Mitchell Berman

Deep Dive

Mitchell Berman is the Democratic nominee in Wisconsin's 1st District and has not held public office before. He is a board certified emergency nurse with twenty-three years in health care, ten of them caring for veterans at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and he has been a union member at every organized workplace he has worked in, beginning with Teamsters Local 344 while he was putting himself through college. He won the Democratic primary on August 11, 2026 with 44.1 percent, ahead of Peter Burgelis, Lorenzo Santos and Miguel Aranda, and faces Bryan Steil, the sitting member, on November 3, 2026.

This is an empty record on these questions rather than a thin one. His published platform runs to eleven sections, and Israel, Gaza, Palestinians, weapons and foreign aid appear nowhere in any of them. One section is about foreign policy. It argues that Congress should take back its constitutional power to decide when the country goes to war rather than leaving that to the president, and it names one conflict, which is not this one. The other ten sections are costs, health care, corruption in Washington, manufacturing and unions, reproductive freedom, schools, retirement, veterans, the environment and rural Wisconsin. An empty record carries no implication either way.

His campaign has issued more than twenty public releases this year, on endorsements, fundraising, advertising, his opponent's ethics and the war powers question, and none of them touches this subject. The nearest his published words come is an argument about what the country chooses to spend money on: asked in July 2026 what he would do in Congress, he answered on health care, said medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the country, and added that the country has enough money for war and for vanity projects in Washington while people are told there is none to take care of them, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. That names no country, no weapon and no form of aid, and it is recorded rather than read as a position.

The videos of his July 2026 television interview and on his campaign's social accounts are listed on his research page. You are better placed to change this than we are. Ask Berman directly, or at a candidate forum, and send us the reply: it goes on this page in his own words, which is worth more than anything we could write about him.

The money

Checked the five lobbying groups we track; no direct 2026 support found

Research log

The notes behind this card: what we looked at, what we found, and where each item came from.

Every page named below was opened and read on 2026-09-20 unless the entry says otherwise. His campaign site was read in full, page by page: the home page, the priorities page, the endorsements page and the media page, which are the only pages it has. The press-release index a Wisconsin political news service keeps for his campaign was read in full. Bands: Position (2024-01-26 onward), Reaction window (2023-10-07 to 2024-01-25), Earlier record (before 2023-10-07), Undated. He has never held federal office, so this record carries no roll calls and no tracked funding.

U.S. military aid and weapons to the government of Israel

• Nothing located at any date, in either direction. His priorities page runs to about 4,600 words under eleven headings: Lower Costs for Families, Fix Health Care, End Corruption in Washington, Create Jobs and Invest in Manufacturing, Defend Our National Security, Protect Reproductive Freedom, Support Public Education, Protect Retirement Security, Care for Our Veterans, Protect Our Environment and Support Our Rural Communities. A case-insensitive search of the whole site for israel, gaza, palestin, hamas, antisemit, jewish, weapon, munition, arms, foreign aid, unrwa, middle east and aipac returns nothing at all.
• [Position; the page is undated and was read 2026-09-20] The one foreign policy passage on the site is the whole of the Defend Our National Security section: "The War Powers Act was written by a Congressman from Milwaukee, Clement Zablocki, and I began my VA career at the hospital named after him. Congress needs to uphold its Constitutional duty to decide when we declare war instead of deferring to the executive branch. We should end the costly, reckless war in Iran and bring down the costs of war and high prices that Wisconsin families are shouldering." It names Iran and no other country, and it says nothing about weapons transfers, security assistance or humanitarian aid to anyone.
• [Position, 2026-09-16] His campaign's statement on his opponent's vote against a war powers resolution (https://www.wispolitics.com/2026/mitchell-berman-slams-bryan-steil-for-voting-to-continue-war-in-iran-for-the-sixth-time/ ), the most recent release of his campaign's that touches foreign policy. Its subject is Iran, the war powers question and fuel and fertilizer prices. It says nothing about what the United States sends to the government of Israel or to Palestinians, and the parts of it about the other candidate in this race belong on that candidate's card. Our research recorded this page as refusing to open; it opened on 2026-09-20.

U.S. aid to Palestinians

• Nothing located at any date, in either direction. Neither the campaign site, nor any of his campaign's releases, nor the one profile of the primary field that quotes him at length mentions humanitarian funding for Gaza, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or the aid pipeline.

Characterization of the conflict

• Nothing located at any date. He has not been reported saying anything about the war, in any direction, and no question about it appears in anything of his that could be read.

