Tony Wied

The Democratic Party candidates hoping to unseat a Republican incumbent in Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District plan to draw on their past experiences to help them lead.

Voters will choose among Rick Crosson, Katrina deVille and Mark Scheffler in the Aug. 11 primary. The winner will face U.S. Rep. Tony Wied, R-De Pere, in the Nov. 3 partisan election.

The candidates completed a questionnaire for the NEW News Lab detailing what their priorities would be, if elected. Their answers have been edited for clarity, grammar, style and length.

Rick Crosson

Please include relevant background information, such as your education, work, and prior experience in elected office. Please be specific.

I served 20 years in the U.S. Army, retiring as a lieutenant colonel and master Army aviator. As part of my military career, I served a tenure as the Army's Mexico liaison officer.

On education: a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Seattle University, a master's degree in public administration from Golden Gate University, and a graduate of both the Army's Command and General Staff College and the Air Force's Air Command and Staff College.

After the Army, I spent two decades running large transportation and logistics operations. I was chief operating officer of deBoer Transportation and held senior executive roles at Schneider National and other carriers, with profit-and-loss responsibility for operations worth hundreds of millions.

My public service has been civic: I was appointed to the Green Bay School Board, and I currently serve on the Brown County Library Board and the UW-Stevens Point Business Advisory Council. I am not a career politician.

What are constituents telling you are the main issues they're facing?

It breaks into three things. First, the cost of living. Groceries, gas and the tariffs that keep pushing both higher. Every product you buy rode a truck to get here, so when fuel and trade costs climb, everything climbs with it.

Second, health care. Families are one diagnosis away from real trouble, and our rural hospitals are closing or cutting services, which means longer drives for basic care and mothers with nowhere close to give birth.

Third, home ownership. Young people cannot see a path to owning a home, and renters are getting squeezed by rising costs and junk fees. Underneath all of it is a fear that nobody in Washington is actually listening. That is what I hear across the district.

People are not asking for much. They want a decent life to stay within reach, and they want a representative who shows up and treats their problems like they matter.

What are the two main issues you see?

I see two main issues that connect. The first is that people cannot get ahead no matter how hard they work. Prices climb, wages do not keep up and tariffs are quietly raising the cost of groceries, gas and building a home. People are not overspending. The ground is moving under them.

The second is why nothing gets fixed: Congress has stopped doing its job. It is supposed to be a check, but it has been handing over its power. When a war spikes gas prices, the people who voted for it should explain what it costs families here. Same goes for when safety nets are pulled out from under the most vulnerable by Congress or by executive order. Silence is not the role of our congressperson.

So the two issues are a squeeze people did not cause and a Congress that will not stand up for them. Fix the second, and you finally get to fix the first.

Why should somebody vote for you?

This district deserves someone who shows up. It is the whole reason I am running. The way I work is simple. I do not start with party. I start with the person in front of me. I join people's groups, I find the shared birthday, the grandkid the same age, the fellow veteran. Trust comes first, politics second. It is hard to hate someone you know.

Twenty years in the Army and two decades in business taught me one thing above all: take what is broken and make it work, on time, when the stakes are real. That is what I will do for you in Washington, and I will measure it by one test: Did it actually make life better here?

I hold myself to my oath to support and defend the Constitution. That did not end when I took off the uniform. It is why I will show up, tell you the truth and do the work.

Katrina deVille

Please include relevant background information, such as your education, work, and prior experience in elected office. Please be specific.

I was born in Beaver Dam in December 1975. I attended elementary school in Salem and Elkhorn. Junior high and high school were in Fond du Lac, and I graduated from Goodrich High School in 1994. I attended the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay for six years in pursuit of a Bachelor of Arts-Jazz Studies degree. I have been a professional musician for over 35 years, have played in 30 states and seven countries, and have been the lead singer and manager of my own 10-person band for a majority of this time. I functioned as manager, booking agent, treasurer, accountant, creative director, webpage guru, social media manager.

I've also been a small business owner for the past 20 years, having my own custom car shop, building custom vehicles for customers.

This is my first time running for office, and I think that fact gives me an advantage of not being chained to the systems and ways we've continued to do things, the same things which have proven time and time again to not work or be the defense against authoritarian tyranny we have hoped they would be.

What are constituents telling you are the main issues they're facing?

The main issues I'm hearing everyone talk about across the entire district are health care, affordability and accountability. People are really distraught over the access to health care. Avoiding the doctor because of a loss of coverage, worry over affording the care they need, or removal of services in rural communities are all completely unacceptable conditions in what's repeatedly called the richest country in the world.

What are the two main issues you see?

I think the two biggest issues I see are affordability and accountability. So many aspects of our systems are encompassed in affordability: health care, cost of living, a living wage, affordable housing, childcare, wage inequality and so on. We need to enact strong social safety net programs that help our citizens, like Medicare for all, a $22 minimum wage, universal childcare, higher taxes on the billionaire class, affordable housing, and so on.

As far as accountability, we need to have elected officials who are compelled to hold the tyrannical and unconstitutional to account for the atrocities they have continually perpetrated against the people of this country, and I am absolutely so compelled, beginning with impeaching Trump on day one.

Why should somebody vote for you?

I'm a Democratic Socialist, so I stand up for strong social programs that help our middle and lower class citizens. I'm a working class citizen, not wealthy, not a lifelong politician, so I bring a level of regular Americanism to this race that's not really paralleled by any other. I'm not in this for the money or the job title or some sort of self enrichment.

I’m running for Congress because I love this country and Americans, and I can't sit by and watch all of the harm being done to all of us and do nothing about it. I'm trans, so I understand what it feels like to be targeted and discriminated against after experiencing it firsthand. And I offer a perspective only one other member of Congress has ever had in our country's history: the ability to see things clearly from both a male and female perspective, from my own lived experience. This gives me a powerful perspective in which to eradicate hate, bigotry, misogyny and discrimination from our country, once and for all.

Mark Scheffler

Please include relevant background information, such as your education, work, and prior experience in elected office. Please be specific.

I was born and raised in rural Marathon County, the son of a dairy farmer. I worked my way through high school and college, and graduated in 1992 from Lawrence University in Appleton with a degree in music education and theory and composition. I immediately went into public service as a public school teacher. I later took out a small business loan and started an independent sustainable wealth management firm in the Fox Valley where I've now lived for more than 30 years. Our firm created more than $118 million of growth and income for working families, small businesses, retirees and nonprofits in our region. And when that company succeeded, I gave ownership to the employees who helped build it, because that's what fairness looks like. This company was sold to Racine-based Johnson Financial Group in 2023, and I've retired so that I can pursue full-time public service.

What are constituents telling you are the main issues they're facing?

Overwhelmingly, the voters in this district are concerned about good governance, better representation in Congress and representatives who are in public service to serve the country and the voters of northeast Wisconsin first. They also want representatives who are less partisan, and who are willing to work across the aisle to get the important work of our country accomplished.

What are the two main issues you see?

I'm running as an independent Democrat because our politics need to change and that starts right here, right now. Voters are tired of the politics of division, and I see an opportunity for this district to lead the nation in creating a more connected, more sustainable world. I want to take that independent-mindedness to Washington to modernize our broken tax system, to provide more affordable health care to every American starting at birth and to use the power of Wisconsin's farmers to meet climate change head-on.

Why should somebody vote for you?

I'm creating a coalition of voters across the political spectrum who want less partisan, more independent-minded candidates like me. My experience as a lifelong Wisconsin resident means that I truly represent all of us, and I'll work tirelessly to advance more sustainable policies that can move us all forward, regardless of our political affiliation.