Dem U.S. Rep. Ron Kind will meet Republican Derrick Van Orden, a retired Navy SEAL, in the general election for western Wisconsin’s 3rd CD this fall.

Kind, who was first elected to the House in 1996, took 81 percent of the vote against little-known challenger Mark Neumann, a retired doctor.

On the GOP side, Van Orden beat Jessi Ebben, a public relations professional from Eau Claire, with 66 percent of the vote.

Republicans have targeted Kind after Donald Trump won his western Wisconsin district by 4.5 percentage points in 2016, when the Dem incumbent was unopposed. But Kind won reelection in 2018 with nearly 60 percent of the vote and had almost $3.1 million in the bank at the end of the last reporting period.

“There’s a clear choice in November,” Kind tweeted. “I have a plan to combat coronavirus, rebuild Wisconsin, and support our hardworking families and farmers. I look forward to continuing to work in a collaborative way to get things done and move our state forward.”

Van Orden, meanwhile, knocked Kind for being in Washington so long “he’s forgotten why we sent him there.”

“I’ve been serving as a Navy SEAL where I learned three things that will make me a better leader in Washington than Ron Kind: Listen, decide, act,” Van Orden said. “I’m not a politician, but the military did teach me how to be a statesman.”

In other congressional primaries:

*Roger Polack took 58.2 percent of the vote in beating fellow attorney Josh Pade, who ran for guv in 2018, in southeastern Wisconsin’s 1st CD. He’ll take on freshman GOP Rep. Bryan Steil, of Janesville, this fall.

*former state Sen. Jessica King, of Oshkosh, won a three-way primary to take on U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Glenbeulah, in November. She took 75 percent of the vote in the primary for the seat in the Oshkosh-Fond du Lac area.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email