Tony Wied has won a second term representing Wisconsin's 8th Congressional District, turning back Democratic challenger Rick Crosson in a race that unofficial results show tightened compared with the Republican congressman's first run two years ago. The district, anchored in the Green Bay area, has been reliably Republican territory for more than a decade.
According to the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Wied won his reelection bid Tuesday over Crosson, with unofficial results showing Wied capturing 54.2% of the vote to Crosson's 45.8% once all precincts were counted. A separate unofficial tally reported by TCH Daily News put the numbers slightly differently, with Wied receiving 177,258 votes, or 53.9 percent, compared to Crosson's 151,471 votes, or 46.1 percent. The Associated Press called the race for Wied, according to a New York Times results page tracking the contest.
Wied first arrived in Congress through a 2024 special election after the resignation of former Rep. Mike Gallagher, per the same TCH Daily News account. He won that race with 57.2% of the vote, a wider margin than this year's unofficial results, as reported by Fox 11 Green Bay.
A District That Hasn't Flipped Since 2008
The 8th District, home to more than 737,000 people, has not elected a Democrat since former Rep. Steve Kagen in 2008, the Press-Gazette reported. The Cook Political Report rates the district 8 points more Republican than the nation as a whole, according to the same report. Yet the New York Times results page notes that, with most of the results in, the district voted 8 points more Democratic than it did in the 2024 presidential election — a shift that came even as Wied held on to win.
That tightening fits into a broader statewide picture. Wisconsin's congressional delegation is expected to split 4-4 next year after Democrats flipped two U.S. House seats elsewhere in the state, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. Money played a role in how the 8th District race unfolded on the ground: as of Oct. 14, Wied had raised more than $1.3 million, about ten times the roughly $168,000 that Crosson brought into his campaign, the Press-Gazette reported.
Candidates React to the Results
Wied framed his win in ideological terms, telling Fox 11 that voters chose “good old fashioned Wisconsin common sense over Democrats radical, socialist ideology.” Crosson, a former Green Bay school board member and U.S. Army veteran, said he was disappointed but pointed to progress, telling the station, “we definitely closed a very significant gap from previous races.”
The Institute for Legislative Analysis has measured Wied as voting in favor of bills aligned with the Republican Party's platform 90% of the time, the Press-Gazette reported, underscoring how closely his record has tracked with national GOP priorities during his time in office.
Health Care Costs Shadowed the Campaign
Health care funding emerged as a flashpoint well before Election Day. Wied has praised the One Big Beautiful Bill, touting $200 million awarded to support rural health care in Wisconsin as part of the legislation, according to earlier Press-Gazette coverage. But an American Hospital Association estimate cited by Wisconsin Public Radio found that under the House-approved version of the bill, more than 30,000 people in rural Wisconsin communities would lose Medicaid coverage by 2034, with the state's rural hospitals losing $607 million. Nationally, the RAND Corporation has estimated that the Medicaid provisions it examined would result in 7.6 million fewer Medicaid enrollees in 2034.
Wied's win keeps the 8th District seat in Republican hands as the party continues to hold the territory it has controlled since 2011. For Crosson and Wisconsin Democrats, the narrower unofficial margin this cycle offers a data point to build on, even as the district's long Republican streak remains unbroken.
