Wisconsin's 6th District Primary

Four days before Wisconsin's Tuesday, Aug. 11 primary, Wisconsin's sixth district incumbent Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) heads toward a primary with no opponent on the ballot, after Republican challenger Jonathan Peetz withdrew from the race. The real contest is on the Democratic side, where Amanda Bell and Bradley Smith are competing for a nomination that will send one of them into the general election, one that every major forecaster still rates solidly Republican.

Wisconsin runs a traditional partisan primary: Republican and Democratic voters cast separate ballots, and the top vote-getter in each party advances to the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 3. The 6th District spans central and northeastern Wisconsin, including Fond du Lac, Oshkosh, and Sheboygan. Grothman is seeking reelection to a seat he's held since January 2015.

Eight Democrats originally filed to challenge Rep. Grothman. Six have since withdrawn or been disqualified from the ballot: John Macho, Aaron Wojciechowski, Kelly Brown, Joey Marschall, Michael Heidenreich, and Kortney Oldham. That leaves Bell and Smith as the last remaining candidates in the Democratic primary field.

On the November ballot, voters can also expect Green Party nominee Matthew Arndt, who is running unopposed, and independents Elizabeth Fitzgibbon and Mike Thurow, who bypass the primary process entirely under Wisconsin's ballot access rules for independents.

The Candidates

Glenn Grothman first won the seat in 2014 after 35-year incumbent Tom Petri retired, defeating state Sen. Joe Leibham by 219 votes in an open primary. He's won reelection every cycle since, most recently defeating Democrat John Zarbano 61.2% to 38.7% in 2024. In the current Congress, he sits on the Committee on Education and Workforce, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on the Judiciary.

Amanda Bell (Democratic)), 45, grew up on a family dairy farm in rural Sheboygan County and now lives in Pardeeville. She spent 25 years with the U.S. Geological Survey, most recently as chief operations officer, and currently works as a substitute teacher.

Bradley Smith (Democratic)), who goes by Brad, was born in Neenah and served in the U.S. Army National Guard from 2000 to 2008. He earned a bachelor's degree from UW-Stevens Point and a graduate degree from UW-Eau Claire, and now lives in Mequon, where he works as a management consultant.

The Money Behind the Race

Grothman leads all candidates in fundraising, having raised $929,020 through July 22, according to FEC filings, with $829,736 in cash on hand. Independent candidate Mike Thurow follows at $169,862 raised over the same period, with $62,983 on hand. On the Democratic side, Smith has raised $166,061, with $60,280 on hand, well ahead of Bell's $42,394 raised and $4,592 on hand, both as of July 22.

Donor composition varies sharply among the leading fundraisers. Grothman's haul skews toward larger donors, with $165,200 coming from contributions of $2,000 or more and $114,638 from donations of $200 or less. Smith's fundraising leans more on smaller-dollar support, with $63,473 from donations of $200 or less against $14,000 from the $2,000-and-over bracket. Bell's smaller overall total is similarly weighted toward small-dollar giving, with $16,282 from the top bracket and $15,524 from the smallest.

Ratings vs. Odds

Cook Political Report and Inside Elections both rate Wisconsin's 6th District Solid Republican as of Tuesday, Aug. 4; Sabato's Crystal Ball rates it Safe Republican as of the same date. All three have held that rating for at least a month.

On Kalshi, Republicans are priced at 89% to win the general election in November, with Democrats at 5.2%. Kalshi's separate market on the Republican nomination has Grothman priced at 99%; its Democratic nomination market has Smith favored at 79% to Bell's 25%.

The rater consensus and the markets are telling the same story from different angles. The raters are looking past the primary entirely to a seat that hasn't elected a Democrat since the 1960s. The Kalshi primary markets confirm that Grothman's path to the nomination is a formality now that Peetz has dropped out, while Smith enters the Democratic primary as the clear favorite over Bell, even as her fundraising and small-dollar support have kept the race from being a foregone conclusion.

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