ER nurse Mitchell Berman’s surprise flip of the 1st Congressional District puts an end to three decades of Republican dominance there.

By Peter Cameron and Annie Pulley, THE BADGER PROJECT

On a day when Democrats scored smashing victories across the country, Mitchell Berman, an emergency room nurse and political rookie, surfed the blue wave to beat U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil by four percentage points, or about 12,000 votes out of more than 300,000 cast.

Steil had represented the district since 2019, and Republicans had held it for more than 30 years. Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan had represented the district from 1999 to 2019.

“I think it was a political miracle for Steil to lose,” Mordecai Lee, a political science professor emeritus at UW-Milwaukee, wrote in an email. “He had $9 million in his campaign account, was successful at not sounding like a MAGA Republican (even though he was), was very good at media relations,” and he was ever present in his district.

Despite that, Berman won by 19 points in Rock County, which includes Janesville, by 10 points in the portions of southern Milwaukee County included in the district, and by about four points in Kenosha County, according to reporting from The New York Times. Steil won Racine County, where Berman lives, by less than a point and took Walworth County by 14 points.

Two generations ago, Racine and Kenosha were deep blue, Lee said. They flipped to solid red in recent decades, but are now “reverting.” It’s Wisconsin, Lee said: “independent and unpredictable.”

Like a lot of Republicans across the country in the 2026 election cycle, Steil had a huge cash advantage. He raised and spent more than $6.3 million, according to his reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Berman reported raising nearly $2 million and spending about $1.6 million, according to the FEC.

Berman’s “miracle” victory comes as Democrats celebrate wins from the statehouse to the governor’s mansion in Wisconsin and across the country.

“As the next congressman for Wisconsin’s 1st District, I will bring the people of Southeast Wisconsin with me to Washington and fight every day to lower costs, fix our broken healthcare system and end corruption in Washington,” Berman wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday night. “I promise to always stand up for Wisconsin families – not billionaires and big corporations.”

Steil’s communications director did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Steil, who like many in Congress became a millionaire while in office through his investments, had championed a bill to limit congressional stock trading, but critics, including Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, called it a “sham.” It would have allowed members of Congress to keep and sell stock they already own, and did not regulate members from trading things like cryptocurrency and participating in private stock sales. It also did not apply any restrictions to the president. President Donald Trump has made tens of thousands of stock trades in his second term, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, more than all members of Congress combined, according to an analysis by Bloomberg. Other proposed bills would ban most or all of those things.

The political result Tuesday was particularly surprising, as Steil had recently defeated, in 2024, a veteran Democratic opponent by more than 10 points — about 54% to 44%. That’s a swing of 14 points.

Of course, Trump was on the ballot in 2024. Yet, in the district, Steil outran Trump, who won the 1st by about 4.5 points, with a margin of about 51.4% to 46.9% over Vice President Kamala Harris, according to official results from the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

The 1st Congressional District did become friendlier to Democrats in the 2021 round of redistricting, though Steil won twice under those maps before losing this year.

Gov. Tony Evers submitted maps to the Wisconsin Supreme Court that made the district slightly more favorable to his party. He moved Beloit and parts of Whitewater and the Milwaukee suburbs into the 1st, while removing some right-leaning rural areas. That swung the district from one that favored Republicans by 14 percentage points to just six, according to the political website FiveThirtyEight.

Berman’s surprise win in the 1st and Democrat Rebecca Cooke’s win against incumbent Rep. Derrick Van Orden in western Wisconsin’s 3rd District means the state’s 8-person congressional delegation will be evenly split between Republicans and Democrats for the first time in years.

Democrats previously held only two seats: Rep. Mark Pocan’s district, which includes Madison, and Rep. Gwen Moore’s district, which includes the city of Milwaukee.

Democrats will have a huge majority in the 435-member U.S. House of Representatives in 2027. They have already clinched 247 seats and are likely to add several more in the coming days and weeks as the final votes are counted, analysts say.

This story was funded by a grant from Press Forward’s Election Integrity Fund.

The Badger Project is an independent news nonprofit in Wisconsin.