On Michael Alfonso, Evita Duffy-Alfonso, Meg Ellefson & the 7th Congressional District

🚨 On Michael Alfonso, Evita Duffy-Alfonso, and Meg Ellefson… and Saturday’s big 7th Congressional District caucus….

In case you missed it, Sean Duffy’s daughter, Evita Alfonso-Duffy, just unleashed a lengthy Facebook blast against former 7th CD conservative talk radio host/now podcaster Meg Ellefson, defending how long she and her husband (Evita and Michael Alfonso) have lived in the 7th congressional district, the northern Wisconsin district where Evita’s husband, Michael Alfonso, now 26, is running for Tom Tiffany’s old seat in a crowded primary (Alfonso hasn’t cleared the primary deck despite the high-powered endorsements.)

Keep reading… it’s an interesting one.

Why is this suddenly so heated? In my opinion, it’s heated because, on Saturday, the 7th Congressional district caucus of GOP county parties will endorse in the five-way Republican primary. I am hearing there may be some dramatic developments there. Does Sean show? And things are getting very House of Cards-ish and ugly behind the scenes as people maneuver. This goes VERY high.

As I wrote before, I am working on a lengthy series on each candidate, and it is almost done (the GOP side; then, I will move on to the Democrats.) The GOP primary will almost certainly determine the winner, though; it is a very red district (and an older one.) As I also wrote before, Alfonso called me a few weeks ago and said he would give me an interview after previously not responding. I asked him today when we can do that, and he told me to contact his campaign, so I did tonight and am awaiting a response. My take on him is that he is an earnest and nice young man. Whether he is qualified for Congress is another question and ultimately one up to voters. I grew up in this district, and my mom still owns a farm there. My sister lives there, and I know it well, so the district is close to my heart and of special interest to me.

Evita vs. Meg

Wait, who is running again? Dang, Evita and Meg would both be great candidates, but alas, that is not to be. Instead, we get this proxy battle; it is a skirmish over how long Michael Alfonso has lived in the 7th CD, and Evita responded by proffering a lengthy timeline of their lives that raised more questions than it answered.

To be candid, I don’t think Evita’s post is quite the “own” Evita thinks it is. She responded to Meg’s comment with War & Peace (in fairness, this is also the latter…)

To also be frank, Evita hasn’t quite figured out the line between candidate spouse and social media influencer. I get it; that’s hard. But, at times, she has done the campaign no favors. Another example came the other day when Evita wrote an X post that could have boomeranged in a really bad way on a top Wisconsin conservative and then quickly deleted it before almost anyone saw. I am not going to name him because it serves no point and could actually harm his career. I think she thought she was supporting him and wasn’t fully appreciating the tricky dynamic at play. That kind of knowledge comes with time and, frankly, experience. Trust me, if I were “out to get them,” I would share it, and it would quickly get them all negative national news. But I am not, so I won’t… no point… and that is my point…au contraire, I think Evita and Michael are bright, promising young people… just a bit over their skis.

This isn’t a coronation. Some tough questions come with the territory. No one is entitled to a congressional seat. In fairness to Michael, I am told by many that he is working hard and attending many events, as are three of the other four GOP primary candidates.

Evita also went on a tirade on a podcast recently, accusing conservatives (me? Meg? Who knows) of being brazen liars. And now this battle with Meg. Again, I get it. One wants to defend one’s spouse. But it might be wiser to let him fight his own battles, especially since there are already legitimate questions about the lengths that her Secretary of Transportation dad is going for him…including having his name on an Alfonso fundraiser invite draft with a bunch of lobbyists (he never attended but Michael’s campaign finance reports are filled with donations from out-of-state lobbyists and transportation interests, which is the industry Sean regulates.)

Sean’s own campaign committee transferred more than $1 million into a shadowy Alabama “Northwoods” PAC that is pummeling the 7th CD with ads painting Alfonso as a working-class fighter/construction worker who will take on corrupt DC politicians. There is zero chance we would be having this conversation about someone with Michael’s thin resume if he hadn’t married into the Duffy family, and less than zero chance Trump and congressmen would have endorsed him as they have.

I mean, c’mon.

So, show a little humility. I actually think Michael has; Evita, less so.

Got all that?

