Lorenzo Santos wants voters in Wisconsin’s First Congressional District to know something about him that sets him apart from the rest of the crowded Democratic primary field: He could be sent to war.
“I’m the only candidate, to my knowledge right now, at the federal level, that’s running in Wisconsin that could be sent to this war (in Iran) that Bryan Steil is not holding this administration accountable for,” Santos said in an interview for the 365 Amplified podcast.
Santos, a Naval reservist and Racine County’s director of emergency management, is one of seven Democrats competing in the Aug. 11 primary for the chance to take on Republican incumbent Bryan Steil in the Nov. 3 general election. He joins Miguel Aranda, Travis Beckius, Mitchell Berman, Randy Bryce, Enrique Casiano, and Gage Stills in the primary field.
Listen to the entire interview:
The son of a 34-year Navy veteran, Santos grew up as a self-described “military brat,” moving every three to four years and living as far afield as Japan before settling in downtown Racine in 2018. He said Wisconsin is the longest he’s lived anywhere in his life.
Santos plans to step down from his county role in April to campaign full time, and he isn’t shy about laying out his case against the incumbent. He called Steil out of touch with the concerns of everyday Wisconsinites, accusing him of rubber-stamping the Trump administration’s agenda while constituents struggle to pay their bills.
“He’s over here doing these weird side quests to try and get some kind of attention, when everyday Wisconsinites are saying, ‘Hey, man, we’re trying to pay our bills. Can you talk about that for probably two seconds instead of trying to placate Donald Trump?’” Santos said.
Santos pointed to tariffs as a central issue, calling them a sales tax on consumers and a burden on small businesses. A former regional sales representative, he said business owners are already struggling without the added pressure.
“It is hard enough to open a business without the President of the United States making it harder to pay for raw materials and goods and making supply chains completely frozen,” he said.
As an emergency manager, Santos said Trump administration cuts to FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security have had direct consequences at the local level. He said several training courses he was scheduled to attend were canceled due to federal shutdowns, and he pushed back on the administration’s position that states should handle disasters on their own.
“California, one of the largest economies in the world, may be able to absorb that hit and that loss of federal funding differently than, say, a Maine or a New Hampshire or a Montana,” Santos said. “For Donald Trump to just kind of arbitrarily say, everyone’s got to figure it out … it doesn’t make sense. It’s not grounded in any practical governance.”
Santos also took an unequivocal stance on immigration enforcement, saying ICE should be abolished, a position some Democrats have been reluctant to embrace publicly. He drew a contrast between ICE and local law enforcement agencies.
“Law enforcement at the local level, they face the same danger and they face the same hardships, but they don’t cover their faces, they don’t go around acting without judicial warrants,” he said. “They make sure that they have their body cameras on and that they’re held to a certain standard.”
But it was the military conflict that Santos returned to most forcefully. He said his family, his friends, and potentially himself face the real consequences of decisions made by leaders who, in his view, treat war like a game.
“We cannot be arrogant. That’s how we get the attack, and we won’t see it coming,” Santos said. “They talk about it like it’s a football game.”
Santos said he also plans to distinguish himself from Steil by actually showing up. He announced a town hall for April 9 at 6 p.m. in Janesville, taking a shot at Steil’s approach to constituent engagement, which, he said, is to hold public meetings in conference call form.
“This guy is Googling the answers because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, doing it over a phone call during lunch, and just saying, ‘Hey guys, by the way, I did one (town hall),’” Santos said. “It’s ridiculous. Show up. Be a man.”
The First Congressional District, which includes Racine, Kenosha, Janesville, and much of southeast Wisconsin, has been held by Republicans since Paul Ryan won the seat in 1999. Steil succeeded Ryan in 2019.