Israel-related rhetoric and lobbying

• [Position; the page is undated and was read 2026-09-20] His priorities page opens its corruption section with "I don't take corporate PAC money, and I never will", and calls for overturning the Citizens United decision, ending dark money and full disclosure of election funding. No organization of any kind is named, on this subject or any other, and a refusal to take corporate political action committee money is not a position on weapons or funding.
• [Position, 2026-07-30] The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's profile of the three Democrats in the primary, by Ricardo Torres. It records that he entered the race after the cuts at the Department of Veterans Affairs, that he is an emergency room nurse at a hospital in Franklin and lives in the Town of Raymond, and that he had led the primary field in fundraising. The passage nearest this subject is about spending priorities: "The fact that medical debt is the number one cause of bankruptcy in this country is unconscionable," Berman said. "We have enough money for war. We have enough money for vanity projects in D.C., we have money for all of these other things ... but the idea that we don't have enough money to take care of people is something I will vehemently push back against." The passage is quoted as read on 2026-09-20; on 2026-09-26 the page stopped at a metered wall after three paragraphs, so the card describes the remark in plain words rather than quoting it. It names no country, no weapon and no recipient.
• No statement of his about any lobbying organization on this subject was located.

Safety and antisemitism (context, not an answer to what America sends)

• Nothing located at any date. The word antisemitism does not appear anywhere on his campaign site or in any of his campaign's releases.

What the campaign site and own pages say

• [Read 2026-09-20] His campaign site has four pages and no others: the home page, the priorities page, an endorsements page and a media page. The addresses /about, /issues, /news and /wi-01 return 404, and the navigation links for About and WI-01 resolve to sections of the home page. The home page sets out four things he says he will fight for: lower costs for working families, protecting health care, safeguarding programs that feed children, and stopping giveaways to corporations. His own summary of why he is running is there: "Washington is broken. Too often, politicians make big promises in Wisconsin, then they go to Washington and only look out for themselves. I've been taking care of Wisconsin my entire working life. I'm running for Congress to fight for Wisconsin families, not billionaires and big corporations."
• [Read 2026-09-20] The media page lists four items of coverage, of which three opened and are listed below, and links a campaign advertisement on video and two folders of campaign assets.
• [Read 2026-09-20] The press-release index a Wisconsin political news service keeps for his campaign (https://www.wispolitics.com/?s=Mitchell+Berman ) carries more than twenty items from 2026: endorsements from a United States senator, two members of the House, state legislators, a labor federation and two political organizations; a national party committee adding him to a program for targeted districts; fundraising totals; two advertisements; a poll; primary night; several items about his opponent's ethics and campaign contributions; and the September 2026 release about the war powers vote described above. None of the titles or the items read from them touches this subject.
• [Read 2026-09-26] Channel 3000's interview page of July 5, 2026, which his campaign lists as coverage. Its text is a short introduction to a video, ending "This week, we are sitting down with two of the four Democratic challengers running against incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil. We begin with Mitchell Berman." It has nothing on this subject. The video itself was not watched.
• [Read 2026-09-20] His Ballotpedia page carries no issue positions of any kind and records that he has not completed Ballotpedia's 2026 candidate survey.

The race

• [Read 2026-09-20] Ballotpedia's page for the 2026 election in Wisconsin's 1st District: "Incumbent Bryan Steil and Mitchell Berman are running in the general election for U.S. House Wisconsin District 1 on November 3, 2026." The general election is November 3, 2026, Wisconsin's partisan primary was August 11, 2026 and the filing deadline was June 1, 2026. Berman won the Democratic primary with 44.1 percent and 31,493 votes over Peter Burgelis at 21.6 percent, Lorenzo Santos at 20.4 and Miguel Aranda at 13.6, in a contest with no incumbent; Bryan Steil advanced from the Republican primary with 99.6 percent. Adam Follmer, of The Common Class Party, is listed as withdrawn or disqualified. Ballotpedia prints its own caution that the candidate list may not be complete.
• [Read 2026-09-20] The Wisconsin Elections Commission's ballot access report for the 2026 general election, the staff memorandum for the commission's June 9, 2026 meeting, printed June 8, 2026. Under "Office : REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS DISTRICT 1" it lists six filings: Lorenzo J. Santos, Peter Burgelis, Mitchell Berman and Miguel Aranda as Democrats and Bryan Steil as a Republican, all marked Approve, and Adam Follmer of The Common Class, marked Deny. That is the official source for the two-candidate field.
• Bryan Steil's record is on his own card and is not narrated here.

