The Fox Valley candidate for state Senate was raised to respect the opinions of others while staying focused on dealing with the problems in front of her.
When Kristin Alfheim grew up on a family beef farm in a rural area outside of Schofield, Wisconsin, her parents gave her and her siblings the freedom to explore anything within sight and hearing distance of their house and the barn.
She could “explore, get ourselves into trouble and figure out how to get ourselves out of trouble,” Alfheim recalled in an interview with UpNorthNews. “That is a beautiful gift that if given to someone at a young age and then you turned that into a work ethic and problem solving.”
There’s another lesson that Alfheim’s parents taught her which she is now bringing to her campaign as she seeks to represent the Appleton- and Oshkosh-based Senate District 18. That’s to listen to both sides on every issue.
For Alfheim, who has been an alderperson on the Appleton Common Council for the past three years, that means hearing out both Republican and the Democratic stances and then working to find compromises that everyone can agree on and which will benefit all the Wisconsinites in her district.
Alfheim learned this, she said, from having a dad who was the vice president of the union at the paper mill where he worked. He as a union member voted for Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election, whereas her mom at that time voted for President Gerald Ford.
“I was raised in a family of respect for someone’s opinion, the ability and the necessity to work hard to explore and find solutions,” she said.
It’s that quality that both she and her potential constituents have in common she’s discovering as she’s been walking door to door in her district and talking to voters about their lives.
It’s also a district that, thanks to Wisconsin’s new non-gerrymandered maps, gives her an opportunity to flip the district to the Democratic column.
The biggest area of concern that voters have expressed to her, she said, is that they are just sick and tired of the polarization in the state legislature where Republicans have held the majorities in the Assembly and Senate ever since 2011.
That was the year when Republican Governor Scott Walker and his Republican majorities in the legislature imposed grossly gerrymandered maps that let the GOP pick their voters and make it impossible to ever lose their control.
Alfheim told UpNorthNews that the residents she’s had in-depth conversations with are tired of “the mud slinging, the negativity and the anger.”
“All anybody wants to get back to is just the business of government. It’s to deal with the situations in front of us, make the best decision with the fewest consequences that helps the most,” she said.
“That’s it. They’re not asking for the moon, they’re asking for civility. They’re asking for us to get back to work. No more standing on the edges. If I can’t have it all, I’m not going to give you any. If I can’t, I’m going to make you give me it all. And you have no voice. They’re tired of that.”
The dissatisfaction that Alfheim is hearing on doorsteps appears to stem from the Republican state legislature’s focus on culture war issues, abortion restrictions and maintaining their own power, rather than focusing on the day-to-day concerns of Wisconsinites about their public schools, inflation and the need for improved health care, she believed.
If that is the case, they aren’t going to get any relief from the Republican who is running against her. Oncologist Dr. Anthony Phillips, the GOP nominee, has pointed to trans kids as a top issue in his campaign.
Only 1.75 % of Wisconsin’s population 13 -17 identify as transgender, which is about 6,400 young people in the state. Over 301,200 teens overall are enrolled in grades 9-12 in the state.
He also has described himself as an “advocate for the culture of life to protect the lives of the unborn” and he supports “school choice,” which is tax payer-funded vouchers for private schools.
Another issue of deep concern for District 18’s constituents, Alfheim said, is the fight over funding public education. A product of public school which she loved and also enrolled her two daughters in, Alfheim is a big believer in the benefits that it offers Wisconsin families.
“A public education is about the opportunity to expand someone’s mind to let you know that the world is bigger than your backyard … it’s helping them become adults and exposing them to the real world, not just what is taught in a single house,” she said.
She contends that Wisconsin “taxpayers are being taken advantage of by the vouchers for private school programs.” Alfheim would prefer those funds get redirected back to public schools, which must take in all students, regardless of their background.
She noted that the local superintendent explained to her that the children who are least expensive to educate come from intact, financially well-off families who get all the “food, nutrition, proper guidance and discipline at home.” But those are often the ones that get enticed away by private schools.
And Alfheim objects to the Wisconsin Republicans who oppose the teaching of America’s racial history and also oppose talking about LGBTQ issues. Governor Tony Evers vetoed a Republican bill which would have banned any teaching about systemic racism in the state’s public schools in 2022.
“They don’t want to embrace the reality of our history, which is just acknowledging that we were not always good to other human beings. That’s just the truth. They don’t want to have to talk about it. It makes ‘em uncomfortable,” she said. “If there is anybody indoctrinating kids, it’s Republicans building a wall around their children.”
For Alfheim it’s her whole life experience that has contributed to her empathy and to her problem-solving approach. She quit college midway through when she found that she preferred working to going to classes.
She began a stint at McDonald’s in high school where she was promoted and trained for management and communication skills.
She met her ex-husband young, married and turned 21 on her honeymoon. A little over 9 months later she gave birth to her first daughter. It was also early in the marriage that Alfheim found herself running a large McDonald’s restaurant in Wausau with 72 employees.
“I had to manage a lot of personalities,” she recalled.
Only after that did she make a switch into the insurance and financial services industry where she built her successful career, including running her own agency.
But after 25 years of marriage to “a very good man” she came to the “life changing realization” that “I was probably not a straight woman” and “having to work through the challenges in a family” where they all had lived a good life.
She said that this was “the beginning of who I am now.”
“Family and friends, some and most are extremely supportive, some not so much. And that is a big eye-opening experience. It began my process of looking outside of my own back door, looking at the reality of other people having more empathy for people that are going through things in life,” she said.
“It made me more empathetic to people that don’t live like me. Haven’t had the opportunities like me, that are dealing with things that I never understood. And there’s far more of that than I thought.”
That’s what led to her work on the Appleton Common Council and now her run for the state Senate which her wife, her ex-husband and all four of their shared children support.
Her two step-kids are now old enough for them to understand what she is doing. “They think it’s cool,” she said.
Her 18-year-old step son will be voting for the first time and she isn’t pressuring him to vote for her or her political party.
“There’s no automatic checking of boxes in this house,” Alfheim said. “I want them to be students of their government and participants and have their own thoughts … I don’t lean over their shoulders. But I do think they’re proud of what I’ve been doing and what I continue to do and they know I’ll make an impact.”
