Dem former Wisconsin Congressman Pete Barca will jump into the race to challenge potentially vulnerable Republican Bryan Steil in the state’s 1st District, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.
If Barca’s name doesn’t ring a bell that’s because he didn’t serve all that recently. It wasn’t in the last few Congresses. Or the current millennium. Barca lost reelection in 1995, having served just one term beforehand. Still, the Journal-Sentinel writes Barca’s entry is “likely to re-energize Democrats’ chances of competing for a seat that on paper is one of the state’s closest battlegrounds.” So… Yay?
To be fair, it’s not like Barca just worked at a 7-Eleven or sold Hondas in the intervening decades, as he served in the state Assembly from 2009 to 2019 – and the chamber’s Dem minority leader between 2011 and 2017 – and then joined Gov Tony Evers’ cabinet as secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Revenue until last month, so whatever enthusiasm exists may in fact be sincere.