right now."
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Democrat Randy Bryce is launching a new challenge to Rep. Bryan Steil
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