To the editor,

The open seat in Congressional District 7 (CD7, which includes St. Croix County) gives us an exciting opportunity to place a representative who will finally vote for Wisconsin’s needs and represent our people: Fred Clark. Clark will be our advocate in Congress, someone who knows and loves Wisconsin and its people, someone who’s deeply rooted in the 750,000 Wisconsinites who live in CD7 (cities like Hudson, Amery, Wausau, and Ashland).  

Clark spent six years in the Wisconsin Assembly addressing the needs and concerns of our people. He cares about what we care about: affordable health care, public education, tax equity, campaign finance reform, and Wisconsin’s natural resources. He’s committed to protecting the unique value and beauty of Wisconsin’s most precious attributes: beautiful farmland, forests, and waterways. He’ll fight for us.

Clark is experienced. He’s been a forester, a land manager, and a small business owner, as well as having served on many environmental foundations that protect, preserve, and enhance our great state. Having lived in Wisconsin for over 35 years, he knows us, and he is proud of and cares for our natural resources and beauty.

Clark’s less than experienced opponent Michael Alphonso, on the other hand, is quite literally a Trump “plant,” placed strategically in our district through relatives of his father-in-law, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. Although he grew up in Wausau and spent four years at UW-Madison, he has most recently resided in Florida, not Wisconsin. He’s not only out of touch with Wisconsin’s needs, he is ill-equipped for a position in Congress. His only somewhat-related job experience was working on a radical, highly partisan, and politically-charged social media broadcast in Florida for the controversial Dan Bongino’s Podcast. Before that, he briefly worked in the construction and concrete industries. 

More pointedly, Alphonso is a political pawn, positioned to fulfill Tom Tiffany’s mission of being a MAGA “yes” man. He’s an inexperienced, nepotism-by-marriage, podcast extremist who will only be a puppet in Congress for MAGA’s narrow-minded agenda. He’s not for Wisconsin; he doesn’t know us, and he certainly doesn’t know CD7’s values of hard work, perseverance, and love of the land.

This Nov. 3, vote for Fred Clark. Send Michael Alphonso back to Florida. 

Laurie Harmon

Hudson