One-Time Independent Aims To Reinvent Politicking As He Gets Into Democratic Primary In 1st CD

By Erik Gunn, Wisconsin Examiner

May 5, 2026

While the latest entry to seek the Democratic nomination in Wisconsin’s crowded 1st Congressional District primary contest is highlighting a promise to raise more money than his rivals, another candidate is making the opposite case for his own campaign.

Adam Follmer, a suburban Milwaukee speech pathologist, has set a $10,000 cap his campaign spending.

“I’m playing to win in this campaign, but I think more than anything I’m playing to shift the Overton window a little bit more to things that we can talk about,” Follmer said in an interview. “We can actually think about what are our elections going to look like when we do get money out of politics.”

His campaign website stands apart from those of other Democrats in the race because it doesn’t have an opening splash screen soliciting donations.

It’s different in other ways as well. He said he’s trying to use his website to model “sustainable politics” — there’s even a page with that name — and in presenting the issues that he is campaigning on, Follmer has a series of videos that he’s encouraging visitors on the site to share.

“I’m hoping to appeal to people that are just tired of the endless attacks, the endless calls, the door knocking of people that they don’t even know, and instead change the way we engage in politics, and have that message come from people we know and trust,” Follmer said.

The winner of the Democratic primary will face incumbent U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, who has a campaign fund exceeding $5 million and remains the favorite in the race, according to political oddsmakers.

Follmer’s platform in the campaign includes getting money completely out of politics, banning corporate political action committee donations and donations from lobbyists. He also favors ranked-choice voting and term limits in the U.S. House and Senate.

Some have criticized term limits for increasing the power and influence of lobbyists as the lawmakers in office turn over more often. Follmer, however, argues that the federal government should increase the employment of researchers and experts who “are supposed to help [lawmakers] understand the issues,” and severely restrict or eliminate paid lobbyists in return.

“The idea that a corporation can have the same voice as an actual voter is something that’s never sat right with me, and I don’t understand why that’s the norm,” he said.

Follmer also favors a wealth tax on fortunes over $50 million along with closing corporate tax loopholes; single-payer health care available to all; expanded public and affordable housing and rental assistance; and a series of worker supports including guaranteed universal child care, paid parental leave and a shift to a 32-hour work week without reducing weekly incomes.

Workforce training, fully funded public education, well-paid teachers, modernizing of infrastructure with a focus on addressing climate change and ensuring that publicly funded research is made open access round out his platform.

Follmer says his goal is to connect with 20,000 people in the district of more than 700,000 voters, either face-to-face or through his website, where he has installed a platform that visitors can use to communicate directly with him.

The way politics is practiced currently, “we don’t have any infrastructure for us to actually communicate with our elected representatives in a meaningful way,” Follmer said.

He hopes that by reaching people more directly, they’ll in turn share his information with their friends and neighbors, building support for his campaign.

While Follmer said that he has often lined up with groups such as the progressive Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party on many of his policy proposals, he initially launched his campaign in mid-2025 as an independent candidate, planning to skip the primary in August and wind up on the 1st CD ballot in November.

“What I was hoping for with the independent candidacy was that I could get people that voted for Trump in 2024 to realize there actually are candidates representing working class values, and that we could get those people to change,” he said.

But in talking to voters, “I got a lot of feedback from the community that they didn’t want to see an independent candidate,” Follmer said, because they worried that the vote against Steil would wind up being divided, returning the incumbent to office even if there’s a majority in opposition.

“I want to be the kind of candidate that listens to the constituents,” he said. “And so I made that decision recently to change to the Democratic side and ride out the primary that way.”

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