Behnke to challenge Schmidt in GOP primary

State Rep. Elijah Behnke has announced his candidacy for the 6th Assembly District seat, setting up a primary contest with fellow Republican Rep. Peter Schmidt.

Behnke scheduled a news conference at Shawano County Republican Party headquarters for April 30 to announce his decision.

Behnke has represented the 89th Assembly District since he won an April 2021 special election to fill the unexpired term of then-Rep. John Nygren. He was re-elected to a second two-year term in November 2022.

In the court-ordered redistricting that takes effect with the November 2024 election, maps introduced by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers moved Behnke’s Town of Pensaukee home into the 4th Assembly District, where state Rep. David Steffen, R-Howard, is the incumbent. The boundary of the new 6th District is a few miles west of Behnke’s home.

“The district I represent now is about 75% rural, including about 22,000 people in Marinette County,” Behnke said. “The governor’s maps took my district and shoved it into the city of Green Bay.”

The change moved him into a district that is about 55% urban, with more people in Brown County than in Oconto County, Behnke said. The 89th Assembly District, which once stretched from Brown County north to Marinette, is now entirely within Brown, comprised of the village of Ashwaubenon and part of Green Bay’s west side.

By contrast, the new 6th District includes all of Menominee County and parts of Shawano, Oconto, Brown and Waupaca counties, including the cities of Shawano and Gillett and villages of Bonduel, Suring and Pulaski.

If he wins the Republican primary Aug. 13, Behnke said he and his family plan to move to the Town of Morgan.

“Basically we’d be moving from one side of Abrams to the other,” he said. “I grew up on a farm; I still own cattle. With the redistricting I had been praying to be able to represent Shawano and Oconto counties, that rural area. The new 6th District answers that prayer.”

Behnke survived a five-way Republican primary in February 2021. When he won the April election, Behnke became the first Assembly representative from Oconto County since Milton McDougal, of Oconto Falls, who served from 1965-72.

Schmidt, R-Bonduel, won a six-way GOP primary in August 2022 but ran afoul of the Shawano County Republican Party, which accused him of hiding a past conviction for criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. The party backed Dean Neubert, who had finished second in the primary, as a write-in candidate, but Schmidt out-polled Neubert and Democrat William Switalla in the 2022 general election.

Behnke’s announcement is the latest in a series of moves sparked by the new maps, which shifted about two dozen Republican lawmakers into districts with other GOP incumbents. State Sen. Robert Cowles, who has served the 2nd Senate District for nearly four decades, recently announced he will not run for re-election after his home was moved into the 30th Senate District along with Sens. Eric Wimberger and Andre Jacque.

Wimberger decided to run for the 2nd District seat, which has no incumbent under the new map. Jacque is running for the 8th Congressional District seat vacated by former U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher.

wbluhm@newmedia-wi.com