Meet the Republican candidates running in the August primary for Wisconsin's 69th Assembly seat

Karen Hurd and Lori Voss will face off in the Aug. 13 partisan primary to represent the Republican Party in the November general election for Wisconsin's 69th Assembly District.

The winner of the primary will face Democratic Party candidate Roger Halls and Independent Joshua Steven Kelly, who are both unopposed for their party's nomination.

The district was previously represented for two terms since 2020 by Republican Donna Rozar, who also has served 12 terms on the Wood County Board since 2000. Rozar filed for noncandidacy in this race as her Marshfield residence is no longer within the district boundaries. She is running, instead, in the three-way primary in the 86th Assembly District against Republican incumbent John Spiros and challenger Trine Spindler.

The 69th Assembly District no longer contains the cities of Marshfield and Black River Falls. Instead, redistricting changed its boundaries to include the entirety of Clark County along with small pieces of Chippewa, Taylor and Marathon counties. One of these pieces brings the district its new largest population center, the city of Medford in Taylor County. Medford joins Neillsville, Abbotsford and Colby as the biggest cities in the district.

Wisconsin state assemblypersons serve two-year terms.

To learn more about registering to vote and to find your polling place, visit the My Vote Wisconsin website.

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin asked each of the candidates to address important issues in the district and why they are running for the position.

Karen Hurd

Residence: Town of Withee

Age: 66

Occupation and education: Nutritionist. Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri, bachelor's degree in Spanish, May 1980; Huntington’s College of Health Sciences, Knoxville, Kentucky, diploma of comprehensive nutrition, May 1994 and reaffirmed through testing September 2014; University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, certificate in Grant Writing and Management, June 2007; University of Saint Joseph, West Hartford, Connecticut, master's degree in biochemistry, December 2017; The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., candidate for Master of Public Health, graduation is August 2024.

Relevant experience: Wisconsin Assembly legislator, village trustee, library trustee, board member of senior housing, small business owner, veteran, columnist (historical fiction) for six local newspapers, substitute public school teacher, American Legion member, Lions Club member, Historical Society member, writer, movie producer.

Campaign website : www.karenhurdforassembly.com

Lori Voss

Residence: Abbotsford

Age: 64

Occupation and education: Small business owner of Hawkeye Dairy for over 28 years. Emergency medical technician for over 14 years. U.S. Army veteran. Attended North Central Technical College, Mid-State Technical College and Brooks Army Medical Center.

Relevant experience: Former mayor of Abbotsford (4 years) and City Council member (10 years); EMT for over 14 years including assistant ambulance chief; Wisconsin Army National Guard; 4-H leader.

Campaign website: Lori Voss for 69th Assembly on Facebook

Why are you running for office?

Hurd: To serve the people of Wisconsin by lowering taxes; prohibiting illegal immigrants from invading our country; making government smaller; giving local control back to the towns, villages, and cities; protecting the unborn; making government fiscally responsible; reducing regulations; bringing down inflation; fixing the economy; backing our law enforcement; keeping boys out of girls’ sports; and stopping tax dollars from being used for gender transition surgeries and procedures. I have seen the need for proven conservative leadership in our government.

Voss: I’m running for this open Assembly seat to bring an experienced, conservative voice to Madison. I’m a fighter who will defend our Constitution and preserve our fundamental freedoms. I will never waiver from defending liberty by protecting our Second Amendment rights, securing our borders, protecting life, and ensuring election integrity at the ballot box. I will fight for rural Wisconsin to protect farmland from becoming a foreign-owned wind entity. I will stand up against the radical left-wing, woke policies of the Biden and Evers Administrations. I’ve thought about running for this ever since my friend Scott Suder retired from office.

What makes you the better candidate in this race?

Hurd: I have state legislative experience already. For my work in this 2023-24 Legislative Session, I received the Dairy Business Association Legislative Excellence Award and WISCAP’s William Steiger Award for the Republican legislator who did the most for community action programs. I was chosen to attend the Bowhay Institute for Legislative Leadership Development as well as the State Legislative Leaders Foundation Emerging Legislative Leaders Program. I received the Air Assault Badge, Marksmanship Badge, and Army Service Medal. I am an author having written and published three books. I am endorsed by Wisconsin Right to Life and the National Rifle Association.

Voss: Simply put, I am the most conservative candidate in this race and I’ve got the proven local experience to back it up. I’m also the only candidate who has 40 years of established roots in this district. The fact is that my opponent only recently moved into our area in hopes of getting elected to this seat. I’ve raised a family here, owned a successful business here and been actively involved as a community leader here. My opponent hasn’t. Because I’m the real conservative in this race, I’ve earned the endorsements of Wisconsin Pro-Life, Americans for Prosperity and Farmland First.