Places that could not be read, so nothing is claimed from them

• https://captimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/letter-mitchell-berman-emerging-as-1st-district-frontrunner/article_546adde0-6a3a-4803-8a78-8573958cc4d6.html , a letter to the editor his campaign lists as coverage. It is a reader's letter rather than words of his, so nothing would be taken from it in any event.
• https://pro.stateaffairs.com/wi/ad-watch/berman-launches-his-first-ad-in-1st-cd-race , which sits behind a subscription.
• The video on Channel 3000's interview page (the page itself is listed above as read) and the campaign's videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyUhiWL-J8M , https://www.facebook.com/bermanforcongress/videos/flip-the-house/911530884862029/ and https://www.facebook.com/bermanforcongress/videos/as-your-congressman-i-would-fight-every-day-to-fix-our-broken-healthcare-system-/2364840794345834/ . No video was watched for this card.
• His campaign's accounts on Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok, which his Ballotpedia page links and which were not read.

Not on the card, and why

• The foreign policy section of his platform and his campaign's September 2026 release, both of which are about Iran and the war powers question. A different question from what the United States sends to the government of Israel or to Palestinians. Both are set out above with their addresses.
• His pledge not to take corporate political action committee money. A money-refusal pledge is not a position on weapons or funding, and he names no organization.
• The July 2026 remark about spending priorities, as a quotation. The card describes it in plain words; the whole passage, as read on 2026-09-20, is above.
• Bryan Steil's record, including everything his campaign's releases say about it. Another candidate's record belongs on that candidate's own card.
• The health care, costs, corruption, manufacturing, reproductive freedom, education, retirement, veterans, environment and rural material that fills his platform. Out of scope. The headings are named above so a reader can see what the rest of the record covers.
• The reaction-window rule has nothing to act on here. Nothing of his from between October 7, 2023 and January 25, 2024 was found in any source read for this card; he was not a candidate then and holds no office.

Sources retrieved for this card (address; opened or could not open; date)

• https://www.bermanforcongress.com/ (opened; 2026-09-20)
• https://www.bermanforcongress.com/priorities (opened; 2026-09-20)
• https://www.bermanforcongress.com/media (opened; 2026-09-20)
• https://www.bermanforcongress.com/endorsements (opened; 2026-09-20)
• https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2026/07/30/meet-the-democrats-vying-to-challenge-bryan-steil-in-wisconsin-1st-congressional-district/91081824007/ (opened; 2026-09-20; datePublished 2026-07-30T10:01:24Z, by Ricardo Torres; on 2026-09-26 the page stopped at a metered wall after three paragraphs)
• https://www.wispolitics.com/2026/mitchell-berman-slams-bryan-steil-for-voting-to-continue-war-in-iran-for-the-sixth-time/ (opened; 2026-09-20; dated September 16, 2026)
• https://www.wispolitics.com/?s=Mitchell+Berman (opened; 2026-09-20; the campaign's full press-release index)
• https://ballotpedia.org/Mitchell_Berman and https://ballotpedia.org/Wisconsin%27s_1st_Congressional_District_election,_2026 (opened; 2026-09-20)
• https://elections.wi.gov/sites/default/files/documents/D.%20Ballot%20Access%20Report%206.9.2026.pdf (opened; 2026-09-20; printed June 8, 2026 for the June 9, 2026 commission meeting)
• https://www.channel3000.com/news/democrat-mitchell-berman-speaks-on-1st-congressional-district-race-against-rep-bryan-steil/article_3fc99285-f4e0-4c77-9b55-1d5c5812da4c.html (could not open, 429, 2026-09-20; opened 2026-09-26: the text introduces a video, which was not watched)
• https://pro.stateaffairs.com/wi/ad-watch/berman-launches-his-first-ad-in-1st-cd-race (subscription; 2026-09-20)
• https://captimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/letter-mitchell-berman-emerging-as-1st-district-frontrunner/article_546adde0-6a3a-4803-8a78-8573958cc4d6.html (could not open; 2026-09-20; a reader's letter in any event)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyUhiWL-J8M , https://www.facebook.com/bermanforcongress/videos/flip-the-house/911530884862029/ and https://www.facebook.com/bermanforcongress/videos/as-your-congressman-i-would-fight-every-day-to-fix-our-broken-healthcare-system-/2364840794345834/ (not watched; 2026-09-20)
• https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/profiles/2993-mitchell-berman (opened; 2026-09-20; a different person of the same name, checked and excluded)
• This is a record of what was checked on 2026-09-20, not a claim that no other statement exists.