WI-SEN 2022 Megathread: Who stole my cheese?

[Spectator]

I think Godlewski>Kind>Nelson>Barnes>rich guy.

Kind being in Congress could hurt him compared to someone young and fresh like Godlewski, but he’s also proven himself capable of winning a significant number of Trump voters.

This is still at least tilt R, but I don’t think Johnson being the incumbent is exactly a big help to Republicans in this particular state since he’s probably more of a lightning rod to Democrats than anyone else.

[Spectator]

Johnson is going to run again. Otherwise he wouldn’t keep the dog and pony show going.

[Spectator]

https://host2.adimpact.com/admo/viewer/2d7c9a36-8132-467d-8aab-77346e40ffc6

This ad of Barnes praising the squad and talking about driver license for illegal immigrants is why I always thought he was longshot against Johnson. This is a Bernie acolyte running in a state Biden barely won. Johnson will make this race a referendum on Barnes and he will win in the end.

Yes, Barnes was not the vehicle capable of taking advantage of Johnson’s weaknesses and extremism because he has his weaknesses of his own on that front. Maybe I’m wrong, but I expect Johnson to scare enough people to win again.

[Spectator]

There were other people running but they would have lost too. Godlewski would be easy to portray as a DC insider. Lasry was just lol. Nelson was the one I would have supported but he was not great he's just better than the others

Rob Johnson, born out of state by the way, has served two terms as a Senator and it would be easy to portray Godlweski as a DC insider because she worked for a defense contractor ten years ago, ignoring the fact that she is a fifth generation Wisconsinite with public school teachers for parents and spent the last four years as the state treasurer in Wisconsin? Huh?

Godlewski had her own problems, but probably still would have been a better option than Barnes, for sure. The best candidate would have been Ron Kind.

[Spectator]

https://twitter.com/yesh222/status/1582763358700249088?t=qPr4eA3lvV-SS4d6qQt3Hw&...

I really hope the media looks into what the hell happened in the primary where everyone dropped out weeks before the election and backed Barnes. It seemed very organized and coordinated, did it come from Schumer? Probably the worst Dem Senate candidate for a major race in the past decade.

It’s like the DSCC for some reason decided to poll UW Madison students on who their ideal Senator would be and went with that. The kind of people that think the social justice performative act is a lot more popular than in reality.

[Spectator]

Thinking that the statewide electorate was amenable to someone acting like they were running for UW Madison student body president

[Spectator]

Barnes seems to have failed in portraying Ron Johnson as an elitist insider whose political views are out of touch with the mainstream electorate. Barnes should (have) pressed Johnson on what specific policy proposals he wants to ease economic hartships and tackle inflation (aside from focusing on abortion). And ask Johnson why he hasn't delivered on that already.

Johnson also deserves more flack for breaking his two-term promise. I think this would be very easy to attack him on, or just as a typical pay-for-play politician who only cares about winning reelection.

Now, I'm not sure this would have been enough and I'm not a political organizer who's deeply into Wisconsin specifics, but I feel like this was a missed opportunity. At least to give Johnson a tougher run for his money. The election of course hasn't happened so far, but I don't see Barnes winning anymore. A 52-48% split is probably the best he can hope for at this point.

That was a key missed opportunity too, and it’s probably Johnson’s biggest vulnerabilities that most the electorate could get behind.

[Spectator]

Pretty clear a better candidate like Ron Kind would have won here.

[Spectator]

Yeah what we're not gonna do is say Barnes was some bad candidate. The man was literally left for dead by many on this forum (and the press), and he's making this a 1pt race. It's gonna be really depressing if he gets so close but can't eke it out. He was a good candidate, and clearly energized a lot of voters in WI that I don't think someone like Ron Kind would be able to.

Bland old white guy Tony Evers had no problems energizing a lot of voters and winning swing voters.