A 26-year-old congressional candidate brought his father-in-law, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, along for a last-minute TV hit ahead of his primary election.
Michael Alfonso, the Trump-endorsed candidate running for Congress in the rural Wisconsin House district Duffy once held, recruited his well-known relative to accompany him for a television interview with NewsNation.
Alfonso has been taking the heat even from Republicans in his own district, who question whether he is truly qualified to be in Congress, as the exact details of his work history, as well as whether he even currently has a job, remain unclear.
When asked to address the nepotism allegation, a visibly defensive Alfonso replied, “I’m not gonna apologize for marrying my middle school sweetheart,” in reference to his wife, Evita Duffy, the eldest of Duffy’s nine children.
“I’m gonna talk about the things that really matter to the voters. I’m the hardest working one; I put 60,000 miles on my car in nine months,” he added.
Duffy also defended his son-in-law’s candidacy against the nepo allegations, pointing to his experience working in construction as evidence he should be in Congress.
“I think it’d be great to have someone who knows how to put on a pair of jeans and a pair of boots and a hard hat and work his butt off 12 hours a day,” Duffy said. “That’s what he’ll do when he goes to Washington, the same thing he’s done here.”
Still, his candidacy seems to be heavily boosted by his in-laws’ connections with the president.
Duffy, who has lived in an affluent New Jersey town with his wife and several of his children since 2021, funneled $1 million from his campaign committee to a super PAC supporting his son-in-law’s campaign for his old congressional seat.
Transportation lobbyists have also poured money into his campaign, an unlikely move given the rural nature of the seat he is running to represent. Some of these donations include $5,000 from Delta Air Lines PAC, $2,500 from Southwest Airlines PAC, and $1,000 from the U.S. Travel Association PAC.
In addition to tagging along for TV hits, Duffy has also been accompanying his son-in-law on the campaign trail, joining him and Evita at a local fair last week, where they passed out Alfonso campaign flyers. His campaign has also been promoted by his mother-in-law, Rachel Campos Duffy, a Fox & Friends weekend host, on her social media accounts.
While Alfonso has never run for elected office, President Donald Trump gave “MAGA Warrior Michael Alfonso,” whom he called a “young ‘STAR,’” his “Complete and Total Endorsement” in the race. Trump additionally was a guest at his wedding to Evita in 2022.
The details of his work history appear to be murky, and it remains unclear whether he is currently working anywhere. The Daily Beast has reached out to Alfonso’s campaign for comment, but has not received a response.
He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in December 2022, records show, but admitted at one point that he “dropped out of school” because he “had enough of the nonsense on college campuses.” He pursued a degree in math because, as he put it, “liberal arts stuff at UW-Madison is a nightmare.”
He also worked in construction, pouring cement as he attended college and after receiving his degree. He and Evita later moved to central Florida to work for The Dan Bongino Show, the podcast of the right-wing conspiracy theorist and former FBI deputy director.
He claims to currently work as a part-time accountant at his local church, but the church does not list him as an employee.
In previous interviews, he has downplayed the importance that work experience provides, and asserted that Trump’s endorsement matters more in the race.
“What has experience ever gotten us?” Alfonso said in a local TV interview earlier this year. “And, I have had experience. I’ve worked since I was 14 years old. I worked in construction for six years. I paid my way through college. And, I do think I have as much experience as really anyone in this because it’s about life experience.”
