Mitchell Berman wants 1st District voters to see a rural Wisconsin sportsman. In his ads, he stands by a truck loaded with gun cases while his kids ride ATVs, holds a shotgun, and shows off a Glock 43X for coyotes. “I grew up in rural Wisconsin, hunting and fishing. Wisconsin isn’t for sale,” he posted on October 13.
The NRA answered the same day with two words: “This you?” The attached clip showed Berman calling himself pro-Second Amendment while backing red flag laws and limits on “high-capacity magazines.”
Berman, an emergency room nurse from Raymond, is the Democratic nominee against Republican Rep. Bryan Steil. He won the August 11 primary with 44.1%, and national Democrats added him to the DCCC’s Red to Blue list in September. The hunting photos are for Kenosha and Walworth County. The platform is for Washington.
The Platform Behind the Flannel
Berman’s campaign website spells it out. Raise the federal minimum wage. Pass the PRO Act. Create a government-run public option for health insurance. Lift the Social Security cap “so high earners pay in on all of their income.” Overturn Citizens United. “Protect the Department of Education from efforts to dismantle it.” Invest in “clean energy.”
On immigration, he wants “clear and comprehensive immigration reform, with a path to citizenship.” “I think that they’re an added benefit to our communities,” he said at the October 20 debate in Janesville. Steil’s response was direct: “I don’t support amnesty. It sounds like my opponent does.“
On elections, Berman insisted “our elections are free, fair and secure” and accused Steil of sowing mistrust. Steil called for basic standards in all 50 states: voter ID, citizenship verification, updated voter rolls and results on Election Day. Most Wisconsin voters would call that common sense. Berman calls it sowing mistrust.
His answer to the cost of living is to repeal the tariffs. His answer to health care is more Obamacare subsidies and a government option. It is the same agenda Democrats run in Madison and Chicago, with a hunting photo on top.
The Stock Ad Is False, and the PAC Pledge Is Worse
Berman’s first big TV ad, which began airing October 1, claims Steil has gotten rich off stock trades. Steil is the author of the Stop Insider Trading Act, which bars members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from buying stocks and requires public notice before they sell. It passed the House 232-198 on July 22. On September 30, Democrats blocked it in the Senate, 53-47, seven votes short of the 60 needed.
Steil has not made an individual stock trade since getting his committee assignments, and he sold his financial-services stocks after joining the Financial Services Committee. What he still holds are savings from before he was elected. Berman promises a stock-trading ban. His own party killed the one Steil passed.
Then there is the money. His website says, “I don’t take corporate PAC money, and I never will.” The ad making that pitch was a joint buy with the DCCC, which has taken corporate PAC checks from Microsoft, Google, Boeing, Walmart, JPMorgan Chase and Pfizer. The pledge lasts exactly as long as it takes to route the money through the party.
The outside cavalry is even bigger. House Majority PAC has put $2.7 million into ads in this race. Opportunity Wisconsin, the trade name of the Washington-based North Fund, has spent nearly $1.7 million attacking Steil. All in, national Democrats and dark money groups have spent more than $5 million to take him out. Even the door knockers are imported. The Democratic Party of Evanston and Indivisible Chicago have sent volunteers to canvass Kenosha for Berman. Illinois Democrats are not driving up I-94 because they care about Racine. They want the House.
Raymond Already Said No
Before Congress, Berman’s public profile was his war with the Raymond School Board. In 2023, he helped lead a recall of two board members who had moved to restrict books and end the district’s social-emotional learning curriculum. His group accused them of “introducing a culture of hate into Raymond School.”
Raymond voters kept board member Janell Wise, 584 to 485. The other target, Gwen Keller, resigned before the vote, and voters filled her seat with a conservative-leaning candidate, Mike Pauers. The recall failed. The community that knows him best did not buy what he was selling.
It got ugly along the way. On September 27, 2023, after dropping off his kindergarten daughter, Berman went to the school office demanding records. The superintendent had the principal walk him out. That morning the superintendent wrote that “a parent was in the office this morning demanding documents” and that “my admin assistant does not need to be harassed at 7:15 in the morning.” By 8:21 a.m., the school was on a soft lockdown that ran through the rest of the week, with visitors barred and outdoor recess canceled. The board later told families “several factors” led to the lockdown, including a community member who came “to demand access to records.” Berman himself told TMJ4 that day, “It was implied it was because of my requests.”
The “Devoted Husband”
Berman sells himself as a “devoted husband, father of two girls, and Packers season ticket holder.” Records from the 2015 Ashley Madison breach tie his email address to an account with a $268 transaction on February 24, 2015, and a $19 transaction on March 26, 2015. He married his wife in January 2015. A separate 2016 Adult Friend Finder breach shows an account on the same email last active October 15, 2016.
His campaign admitted the accounts were his and called them “old accounts from well before his marriage.” The Ashley Madison charges came after the wedding. His campaign would not answer follow-up questions about them. He put “devoted husband” in his pitch. He can explain it.
Steil Gets Results
Steil grew up in Janesville and worked as an attorney in manufacturing for more than a decade before winning the seat in 2018. He has won every race since, including 54% to 43.8% over Peter Barca in 2024. He chairs the Committee on House Administration.
He wrote and passed the stock-trading ban and has led an investigation into ActBlue, the Democrats’ online fundraising machine, over fraudulent and potentially foreign donations. When ActBlue’s CEO appeared before his committee, she invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 20 times. He voted for the tax law that cut taxes on tips and overtime, created a new $6,000 deduction for seniors, and expanded the child tax credit. He supports voter ID and citizenship verification in every state.
Voters back him for a reason. He has raised $6.4 million to Berman’s $2 million.
Berman has a costume, a pledge, his own ad breaks, and a school board fight Raymond voters rejected. Steil has a record. On Tuesday, November 3, voters in the 1st District should re-elect Bryan Steil.
