WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) — Michael Alfonso, the 26-year-old son-in-law of U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, has an answer for people who say he doesn’t have the experience necessary to join Congress as its youngest member.
He points to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
“They were 26 when they were first elected to public office,” said Alfonso, a Republican.
Alfonso is trying to ride support from his father-in-law to win his old House seat in rural
northern Wisconsin. Duffy has repeatedly jetted back to the district to campaign and raise money for Alfonso, and he's tapped $1 million from his old congressional account to support Alfonso's candidacy.
Alfonso has also scored the endorsement of President Donald Trump, who called him a “MAGA warrior.” But to Alfonso's detractors, including prominent Republicans in the 7th Congressional District, he's too young and inexperienced for the job.
“I think it’s insulting to people in the 7th that someone who lacks qualifications and any life experiences and any kind of demonstrable leadership skills or experience is even being touted as a candidate,” said Meg Ellefson, a 20-year resident of the district who voted for Trump three times and now opposes him. “It’s super aggravating to me.”
The Aug. 11 primary will test whether Trump's endorsement of Alfonso, Duffy’s star power in his old congressional district and Alfonso’s fundraising advantage will be enough to put the political newcomer over the top.
Alfonso is taking a page from his father-in-law’s playbook by participating in a reality show. He appeared alongside Duffy, a 1997 alum of MTV’s “Real World,” in the “Great American Road Trip” video series that Duffy launched with his wife and 11 children on YouTube in June.
Duffy was elected to Congress in 2010, flipping a seat that had been under Democratic control for 41 years. He served for just under nine years before leaving politics. He returned last year when Trump tapped him to serve as transportation secretary.
Alfonso has leaned into his youth and lack of political experience.
“I’m a young man with the energy of a young man, but I have the values of someone who’s in their 60s,” Alfonso said, citing the fact that he got married to Duffy’s daughter Evita Duffy at age 22 and became a father in May.
Alfonso graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2022 and then moved to Florida, where he worked for about a year on a podcast hosted by Trump supporter Dan Bongino. Prior to that, he worked construction jobs while in college.
Alfonso said that conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination inspired him to run to continue what he calls a “spiritual battle for the soul of our nation.” Kirk’s Turning Point Action has endorsed Alfonso.
Alfonso's rival in the Republican primary, Kevin Hermening, has deep ties to the district.
Hermening is a former Marine who was one of 66 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days starting in 1979. Framed photos of the then-20-year-old Hermening meeting with former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter hang on his office wall.
He has worked nearly 40 years as a financial planner, spent 16 years on a local school board and was chairman of the Marathon County Republican Party for 24 years, helping Duffy and scores of other Republicans win local, state and federal races across the district.
Hermening also previously ran for Congress in 1986, when he was the same age as Alfonso is now — 26. He lost by 25 percentage points to Democratic incumbent Rep. David Obey.
“The voters told me that I wasn’t ready or prepared yet," Hermening, who's now 66, said in an interview at his Wausau office. “I was ill prepared to have actually done the job, and I’m not saying that because Mr. Alfonso’s in the race. It’s a fact."
Another candidate in the primary, Ashley Furniture executive Jessi Ebben, has the backing of powerful Republican megadonors. Others running are Niina Baum, a dog musher, and Don Raihala, an accountant and real estate broker.
While Alfonso has endorsements from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and four of Wisconsin’s six Republican congressmen, local Republican officials in the district have publicly questioned the young candidate's credentials.
Leaders in at least three counties have publicly spoken out against Alfonso as being too inexperienced for the job and questioned Duffy's influence.
Iron County Republican Party Chair Tanner Hiller accused Duffy of trying to use his connections to get his son-in-law elected.
“I think what they’re doing is wrong morally,” Hiller told Wisconsin Public Radio in May. “There’s a lot of people that have better credentials, that know this district, that will represent this district better than Michael Alfonso.”
Alfonso has benefited from tens of thousands of dollars in donations from transportation interests, raising more questions given that Duffy leads the federal agency that oversees the nation’s transportation system.
When asked whether he would be beholden to those donors, Alfonso said he answers only to God and the voters.
“That's it,” Alfonso said.
But Hermening said Alfonso will feel indebted to the donors.
“I would think that the people would want to get paid back,” he said.
Duffy, despite his repeated visits back home to the district to campaign and raise money for Alfonso, is focused exclusively on executing the president's agenda, his Transportation Department spokesperson Nathaniel Sizemore said when asked about the donations.
A super political action committee backing Alfonso has received $1 million from Duffy’s old congressional account and another $1 million from Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein, whose shipping and packaging business, Uline, is based in Wisconsin.
However, Uihlein’s wife, Elizabeth Uihlein, has donated $1 million to another PAC supporting Ebben. Ebben also has the backing of Club for Growth and Diane Hendricks, a billionaire builder from Wisconsin who is another GOP megadonor.
Alfonso is leaning into the Trump endorsement, while saying it will be hard work and not the president's backing that gets him elected. His red, white and blue campaign signs say, “Endorsed by President Donald Trump.”
Jack Hoogendyk, chair of the Republican Party in Marathon County, which is home to the district’s largest city of Wausau, said Trump's endorsement is “solid gold” in a district where Trump won by 22 percentage points two years ago.
But Ellefson, the longtime district resident, who hosted a conservative talk radio show in Wausau for five years, isn't so sure that Trump's blessing carries the same weight now that it used to.
“I personally would like to believe that voters in the 7th are intelligent enough and critical thinkers and won’t be swayed by a Trump endorsement,” she said. “I’m going to give the voters credit for not being that foolish."
