Four Candidates for Tiffany’s House Seat Lived Outside District or State

Voter registration records show four of the eight candidates running for Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District recently listed primary voting addresses outside the district — and two lived outside Wisconsin.

When Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany of Minocqua announced his run for governor in September, the list of candidates entering the race for the soon-to-be-open congressional seat began to swell. Records show three Republicans and one Democrat in the race switched their voter registration records to indicate they live inside the 7th Congressional District.

Congressional candidates aren’t required by law to live in the district they hope to represent. They need only be at least 25 years old and live in the state. And it remains to be seen how voters in the rural, northern Wisconsin district will feel about the recently changed residency.

Cook Political Report editor Erin Covey, who specializes in House races for the site, told WPR that “whether or not voters care about ‘carpetbagging’ has been endlessly debated.”

GOP’s Michael Alfonso, Paul Wassgren are registered Florida voters

On Jan. 27, 25-year-old political newcomer Michael Alfonso won the endorsement of Republican President Donald Trump. Alfonso is the son-in-law of U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who represented the 7th District before Tiffany. Trump’s endorsement said Alfonso “comes from a truly spectacular family” made up of “fierce advocates for our movement to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Alfonso re-registered to vote in Wisconsin 10 days before Trump’s endorsement, listing the address of a $500,000 home near Hayward owned by Sean Duffy and Rachel Campos-Duffy.

Alfonso also has an active voter registration in Ocean Breeze, Florida. A property listing indicates the home rents for $5,000 per month. The records show he registered to vote at that address in October 2024, but records don’t show whether he cast a ballot in the presidential election.

A spokesperson for Alfonso’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Fellow 7th District Republican candidate Paul Wassgren also has an active voter registration in Florida. His registration records from 2021 list a Miami Beach condo and show he voted by mail five times through 2024. Property records show Wassgren sold the condo for nearly $1.5 million in December 2025 after filing to run for Tiffany’s congressional seat.

Wassgren registered to vote in Ashland on Oct. 24, 2025, listing a property he owns there. He filed a statement of candidacy for Congress three days later. Wisconsin voter records don’t show Wassgren casting any ballots in Wisconsin during the past 10 years.

A statement from Wassgren’s campaign states he’s a “fifth-generation Ashland native and the only candidate in the race that was born and raised in the district.”

“Paul is committed to enacting the Trump agenda so young people in Northern Wisconsin don’t have to move to find employment,” the statement said.

Republican Jessi Ebben, Democrat Ginger Murray voted outside 7th District last year

While Alfonso and Wassgren are the only candidates in the race to move back to Wisconsin for their runs, voter registration data show Democrat Ginger Murray and Republican Jessi Ebben have recently switched their voter registration from elsewhere in the Badger State.

Murray’s voter registration records show she voted for nearly 10 years in Sun Prairie. The last ballot she cast there was in April 2025. Murray’s voter registration now shows an address in New Lisbon, which is in the 7th district.

Murray told WPR she grew up in northern Wisconsin, opened a law firm in Forest County and served as an attorney for the city of Crandon and town of Laona and was a family court commissioner for Oneida and Forest counties. Murray said she and her husband moved to Sun Prairie while her husband finished his degree and she started her own firm in the Madison area while their kids were in school. Murray said she and her husband moved to New Lisbon in 2016 and she’s now president of the homeowners association for her neighborhood.

Murray said she’s confident that if voters question her northern Wisconsin bonafides, “I believe that the voters will trust that I understand their needs.”

“I’ve lived it,” Murray said. “I understand it. I know it. If somebody thinks someone coming from somewhere else can do a better job than me, they’re entitled to that opinion.”

Republican Jessi Ebben’s voter registration records show she also voted outside the district in April 2025, casting a ballot in Arcadia. She switched her address to the city of Stanley in October. Her bid for Tiffany’s seat isn’t Ebben’s first run for Congress. In 2020 she ran to represent western Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District against Republican Derrick Van Orden, who defeated her by more than 30 percentage points.

A statement from Ebben’s campaign manager Tom Schroeder said Ebben is a “seventh-generation Wisconsinite who has called Wisconsin home for over three decades.”

“She and her husband moved in the beginning of 2025 to be closer to family as they raise their young son,” Schroeder said. “Stanley has been the home of the Ebben family and the Ebben family farm for nearly 100 years.”

The 7th Congressional District race also features former Democratic state lawmaker Fred Clark, who represented Baraboo from 2013 to 2015. He switched his voter registration address to Bayfield in 2022. Fellow Democratic candidate Chris Armstrong has voted at his New Richmond address since 2016.

Two other Republicans in the GOP primary also have voter registration addresses that haven’t changed in recent years. Records show Kevin Hermening has voted consistently in the town of Mosinee since 2016. Niina Threlfall-Baum, who is 30 years old, voted in Ashland and Oneida counties between 2016 and 2025 according to state records.

Listen to the WPR report

Half the candidates for Wisconsin House seat recently lived outside district or state was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.