Fred Clark Thinks He Can Flip Tiffany’s Congressional Seat

Fred Clark (standing) Democrat from Bayfield County, talking to John Kotar, retired UW-Madision Forestry, Ecology and Management Proffesor in Cable, Wisconsin, Oct. 22. | Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner

In 2021, Fred Clark, who represented Baraboo as a Democratic representative in the state Assembly from 2009 to 2014, moved north to Bayfield County to retire, but over the last year, he said, he has become concerned about what he sees as an assault on the U.S. Constitution and the future of America, so he decided to re-enter politics.

Clark recently announced he’s running for Congress to represent Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District.

Incumbent Tom Tiffany (R-Minocqua) is running for governor and two of the highest profile Republican state senators in the district — Romaine Quinn of Rice Lake and Mary Felzkowski of Tomahawk — both recently announced they will seek reelection to the state Senate. The other candidates who have announced they are running for Tiffany’s seat, three Republicans and one Democrat, have little districtwide name recognition.

Clark sees an opportunity to mount a strong campaign as he tries to flip the large, Republican-leaning district, which covers much of the top half of Wisconsin, from red to blue.

“I think this is the first time in 15 years to have a truly competitive election in the 7th Congressional District,” he said.

Clark, who is also not widely known in the 7th CD, has his work cut out for him. His background in logging, as the owner of Clark Forestry, Inc., could appeal to voters in the northwestern district, where forestry products are a critical part of the economy. He has also worked as a forestry consultant with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and as a forest ecologist for The Nature Conservancy, and was the executive director and a founding board member of Wisconsin’s Green Fire, a conservation group.

He also has a history of building relationships with Republicans and independents, which is critical in a district that has voted by wide margins for Republicans since 2010, starting with former U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Hayward), now Secretary of Transportation. Duffy who won the district before it was redrawn following the last Census, and then increased his winning margins in the redistricted boundaries for four more elections. Tiffany also won by wide margins.

At a meeting of Democrats in Cable on Oct. 22 at The River Eatery, a venue heavily supported by the silent sports community that tends to vote blue, Clark was asked if he would reach out to independents and Republicans in the district. He answered in the affirmative, saying his goal is to convince 40,000 voters who either did not vote or voted Republican in the last congressional election to “reevaluate” their decision.

“I’m asking a lot of people who may have voted Republican in the past to think about who’s going to represent their interest the best and who’s got the ability to work for you and will show up and listen,” he said. “People want to shake your hand and look you in the eye and believe that they share enough with you that they could trust you to represent them, even if you didn’t agree with them on everything.”

At that Oct 22 meeting, Clark criticized policy decisions in Washington he said were “hurtful and damaging and are being felt across rural America right now.”

Clark is critical of the Big Beautiful Bill passed this summer by Republicans, and of their refusal to extend Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies. More than 270,000 Wisconsinites are projected to lose health insurance because of either dropping their coverage when premiums rise or losing Medicaid under the new rules. .

Clark is also concerned there will be fewer federal dollars to support rural hospitals.

“The health care outcomes are going to be worse and the rural health care system that we all rely on is going to continue to get worse because we’re going to lose doctors and we’re going to lose specialists and we’re going to lose clinics,” he said.

Support for wood pulp sustainable fuel initiative

Hayward is in the running, along with two other sites in Michigan and Minnesota, for a large $1.5 billion sustainable aviation fuel plant using pulp wood. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation is offering $60 million in incentives on top of a $150 million grant funded through the Department of Natural Resources forestry account. It could be a boon to the wood pulp industry, but there have also been environmental concerns that the operation involving chipping trees in the field would leave less timber debris that adds nutrients to the soil, helping to protect the long-term health of the forest.

As a forester, Clark believes the project would be good for the economy. The state’s pulp and paper industries have been in a long decline. Clark says chipping can be done in a manner that doesn’t risk the forest, but he is also critical of the state’s plan to offer the $150 million grant.

“We need to find new uses for wood from Wisconsin forests, and it’s really important that we have those markets for wood so that people managing forest land can continue to do that and we have a strong forest-based economy,” he said. “The sustainable aviation fuel truly is an opportunity to add a new product, or forest products mix, that could be good for forest conservation and forest ownership.”

“What I’m concerned about,” he added “and I don’t think it’s a good idea, is to hand out a $150 million cash subsidy to try to get into a bidding war with other states to land this plan.” He says he prefers the idea of offering tax credits as incentives to “writing a big blank check to this company.”

Worries about privatizing forestry

Clark also supports the Good Neighbor Authority program with the U.S. Forest Service, which involves county forestry departments helping to manage federal forest harvests. U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Madison) was instrumental in establishing the program.

