WHY I’M RUNNING

I’m the County Executive for Outagamie, one of the worst-hit COVID counties in the nation. Local officials have been leading our country through the pandemic because Donald Trump and Ron Johnson have failed.

I’m running for U.S. Senate because we need real leaders in Washington who will take COVID seriously. And if we can take on a pandemic, we can take on anything. And if you can win in a red county six times, you can win anywhere.

My roots in Wisconsin run deep. My father, a retired Lutheran Pastor, built a mission church in Combined Locks. My Grandma and Grandpa Nelson worked a small dairy farm in Polk County. My Grandpa Megow was a patent inventor at Allen-Bradley in Milwaukee helping drive innovation and job creation in a top manufacturing hub.

As Outagamie County’s chief elected official, I lead one of the state’s best-managed counties (Aaa rating) that provides public health & other crucial services during the pandemic.

In 2017, I joined the United Steelworkers in helping save a paper mill that had been auctioned off to an industrial scrap dealer. Today the mill is alive and well and supports 300 jobs.

The country’s renewed progressive movement is important to me and I served as a Bernie Sanders delegate at the 2020 DNC convention.

In Wisconsin, the COVID-19 pandemic has become a full-blown crisis because leaders like Ron Johnson choose to recklessly expose their constituents to COVID instead of listening to science and public health experts.

As a proven and effective local leader, I’m ready to retire Ron Johnson and bring Wisconsin’s progressive values and leadership to Washington.

– Tom Nelson

PS: Read my book, One Day Stronger: How One Union Local Saved a Mill and Changed an Industry — and What It Means for American Manufacturing. All proceeds of the book will be donated to Jobs with Justice, a nonprofit fighting for workers rights, and the Hearthstone Historic House Museum in Appleton, the original house of Henry James Rogers who managed the Appleton Pulp and Paper Mill.