Wisconsin House Races 2026: WI-3 and WI-1
Only two Wisconsin House seats are competitive. Republican redistricting built in structural advantages across the state. WI-3 (Van Orden) and WI-1 (Steil) attract DCCC investment but both start Lean R.
Wisconsin House Battleground — At a Glance
2026 Wisconsin House Competitive Seats
Race-by-Race Analysis: WI-3, WI-1, and the Map Context
Can Democrats Flip Ron Kind's Old Seat Back?
WI-3 was held by Democrat Ron Kind from 1997 to 2023 — a La Crosse-based representative who survived multiple Republican wave years by cultivating a moderate profile and strong constituent service. When Kind retired in 2022, Derrick Van Orden flipped the seat, winning by about 5 points. In 2024, Van Orden won re-election by a wider margin of 11 points in what was a strong Republican national environment.
Van Orden's personal controversies — including a high-profile altercation at the Capitol steps on January 6, 2021 (he was present in the area, though disputed whether he entered the building), and several subsequent incidents as a congressman — make him a higher-profile DCCC target than the district's R+6 lean would normally justify. Democrats have invested repeatedly in WI-3 on the theory that candidate-specific vulnerabilities could offset the structural Republican lean.
The counter-argument: Van Orden's 2024 margin of +11 in what was admittedly a strong Republican environment suggests the district has moved well beyond its previously competitive baseline. Even with an anti-Republican wave, WI-3 may be too Republican for Democrats to realistically flip. DCCC spending here may reflect donor pressure more than strategic calculations.
Steil Holding the Kenosha/Racine Corridor
WI-1 is Paul Ryan's former seat — the former Speaker of the House represented Janesville, Racine, and Kenosha for over two decades before retiring in 2019. Bryan Steil, a Paul Ryan protege and former University of Wisconsin regent, has held the seat since 2019. His moderate establishment Republican profile is closer to Ryan than to Trump, which gives him crossover appeal but occasional friction with MAGA primary voters.
The district includes Racine and Kenosha — Lake Michigan port cities that have deindustrialized significantly, fueling the Trump-era working-class Republican shift. It also includes rural Rock County communities and the southern Milwaukee exurbs. Steil has won comfortably, but the district is R+4 rather than safe Republican, and Democrats keep it on their target list.
For 2026: Steil's incumbency and Ryan-era moderate brand makes him a relatively comfortable incumbent. The DCCC invests in WI-1 partly because the Kenosha/Racine area's working-class economic dynamics could theoretically respond to Democratic messaging on manufacturing and trade — but Steil's margins suggest the theory hasn't translated into votes.
GOP Redistricting: Wisconsin's Structural R Advantage
Wisconsin Republicans drew the post-2020 congressional maps, and the result is a delegation that leans significantly Republican despite the state being essentially 50-50 at the presidential level. Four of Wisconsin's six congressional seats are safe Republican, while Democrats hold two safe seats (Milwaukee-area WI-4 and Madison-area WI-2). The competitive WI-1 and WI-3 both have Republican structural advantages.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a ruling in 2023 on state legislative maps — ordering redrawn state assembly and senate maps that reduced the Republican gerrymander in those chambers. However, the congressional maps are subject to different legal standards and were not redrawn by the same ruling. Republicans retain their congressional map advantage heading into 2026.
Implication for Democrats: even in a strong national environment, flipping both WI-1 and WI-3 would be an extraordinary achievement. More realistically, one pickup in a wave year (presumably WI-1, which is slightly more Democratic-leaning) is the ceiling for Wisconsin Democrats in most scenarios.
