For Democrats, 2022 was supposed to be the year they finally ousted Sen. Ron Johnson(R-WI). They’ll have to keep waiting.
On Wednesday afternoon, Democratic candidate Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes lost the race to Johnson, according to three major networks. Barnes trailed Johnson by less than two percentage points.
For Republicans, Johnson’s victory is a relief. They would have been hard-pressed to capture the U.S. Senate majority if Democrats had flipped this seat. Deep-pocketed GOP groups spent heavily to ensure that didn't happen dumping over $50 million in attack ads against Barnes.
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Meanwhile, Democrats still have a viable path to holding the Senate majority thanks to their flip of Pennsylvania. But they will be disappointed by their failure to beat the only Republican incumbent on the ballot this November representing a state Joe Biden carried in 2020—especially given their unexpectedly strong performance in this election.
Undoubtedly adding to the sting is that Johnson isn’t just any incumbent—but one that Democrats especially loathe, thanks to his enthusiastic embrace of hard-edged Trumpism and his slide into conspiracies about COVID-19 and the 2020 election. In a GOP majority, Johnson could serve as the chairman of the Senate oversight panel and act as an especially surly antagonist of the Biden administration on Capitol Hill.
In January, Johnson announced he was seeking a third term despite promising to only serve two; he wrote in the Wall Street Journal that he wanted to retire, but that “the country is in too much peril.”
While Democrats ideally had wanted an open seat race in Wisconsin, they were bullish on defeating Johnson because of his perceived vulnerabilities. Barnes, the state lieutenant governor, entered the Democratic primary as a favorite and ultimately cleared a field stocked with competitive candidates.
Democrats saw Barnes, a Black progressive, as the one with the most charismatic appeal and fundraising ability to mount a winning challenge. While Barnes outraised Johnson, the final months of the campaign saw Johnson and his allies badly outgun Barnes on the TV airwaves and saturating the state with ads attacking Barnes over crime.
Many Wisconsin observers noted the racial undertones of the crime-focused ads against a younger, Black Democrat. While Democrats largely planned to focus their attacks more on Johnson’s anti-government spending orthodoxy, in the closing weeks of the race, they ran ads highlighting his remarks downplaying the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
By September, polls showed Barnes’ lead eroding, and Johnson was the favorite heading into Election Day as Democrats nationwide braced for tough losses. While Wisconsin has elected progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans in recent years, the GOP attack ad onslaught may have been decisive in securing another term for Johnson.
