The expansive 12th State Senate District runs from Oconto Falls in the south to the U.P. border.
The incumbent is Republican Tom Tiffany of Hazelhurst. Up until Wednesday, two Democrats were lining up for the position to challenge Tiffany in the November election. That changed when former school district administrator Dave Polashek withdrew his candidacy.
Polashek says he was looking forward to the campaign, but not to a primary election in August against a person from the same party....
".....it just did not make sense to go through a primary to select a candidate to run against Tiffany.. I had hoped we wouldn't have a primary, but we do, so it didn't make sense to go forward with that...."
Recently a second candidate joined the race. Bryan Van Stippen of Deerbrook originally got into the 35th District Assembly race, but withdrew from that race to run for the 12th State Senate seat. Van Stippen issued a statement, saying he and Polashek are friends and he is sad to hear of his withdrawl, saying he values Polashek’s deep experience in areas such as education.
Polashek says he will continue to work on issues such as local control and education.