“What the Good Neighbor Authority has done is just provide some extra flexibility for the Forest Service to get important work done and to meet their timber goals,” he said. “Working through states, it can work well when it’s well managed, but the risk here is that this administration throws open the door to basically privatize most of forest management, and if you let that happen, you’re going to have people and organizations setting up these timber sales that aren’t respecting the wildlife habitat and the soil conservation and the water protection that all needs to be part of any forest management. So the training and the standards and maintaining consistency are some of the most important things that we need to do with Good Neighbor Authority, and it’s got to be well managed or it won’t be successful.”

Help for Wisconsin farmers and small business

The number of small dairy farms in Wisconsin continues to decline as giant operations grow. Clark says the solution to the scourge of farm bankruptcies is to work on returning to supply management, keeping the milk supply at a level that offers attractive prices instead of emphasizing higher production, which suppresses prices and favors larger dairy operations.

“Honestly, as long as the incentives are all toward maximizing production that’s going to continue to keep prices at a place where only the biggest producers are going to survive and we’ll continue to see the erosion of the small farms who simply can’t produce enough milk at a cost above production,” he said. “Other countries that have effective supply management programs are actually able to maintain pricing that allows everybody to stay in business, and I think that’s the conversation among milk producers and folks in Congress that needs to be had.”

Clark is also critical of Trump’s tariffs for undermining efforts in the farming community to establish overseas markets.

“We’re seeing right now the impacts of the tariff war on everything from soybean producers who [lost] markets in China … to hardwood lumber producers here in Wisconsin, who also have depended on Canadian and other international markets that are losing those markets, to ginseng producers in Marathon County, who have now lost their single biggest customer, China, which purchases the vast majority of American ginseng,” he said. “All those markets that took years to develop are being essentially kneecapped by this president in this crazy tariff war.”

On his platform for “rebuilding our rural economy” Clark notes the need for “long-overdue tax reform that claws back 40 years of tax giveaways to the wealthiest Americans and our most profitable corporations.”

“We need a much fairer system,” he said. “There are simply way too many gigantic tax benefits that the largest corporations are able to use in order to effectively pay almost no taxes, and in many cases, these are some of the most profitable industries in our nation. You know, the net result of that is that we’ve got a giant amount of national debt. I believe it’s over $37 trillion of national debt. That is not good for America, and we can’t balance that debt on the backs of the people who need the services of the government the most.”

Clark is advocating for targeted subsidies for small- and medium-sized businesses, which he said generate jobs in rural communities. Asked about one notable failure in the district — the millions in federal grant dollars allocated to the Park Falls mill, which failed to keep the plant operational, he said, “When you’re providing incentives to private businesses, there’s always a risk.”

“So because the business used a subsidy and ended up failing, that doesn’t mean we failed, but it does mean to me, we’ve got to make those investments smartly,” he added. Giving a large grant to a business that might come from outside the state to build a sustainable aviation fuel plant is one plan he says needs more scrutiny.

“If you’re trying to start a small farm or small forest products business or manufacturing business, and you go to the Small Business Development Corporation, the Small Business Administration for a loan, you’re going to be wading through paperwork tall as your arm on your desk by the time you’re done, hours and hours,” he said. “I think we can make that easier, and I think we can make those funds more available. And what we know is that even though big employers get a lot of the attention, if you add up the scope of small businesses, that’s actually where most of the jobs are, and those owners are the people who are committed and rooted in those communities.”

One of the things Clark doesn’t directly cover in his platform is the affordable housing crisis.

Clark said housing may be more important in tourist areas, like the 7th District, where so many seasonal homes are used as short-term rentals (STRs) instead of long-term family housing.

“We need communities that have the ability to zone and regulate that (STRs) more effectively, and then we need to go back and figure out how to make housing affordable, which is the availability of financing,” he said.

Immigration reform

Clark acknowledges that many voters in the 7th CD supported Trump’s promise to beef up border security and deport immigrants who commit crimes, but he is critical of how the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) law enforcement agents are operating in communities.

“We need to have a secure border and immigrants who are here illegally, and most especially immigrants associated with criminal activity — we absolutely need enforcement on that,” he said. “And those people should be deported. What we have going on right now, however, is it’s essentially a war of fear in American cities. And ICE is an agency that is really one of the only federal agencies that’s seen its budget dramatically increased. They’re hiring new ICE agents as fast as they can, with a minimal amount of training, and it’s already clear that many of these people simply don’t have the experience and the training to be doing what they’re doing. And I don’t care what party you belong to, seeing people in masks who aren’t even identifying themselves, calling citizens and legal residents out of their homes without judicial warrants, many of whom will never see a court or a judge — it’s wrong and it’s unconstitutional, and it’s not making American communities safer.”

Clark also wants Congress to fully flex its constitutional authority to “curb the abuse of emergency powers” exercised by Trump. Democrats would be able to provide that check if they win the majority of the House in 2026. He also said Democrats should hold town hall meetings, “taking the case to voters.”

“Republicans in Congress have been completely afraid to do that,” he said of in-person town hall meetings. “Congressman Tiffany hasn’t done it. And that’s talking to the people that you represent. You know that’s No. 1.”