What is the most pressing issue facing Wisconsin, and how would you address it?

Hurd: Inflation is the most pressing issue facing Wisconsin.  I continually voted to reduce taxes, which helps lower prices for families. I will continue to work to reduce the financial burden on the residents of Wisconsin.

Voss: The most pressing issue facing Wisconsin is the state of our economy. The Evers and Biden Administrations have caused inflation to skyrocket, lowered take-home wages and caused crime to run rampant in our communities. These flawed and dangerous policies need to be stopped for the sake of our state and our entire country. Illegal immigration is costing our families as well both economically and in terms of innocent lives being lost to criminals who have no right to be here. We need to roll back the radical, liberal woke policies to lower prices and increase public safety.

What are residents telling you are their most important issues, and how would you address them?

Hurd: Legislation to protect towns and restore local control; achieving/maintaining energy independence through reliable energy sources; reducing the tax burden on Wisconsinites; helping the children of our state who languish in foster care and need permanent homes; fix the broken child care system; help local municipalities in maintaining roads by increasing the General Transportation Aid; keep China and other foreign adversaries from buying our farmland; and reduce the bureaucracy by keeping a tighter control on administrative rules as well as shrinking the overall government size.

Voss: Central Wisconsin residents are suffering from Bidenflation. Many are living paycheck to paycheck due to the soaring costs of groceries, gas, housing, rent and health care. They want someone who will stand up against radical, woke policies of Evers and Biden. Residents want elected officials to put a stop to the flow of illegal immigrants into our state and country – they want our borders secured and someone who stands up for law and order instead of coddling rioters and criminals. They want election integrity restored- including showing a valid ID at the polls and outlawing ballot drop boxes.

Residents of central Wisconsin are seeing increasing costs in necessary and everyday expenses such as housing, child care, groceries, health care and transportation. If elected, what will you do to help residents who are struggling to make ends meet?

Hurd: I will continue to introduce legislation to lower taxes as I voted three times to do so in the past session. I will continue to propose legislation to fix the broken child care industry which causes such high child care costs. (I proposed 10 bills to do this in the last session − one of them is now signed into law), fix the health care system by working with the hospital association and other medical groups in solving the payer-mix problems, lack of workforce issues, and high inflation that drive medical costs up. I will continue to introduce budget motions to help with transportation issues just as I did in the last session.

Voss: I will fight to end the radical, misguided Evers and Biden administration policies responsible for skyrocketing inflation that are killing jobs and causing people in our area to struggle to make ends meet. This means encouraging energy independence instead of throwing away billions for their radical climate change scams. I will fight to end Marxist DEI programs indoctrinating our children. We must make our communities safer by restoring law and order, reducing government red tape and rolling back burdensome regulations that stifle economic growth. I’ll work to bring spending under control and restore common sense to our state government.

As costs have increased for individuals, so have the costs for our local units of government. Our local schools and technical colleges, municipalities and counties are limited in how much local tax levies can be raised. These limits were set decades ago and adjustments to them are rare and inadequate for matching increases in cost of living and inflation. If elected, what would you do to reduce the burden on local residents who have to consider levy limit referendums for school districts, public safety workers or large transportation projects so frequently in elections?

Hurd: I will continue to vote for help in these areas, just as I did in the last legislation session where we authorized an increase in the cap for public schools giving them more money per student and increased special education aids along with other funding increases. I also introduced the budget motions to increase General Transportation aids and Shared Revenue for local municipalities and counties, and voted in favor of that legislation. I also voted in favor of establishing an Agriculture Road Improvement Program and to continue to fund the Local Roads Improvement Program. I will continue to work for better transportation and roads.

Voss: Government can and should be streamlined at all levels. Levy caps were put in place to protect taxpayers. I won’t eliminate those caps because local property taxes would skyrocket. We do need more shared revenue for rural areas – Madison and Milwaukee should not continually get the lion’s share of support at the expense of central Wisconsin.  We need to secure the border because our schools cannot handle the influx of illegal immigrants and the millions it costs to educate them. We need to cut wasteful programs like DEI and make sure the state’s transportation dollars are used to help our townships and counties – not just Milwaukee and Madison superprojects.

Erik Pfantz covers local government and education in central Wisconsin for USA TODAY NETWORK - Wisconsin and values his background as a rural Wisconsinite. Contact him at epfantz@gannett.com .

This article originally appeared on Marshfield News-Herald: Meet the Republican candidates running in the August primary for Wisconsin's 69th Assembly seat