I have decided to weigh in now because of the importance of the 7th CD caucus vote on Saturday; I will do my best below to sort through the rhetoric and document the facts. I am going to try to stay analytical and educational without emotionally charged language. Although I believe Meg supports Alfonso’s primary opponent, Kevin Hermening, and I used to go on her show, I haven’t picked a horse. As people know, I have had questions about Alfonso’s candidacy.

I would also note that I have asked the GOP candidates about their stances on prevailing wage to refocus on the issues. They don’t fully agree. I have responses from Alfonso and Hermening and am reaching out to the others. That should run soon, perhaps also an exploration of all of their campaign finance reports.

Where did they live?

That is the latest kerfuffle.

Meg responded to Evita that Meg wrote that Michael hasn’t lived “long term” in the 7th CD since he was a teenager and stands by that; Evita says they graduated from high school in Wausau; he went to Madison for college; they both bounced back to Wausau and lived with their families during COVID because their colleges went online; Michael bounced back to Madison to finish college and then they went up to Hayward (where Sean Duffy and Rachel still own a house, along with the NJ mansion where Sean and Rachel now live) and then Michael and Evita went to Florida for 14 months to work for Dan Bongino before moving to Hayward recently (Michael’s Wisconsin voter registration says he now lives in a home in Hayward owned by Sean and Rachel. He hasn’t voted in Wisconsin since 2023.)

Okay. So it’s a semantics debate.

Long-term resident, what is the definition… both Meg and Evita have an argument there. (You can read both of their posts in full below, in the interest of transparency.)

I don’t care much; Michael grew up in the 7th CD; his post-high school life represents a typical young person’s early years. Heck, in my first six years after leaving Rusk County at age 18, I lived in Germany, LA, DC, and Milwaukee, before deciding to build my life here in the Milwaukee area.

What I do care about is: what are Alfonso’s OWN accomplishments that qualify him for Congress and give us a sense of his mettle, how he would lead, and whether he would be controlled by lobbyists or not, etc.

But Evita goes on to say that Michael has lived longer in the district than anyone in the district as a percentage of his life… well, I guess you have to subtract the 444 days Kevin Hermening spent as a hostage in Iran from his percentage, and his time as a Marine overseas…

Overseas…as a Marine…
Okinawa, Japan, January 1978-June 1979
Tehran, Iran, August 1979-January 1981

Hermening, 66, “has been active in Republican politics in north-central Wisconsin for more than 40 years,” the Wausau paper wrote. He has lived in the 7th CD consistently since 1985.

He joined the Marine Corps after graduating from Oak Creek High School, served until 1981, went to college in Oshkosh, lived in Milwaukee, and then settled in the 7th CD.

Ebben is a recent transplant to the district. She was born in Westfield, worked in Minnesota, and ran in a 3rd CD primary before moving recently to the 7th with her husband. She works for Ashley Furniture in Chippewa Falls and went to UW-Eau Claire.

Wassgren lived in LA. “Wassgren, 49, was born in Ashland and spent his summers there while growing up. He went to high school near Portland, Oregon,” says the Northwoods River News.

“He attended Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, Calif., graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in two years and having a 4.0 grade point average. Wassgren studied business and law at Oxford University in England.” He is described as now living in Ashland after a lengthy career as a California corporate lawyer. He’s “the grandson of the owners and operators of the Mountain Valley Cheese Factory” and a “fifth generation northlander,” per the Sawyer County newspaper. He has stated his roots in the district are “deep.”

I would say, in the GOP primary, Hermening has the longest ties to the district, followed by Alfonso, and then Wassgren and Ebben. Not counting the strange candidacy of the dog musher.

Personal attacks

The degree of trashing and name-calling Meg is getting on Evita’s comment thread – without Evita’s push back – is unseemly.

It is reminiscent of how their supporters came at me, calling me every name in the book. It’s a bad look. Meg is feisty, can hold her own in a debate, and doesn’t hold back, but she’s been involved in conservative politics since the Tea Party movement and has tirelessly organized many events to help conservatives in northern Wisconsin. Lay off the personal attacks. The “shame on you, liar” crap (posted by Duffy/Alfonso supporters, including some GOP political activists) is unfortunate.

On those articles…

Frankly, Evita’s post simply raised more questions.

Her lengthy post is a helpful, detailed timeline of their post-high school lives, yet she curiously makes no mention of Michael’s storied construction career.

