Crosson calls on qualities, skills he learned in the military to help him win primary, unseat Wied

There was a time when military veterans were a mainstay in the U.S. Congress. A half-century ago, vets comprised nearly 70% of the U.S. House and Senate.

That has since dropped precipitously, reaching its low point in the 117th Congress that began in 2021 when a mere 17% of its members had served.

Heading into this year’s midterm primaries, those numbers are going up again, with both parties aggressively recruiting veterans to run in swing districts across the country. 

Rick Crosson, who served as a Master Army Aviator and Lieutenant Colonel in Europe during the last decade of the Cold War in the eighties, says his 20 years of service have not only helped him to form his worldview but also to forge his character and leadership skills. 

“When I was deciding to enter the race, I asked myself, ‘Was it feasible? Was it winnable? Was it achievable?’" says Crosson, who is running in the 8th Congressional District Democratic primary this August, with an eye to unseating Republican incumbent Tony Wied in November. “I rapidly concluded that I could do the job. I could function as a U.S. Congressman because I had operated at national and international levels of diplomacy. I held a diplomatic passport, and one of my last duty assignments was as military liaison to the government of Mexico (during the war on drugs).

“So I understand the dynamics of coalition building, of working in a political environment and trying to put together some tangible, movable, quantifiable results.”

Whichever Democrat prevails in August – Crosson, Mark Scheffler or Katrina deVille – will face an uphill battle in a heavily gerrymandered and 50-percent rural district that Wied won by 15 points in 2024. Steve Kagen was the last Democrat to hold the seat in 2010, and the way the district was redrawn by the Republican legislature in 2011 has made it an even tougher reach for Democrats.

But Wied is widely unpopular and Crosson hopes to capitalize on that and the large number of voters in the district who sat out the 2024 election. Crosson’s first task is to expand his name recognition. He has served on the Green Bay School Board but outside of Brown County he is largely unknown.

If Crosson were to get elected in November, he would become the first Black man and only the second Black person after Gwen Moore to represent Wisconsin in the U.S. Congress.

Not just about Trump

Despite the crippling divide in the country – primarily between those who support President Trump and those who consider him an existential danger to the country – Crosson is taking the approach that Trump is a symptom and not the cause of what ails us. At any rate, Crosson says Trump was not a motivation for him deciding to run.

“I would still be in this race,” he insists. “If it wasn’t (Trump or Wied), there would be other human elements that would feed into this dysfunction that's happening. So I don't put a lot of energy into that. I'm putting more of my energy into framing a tangible, quantifiable, genuine, repeatable message. Asking people to vote for me because I'm not them is a waste of time and energy, and quite honestly, it won't close the gap. 

“That's not the motivational objective here. It's about fixing these real issues in a way that genuinely moves the needle forward towards the objective. That's how I was raised. I'm mission-focused.”

Those objectives, he says, are affordability, accountability and results. He insists that those are what’s on the minds of the electorate. Affordability includes everything from housing to public schools to food and gas, he says.

“A stable economic environment where there's high consumer confidence, where our family of nations doesn’t see us as a pariah nation,” he says. “And this willy-nilly imposition of tariffs and acting without a strategy. It's all contributing to unaffordability. Health care costs, your premiums, all of that falls under affordability. So it's a long list of action items to get after that bring some stability and affordability. A living wage is another one as far as that goes.”

As to accountability, a quality for which the incumbent Wied has come in for a lot of criticism after failing to hold town halls or meet with constituents, Crosson says that requires what he calls “full inclusion and immersion of the people.” That includes, he says, fireside chats, social media, town halls and anything he can do to stay connected to his constituents.

‘They want the same things we want’

Crosson takes a charitable view of people on the other side of the political divide – including those who support President Trump – and has spent much of his time reaching out to them. 

“If you're going to make any assumptions at all about people or groups of people, you assume a neutral stance,” he says. “You don't start at some perceived deficit. You start with a neutral assumption at best that they want to be here, they want to be contributing members of society. They want the same things that we want. They want safety, security, economic stability, and they want a chance to prosper. So why don't we make that assumption first and move forward from there?”

Crosson says he’s focused on communities such as veterans who he says transcend political ideology.

“Myself, being a veteran, I'm going to all the veterans groups I can find, and we start by our common ground of we all swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution,” he says. “That's our start-point conversation, and it's amazing the positive results and feedback that I'm getting from those folks. It's a call to action, because the work's not done, and they get that regardless as to whatever hardline political affiliation you may have, the common ground of a secure United States of America is our start point.”

Which doesn’t mean he won’t cite President Trump for exploiting the conditions that have so many Americans feeling disaffected. The challenge, he insists, is to address the root causes of that disaffection.

“You have to have a willingness to step outside of yourself, turn around and see how you're being viewed by others,” he says. “I recognize the challenge inherent in that, but it's about recognizing the bias that we all bring into a conversation, into a situation, and accounting for that in our discourse. It’s about turning fear and all of the negative emotions into opportunity.”

Crosson says when he asks voters to provide a one-word descriptor of how they’re feeling it’s almost invariably negative, what he terms “the wasted energy of fear and anger and bitterness.”

“Once you refocus that energy toward a positive outcome and vision, it’s amazing the change in that room,” he says. “That speaks to the fact that we have control of our own destiny. No one else defines that. That's us. We own that. So, if we keep focused on the positive, and we keep a consistently positive framed message, there's a magical future ahead of us.”

War in Iran lacked planning and strategy, he says

Crosson takes a jaundiced view of our current war in Iran, which began, ironically, on his son’s last day in the Army. He calls it unlawful and a dereliction of Congressional oversight, referring to those in Washington as sycophants. Crosson says the oath he took in the military remains a guiding foundation more than two decades after he retired.

“How can we best position ourselves to be the best that we can be, and in a way that delivers real, tangible security for our country,” he says. “I'm very disappointed in the position that we're in now as a country where we have alienated ourselves from our allies. We have created instability in the world as far as national security and international security.

“There has been a lack of planning and a lack of strategic foresight. If you look at the price of gasoline today, it's a direct result of an impulsive illegal act by one person, and now we're living with the secondary and tertiary effects of that. People are losing their lives. People are losing their livelihoods because of these types of decisions, and for me, the clear and present danger doesn't reside overseas.”

‘They want an end to the nonsense’

Crosson has three children and eight grandchildren. He says he sees too many adults today who provide poor role models for the next generation. No child should ever have to look beyond their parents for role models, he insists. 

“So I want my children to be able to say, ‘My father has challenged me appropriately to be the best that I can be,’” he explains. “And so that they themselves become honorable people and contributing members of society that give more than they take. I think all of us have to be better role models for our children. Because if we don't get this right, that's our future, that's how we live on, is through our children. So we screw that up, we got nothing.”

Crosson says he’s ready to face any and all citizens as he works to gather support for the primary and the general election beyond. He knows there are voters out there who either voted for Wied and Trump in 2024 and who are dissatisfied and those who didn’t vote at all. Winning them over is the key, he says, to winning in August and again in November. 

“I’m going to, first and foremost, stay true to the message of affordability, accountability and results,” he says. “My mission is to present myself in a genuine way as the viable alternative through honest dialog, through honest interaction and a consistent, framed, repeatable message.

“They want an end to the nonsense. That's really what it is. They just want us to do what you say you're going to do, and let's be better at the other end of this process. There's a recognition that there's great dissatisfaction by folks who may have voted the other direction, but they're looking for a viable alternative to the madness.” 

Crosson calls on qualities, skills he learned in the military to help him win primary, unseat Wied © 2026 by Kelly Fenton is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0