Paul Ryan’s Democratic challenger will be in the audience for the State of the Union

Paul Ryan’s Democratic challenger, iron worker and union organizer Randy Bryce, has come to Washington, DC, to look the House speaker in the eye.

Bryce, whose campaign announcement video honing in on Ryan’s Obamacare repeal effort went viral last June, will be sitting in the room for President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech Tuesday night. As the guest of Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI), Bryce is hoping his attendance in the House gallery, juxtaposed with Ryan’s presence behind Trump, will help amplify his campaign message back home.

“They’re working together, and the fact that they’re going to be standing so close to each other — Paul Ryan is literally going to have Donald Trump’s back — which is pretty much the way it’s been going for this past year,” Bryce said.

Pocan’s invitation has already drawn ire from some Wisconsin Republicans. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) said the “spectacle” is “disrespectful and out of bounds.”

But the trip to Washington is part of what has been a growing national campaign to oust Ryan. The Wisconsin Democrat will also be running a new campaign ad blasting Ryan’s work with Trump on the new tax law on MSNBC and CNN during the State of the Union speech. His campaign will be spending $3,000 to run the ad in Wisconsin, and an additional $1,500 to run the ad in both Seattle and San Francisco.

Republicans blasted Bryce, who is not the only Democratic challenger, for the campaign ad this week, saying the Democrat is more interested in raising out-of-state donations than addressing Wisconsin. Bryce’s campaign, however, defended the move by noting Ryan’s own national presence. He is “one of the three most powerful elected officials in the country,” the campaign said, according to the Associated Press.

Bryce was also cited in a New York Times report that noted he had bought more than 1,000 fake Twitter followers in 2015. That info prompted the National Republican Congressional Committee to attack him for having “artificial support.” His campaign said Bryce bought the followers during a personal foray into blogging three years ago, and not as part of any campaign effort.

Bryce, an army veteran, who has dubbed himself “the Iron Stache,” has also been trying to paint Ryan as the “out-of-touch” candidate, attacking him for not holding town halls in the district.

There’s no question that Ryan will be hard to beat in Wisconsin’s first congressional district. He won the district by 35 points in 2016, and has never won a reelection bid by fewer than 11 points; he polled far ahead of Trump in the area. But after a January special election for a Wisconsin state Senate seat, when Democrats managed to comfortably win a rural district that Trump had won by 17 points, Republicans in the state have been on edge.

There are already rumors that Ryan is on his way out. In December, Politico reported that those in Ryan’s inner circle — including fellow lawmakers, aides, intellectuals, and lobbyists — all saw the House Speaker leaving office at the end of 2018. Ryan has brushed off the speculation, saying he doesn’t have plans to leave Congress anytime soon.

He is facing a Republican challenger from the right — Paul Nehlen — an ultra-conservative business owner who failed to oust Ryan in 2016, and doesn’t look to have much of an electoral chance, but once had the support of then-presidential nominee Trump.

With a potentially messy GOP primary and the help of an unpopular president, Democrats are hoping their party’s momentum can carry Bryce to Congress.