Wisconsin businessman Paul Nehlen sounded almost ebullient over a recent poll that found him losing badly to House Speaker Paul Ryan in the state’s Republican primary in August.
“I had zero name recognition; four weeks later I’ve got 14 percent,” Nehlen said. “We have three months to go, my friend, three months.”
In late March, Nehlen launched a seemingly quixotic campaign to unseat Ryan, claiming that one of Wisconsin’s most popular Republicans and a key policy thinker within the national GOP has lost touch with his district, defers to President Barack Obama’s agenda and is more a creature of Washington’s Beltway than of his hometown, Janesville.
“There are going to be die-hard supporters of Paul Ryan; let’s not kid ourselves here,” Nehlen said. “But there are people who want, actively want, someone to listen to them. Paul Ryan is not listening to the voters of the district.”
Nehlen, 47, is seeking to do something rarely done in American politics: beat a sitting House speaker. The last time that happened was in 1994, when then-House Speaker Tom Foley, D-Wash., lost in the general election that gave Republicans control of both the lower chamber and the Senate for the first time in 40 years.
With that, Foley, who died in 2013, earned the dubious distinction of being the first incumbent House speaker since 1862 to lose a re-election bid.
Several Wisconsin Republicans dismiss Nehlen’s candidacy, calling him a political nowhere man supported by disgruntled conservatives outside of Ryan’s congressional district.
“Nobody knows Paul Nehlen,” said Nancy Milholland, a Racine County Republican Party official and co-founder of the Racine Tea Party. “No GOP chairmen in these counties, no GOP board members, no tea party activists. He’s an angry guy who decided, ‘Hey, I’m going to do something about Paul Ryan.’ ”
Milholland and other state Republicans say the chances of Nehlen beating Ryan are almost nil. Ryan crushed his 2014 primary challenger, winning 94 percent of the vote.
“I just think he’s pretty strong,” said Linda Fronczak, 69, a Janesville resident and Ryan supporter. “Unless Paul does something drastic or changes dramatically.”
Still, some Ryan supporters add that in an unconventional political season in which Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, surrendered his cherished gavel in frustration last fall, anything can happen.
He has not become an absentee guy. He has not taken the district for granted the way, I at least understand, Cantor may have lost touch with his district in the last few years
Marquette Law School poll Director Charles Franklin on Paul Ryan
Ryan’s camp isn’t worried. A Marquette Law School poll in March found Ryan, the GOP’s 2012 vice-presidential candidate, with an 81 percent favorability rating within his congressional district among registered Republicans and 57 percent among all voters.
He’s also one of the state’s most popular Republicans, with a nearly 72 percent favorability rating among Republicans and 48 percent among all Wisconsin voters. A poll this week by the Remington Research Group found him leading Nehlen 78 percent to 14 percent, with 8 percent undecided.
“People in southern Wisconsin know Paul Ryan and they know what he stands for,” said Zack Roday, a Ryan spokesman. “Janesville is his home, and his commitment will always be to the people he represents.”
In addition, Ryan has more than $7.6 million in cash for his campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics’ opensecrets.org. Nehlen said he’d received contributions from 4,000 donors in the past four weeks and was spending his own money to campaign.
Nehlen’s campaign gained national attention last Sunday when former Alaska Gov. and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin vowed to do “whatever I can” to help Nehlen beat Ryan in August after the speaker declined to formally endorse Trump.
Palin, in an interview with CNN on Sunday, wanted Ryan “Cantored,” a reference to the surprising 2014 Republican primary defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia to tea party favorite Dave Brat.
Before Palin’s rhetorical blast, the Tea Party Patriots and conservative pundit Michelle Malkin endorsed Nehlen, who embraces the Cantor race comparisons.
“Eric Cantor was polling 30 percent up three weeks out, and where is Eric Cantor now?” he said, calling Palin’s nod a media and fundraising boost. “He’s not in Congress.”
Charlie Sykes, a popular Wisconsin conservative talk-radio host, said Nehlen’s campaign effort “looks bigger through the lens of the national political media and the imagination of people like Sarah Palin than it does from here.”
Nehlen is attacking Ryan as out of touch with his community and his party. He’s accused the speaker of being in sync with Obama on issues such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an overhaul of the nation’s immigration system and changing the criminal justice system.
“Paul Ryan has betrayed the constituents of the 1st District,” said Nehlen. “He said he was going to be a conservative and push back on Obama’s policies and programs. But if you look, Paul Ryan has been the champion of President Obama’s three biggest initiatives.”
Ryan helped push trade promotion authority legislation through Congress that Obama signed last June. That authority, also known as “fast track,” allows the White House to send negotiated trade deals to Congress for only up-or-down votes.
In October, Ryan told the Wall Street Journal CEO Council that the Trans-Pacific Partnership “has great potential” but he added that “we want to scrub this trade agreement to make sure that it reaches and meets the standards that we call for” in trade promotion authority.
The speaker supports a comprehensive overhaul of U.S. immigration laws, an issue that puts him at odds with Trump, who advocates constructing a wall along the Mexican border.
Ryan aligns with several Republicans – from Sens. John Cornyn of Texas to Rand Paul of Kentucky – in pushing for sweeping changes in the criminal justice system. However, several Republicans – such as Nehlen and Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas – think revamping the laws would free violent offenders from prison.
William Douglas: 202-383-6026, @williamgdouglas