MILWAUKEE — For months, Wisconsin Republicans telegraphed their eagerness for Mandela Barnes, the state’s first Black lieutenant governor, to be the Democratic candidate to tackle Sen. Ron Johnson.
Johnson’s GOP allies are already on the attack, aligning Barnes, a 35-year-old progressive, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and calling him too “radical’’ for the purple state.
But Johnson’s own strategy involves a more urgent task: rehabilitating his image.
“I’m trying to tell people who I am. I’m pretty proud of what I’ve accomplished in life, both in the private sector and as a United States senator,” Johnson advised NBC News in an interview Tuesday. “I’d much rather lead with that — I’d much rather win based on that message.”
Johnson’s skill to reintroduce himself in a extra constructive mild — his favorability has been on a regular decline since 2019 amongst voters right here — is essential to Republicans’ technique to retain a Senate seat that would in the end decide management of the chamber the place Vice President Kamala Harris is the tie-breaking vote.
Several Johnson aides and allies stated the senator has privately fumed over Democrats’ depiction of him as a Washington insider who’s profited off of his place and misplaced contact with the typical Wisconsinite — a message that Barnes is now serving to steer.
“Lies and distortions are effective, they’re very good at it,” Johnson stated, referring to Democrats. “I don’t want to engage in the politics of personal destruction. I will not become what they’ve become.”
At the identical time, the two-term senator can’t danger alienating members of his personal social gathering if he’s to have any likelihood of survival in November; motivating a robust base turnout will likely be important to victory within the battleground state. In the newest Marquette Law School ballot, launched Wednesday, Barnes opened a seven-point lead in opposition to Johnson. Barnes garnered 51% help of these surveyed whereas Johnson had 44% help, based on the ballot that had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 p.c. In June, Johnson trailed Barnes by simply two factors, 46% to 44%, throughout the margin of error.“Barnes is getting a nice post-primary bump — not with partisans,” Marquette Law School ballot director Charles Franklin said in a livestream presentation of the brand new ballot. “He’s getting it from independents.”
And regardless of the early zeal to compete in opposition to Barnes, Republicans are additionally approaching their Wisconsin technique with some warning, with some privately acknowledging they’ve discovered classes from Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s January 2021 win in Georgia. In that marketing campaign, Republicans depicted Warnock as a radical and liberal — the identical assault the GOP already launched in opposition to Barnes.
Johnson’s first TV ad targeted on his private biography, highlighting to the Dairy State residents he’s served since 2010 that he spent his youthful years delivering newspapers and bailing hay on his uncle’s farm earlier than marrying his spouse, now of 45 years, and transferring to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to run a enterprise along with her brother. More constructive adverts specializing in his biography and his file within the Senate are to come back, based on his marketing campaign. It’s messaging that Johnson, who personally writes many of his personal adverts, hopes will blunt what he views as Barnes’ try to grab the mantle because the candidate with the “working class” bonafides.
Johnson’s persona, in the meantime, has been more and more outlined by the controversial headlines he routinely captures over his statements on points like abortion, his perpetuation of doubtful and unproven Covid remedies, and even the current FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump’s residence. Many of these headlines, he fees, are a consequence of his opponents and the media purposely contorting his phrases in an effort to demonize him. Johnson has additionally intently aligned himself with Trump, who gained Wisconsin in 2016 however narrowly misplaced in 2020. This week, nonetheless, Johnson sidestepped questions on whether or not he’d invite Trump to marketing campaign with him within the fall.
A marketing campaign aide stated Johnson is most unnerved by Democrats’ depiction of him as a “billionaire bogeyman in it for himself” and at photographs at his integrity, together with two ethics complaints that had been lodged in opposition to him. One, questioning his flights to Florida from Wisconsin, was dismissed. Still pending is a complaint over a $280,000 gift to a chief of staff – the funds, based on his marketing campaign, had been meant to cowl the longtime worker’s most cancers remedies.
Johnson marketing campaign spokeswoman Alexa Henning stated in a assertion to NBC News that these had been reliable items from the senator’s private funds that had been totally disclosed.
“He is confident that this frivolous complaint, like a prior complaint filed by a Democrat operative that was dismissed last month, will be dismissed because he has done absolutely nothing wrong, and in fact, has been a faithful steward of taxpayer dollars,” Henning stated. “This is another pathetic and disgusting attempt by the Democrats and their allies in the media to smear the senator’s character and integrity.”
Still, detrimental TV adverts focusing on Barnes are additionally on deck. On Friday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is predicted to roll out an assault focusing on Barnes. And Johnson stated he in the end plans “to tell the truth about Mandela Barnes and it won’t be very favorable.”
Barnes’ marketing campaign didn’t instantly remark.
Still, GOP operatives within the state acknowledge issues that anti-Warnock attacks might have helped encourage turnout amongst Black voters in Georgia who got here out in file numbers, fueling his victory. Black voters make up about one third of Georgia’s citizens, which is much bigger than in Wisconsin, the place Black voter turnout was down overall in 2016 and 2020.
“Warnock was really instructive,” stated the Republican near the Johnson marketing campaign who was not licensed to talk on the file. Just because the Georgia runoff elections had been underway in early January 2021, Trump false election claims reached a fever pitch. The Washington Post published details of an “extraordinary” name between the then president Georgia’s secretary of state asking him to seek out “11,780 votes” from the 2020 election. “It was paired with the Trump stuff being at an all-time high. That was a fatal combination. Here, it’s not a deep-seated fear but an understanding that you gotta make sure you do this the right way. Democrats will try to play the race card every time.”
Asked if there have been racial sensitivities at play within the contest, Johnson stated, “Not on my part. I hope nobody brings race into this. I actually value what Dr. Martin Luther King talked about in his speech — that we need to judge people by the content of their character not by the color of their skin.”
Johnson has managed tall electoral duties earlier than. In 2016, he was anticipated to lose to Russ Feingold, the previous Wisconsin senator however he pulled out a victory.
However, Franklin stated Johnson had lifted his unfavorables by this level within the race in 2016. Franklin additionally stated that, wanting within the arc of the surveys he’s taken since then, the quantity of individuals unfamiliar with Johnson — and who should be persuadable — has shrunken to about 15%. And the quantity of those that maintain an unfavorable view of Johnson has grown.
“That’s not just one poll,” Franklin stated of Johnson’s unfavorability. “That’s all the polls showing a really steady trend in this.”
Franklin referred to as Wisconsin Republicans “a strong Trumpy party” however stated that about one-third of them had been “not on that Trump train.”
Some operatives in each events expressed shock that Johnson’s crew hadn’t begun focusing on Barnes earlier, utilizing his fundraising benefit to outline Barnes — even perhaps the week earlier than the first, when three of Barnes’ opponents dropped from the race, clearing his path to the Democratic nomination.
One Wisconsin Republican near Johnson stated in an interview that there was some expectation among the many GOP that an out of doors political committee would have taken on that job. A Democratic marketing campaign operative who was not licensed to talk publicly on the matter stated that would have been a deadly misstep in what’s anticipated to be a shut race.
“It does appear that Republicans missed an opportunity,” the operative stated. “If Mandela goes on to win, I think we will go back to the July and August period where they gave him a pass.”