His website claims, “Michael paid his own way through college at UW–Madison by putting on boots and working 10-hour days building houses, paving roads, and laying concrete.” He did all this while getting a math degree. 10-hour days!

He told a news outlet that he worked construction for six years, while adding, “What has experience ever gotten us?” and adding, “I have as much experience as really anyone in this because it’s about life experience.” (He also told a northern Wisconsin legislator he had a career in construction.)

Really? 10 hour days, six years… the math doesn’t work when juxtaposed against Evita’s timeline, unless the work was sporadic..then just tell people that.

As much experience as anyone in the race? C’mon.

GOP candidate Paul Wassgren is a corporate lawyer; Kevin Hermening was a U.S. Marine, Iranian hostage, financial company founder, school board president, and Marathon County GOP chairman; Jessi Ebben worked for local government and rural healthcare; and Niina Baum is a dog musher who started a non-profit (and doesn’t seem very conservative).

Evita’s detailed timeline does little to clear up what exactly Michael has accomplished himself and is doing/has done for a job. While not mentioning the construction at all (I don’t dispute he has done some construction, just unclear exactly how much), she now reveals that he spent some of the almost 8 years since high school helping her with her Federalist columns.

“Michael, as always, helped me with the article,” she writes in the Facebook post at one point.

The post is strewn with links to Federalist columns. The only problem is that Michael’s name isn’t on any of them.
The columns she links to as evidence contain only Evita’s byline.

I ran Michael’s name on the Federalist website, and the only thing that comes up is a short story on AmFest by someone else that mentions him.

Evita’s author page shows that she has written 14 pages of stories for The Federalist since 2020. They are good columns. But her name is on all of them. His name is on none. She writes in the Facebook post that they covered the Kenosha riots together. While I am not disputing that, I will say that her articles on the Kenosha riots for The Federalist list only her name. She uses first-person throughout them, as in, “I also interviewed” etc. She kind of reminds me of myself at that age!

HIS author page on the Federalist has a single story, from February 2026, on New Richmond.

To be candid, if you read her Facebook post with that in mind, it builds a persuasive case for HER resume (writing articles, going on the radio, attending events, talking to Meg, etc.). And far less for his.
He is running for Congress; she isn’t. She also refers to Kaul’s DOJ as Evers’ DOJ.

She says they were in Florida for 14 months working for Bongino in 2024/2025. A July 2024 press release states that Evita was hosting a new podcast called Bongino Report Early Edition with EvitaSM. It started that month. A July 2024 episode of Sean & Rachel’s own podcast says, “Sean and Rachel are joined by the managing producer for ‘The Dan Bongino Show,’ their daughter Evita Duffy-Alfonso to recap the week…” What was Michael’s role in all of this? His website says he was “the producer of one of the nation’s top-rated podcasts, The Dan Bongino Show.” She has declared it a brazen lie to say she was ever his boss, however. I heard she stopped being the managing producer to do the podcast, but that is not fully clear.

It’s great, but again she takes the lead role, and his is less clear.

I am not clear what Michael’s current job is. Or whether he pays rent.

As far as timelines go, Michael did not vote in the 2024 presidential primary election in Florida or Wisconsin. Although Trump’s opponents had withdrawn, they were still on the ballot in Florida, and there were other important races (a senate and congressional primary in Florida, for example. And a Supreme Court race in Wisconsin.) Michael registered to vote in Florida in October 2024 and voted in the 2024 presidential election there, Florida officials confirm.

Evita says they were living in Wausau in April 2020 due to remote schooling during COVID. In 2019, he voted in Madison; in April and May of 2020 in Wausau (in April, he voted absentee, but that makes sense due to Covid); in 2021 in Wausau; in 2022 and 2023 in Madison (he last voted in Wisconsin in April of 2023.)

Look. It is hard to be the candidate’s spouse. Harder than being the candidate himself in some ways. So I give some grace to anyone in that role. Evita is young, smart, and very active online and on social media. She is used to playing the leading role.

But Michael is the candidate. They have campaign staff for these things!

The granular details matter because I am guessing people want to know about the veracity of a person’s resume, and because he has been accused of essentially manufacturing one. He has a resume. You can make of it what you will!

-Jessica (this represents my thoughts only.)