APPLETON – Nate Gustafson won his incumbent seat in the 55th Assembly District in the first election using newly drawn electoral mapsaccording to unofficial results released by the Associated Press, despite heavy attack announcements.
He faced more than $29,000 in opposition mailings, live calls, online ads and text messages in recent weeks from the Stronger Wisconsin Fund, a PAC that financed campaign ads in northeastern Wisconsin Assembly districts with a war fund of US$450 thousand. The PAC spent less than $10,000 running ads supporting its opponent, District 53 incumbent Rep. Michael Schraa.
Gustafson responded by spending more than $15,000 to spread his own campaign messages, much of it through Facebook ads, spending nearly three times what he spent on ads in recent weeks as he spent in the first six months of 2024.
His strategy finally prevailed. Although both candidates have promised to restructure the state’s income tax as part of their campaigns, Gustafson had won 57.4% of the vote as of 11:25 p.m., with 92.75% of the estimated votes counted.
Here are the results from the local primaries. Holders are marked with “(i).” Winners are marked in bold.
8th Congressional District
Tony Wied gain the 8th Congressional District Republican for both former Rep. Mike Gallagher’s unexpired term and the vote for a two-year term. Wied defeated former state Senator Roger Roth and 1st Senate District incumbent Andre Jacque.
18th Senate District
With 77% of the vote, Republican Anthony Phillips will face Democrat Kristin Alfheim in November.
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Anthony Phillips: 62.4%
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LongYang: 37.6%
55th Assembly District (Menasha City, Winneconne, Omro, Pickett)
With 70.8% of election reports, Republican Nate Gustafson won and will face Democrat Kyle Kehoe.
Winnebago County Register of Deeds
With 59% of precincts reporting, Republican Susan Snyder led the primary. The winner will face Democrat Christopher Larson.
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Susan Snyder: 6,692
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Paul Esslinger: 5,763
Jesse Lin is a reporter covering Green Bay and politics in northeast Wisconsin. Contact him at 920-431-8247 or jlin@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared in the Green Bay Press-Gazette: Partisan primary results for the Appleton area: Here’s what we know
