WI-SEN 2022 Megathread: Who stole my cheese?

[Xing]

he is a competent and smart dude

I am being completely serious here: What has he said/done to make you think this? I honestly don't get this view.

It might just be the 2016 PTSD talking, but I don’t want to underestimate Johnson again.

[ProgressiveModerate]

he is a competent and smart dude

I am being completely serious here: What has he said/done to make you think this? I honestly don't get this view.

I think admittedly some of it might just be cause of 2016 hysteria, however, compared to a lot of these Rs, the ads he's running and stuff actually seem quite solid and shift the focus away from his statements and paint him in a very positive light. He's also good at feeding into people's fear without being over the top MTG level about it.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Okay, but really, what is this campaign that Johnson is running this year?

https://twitter.com/HeartlandSignal/status/1565403359120596992

I was literally coming to this thread to share this exact same tweet.

One of the RoJo ads that's running right now is a pair of retired Wisconsinites, talking about how Johnson is the right person to protect them. I just. What even.

It's always projection.

[Koharu]

he is a competent and smart dude

I am being completely serious here: What has he said/done to make you think this? I honestly don't get this view.

It might just be the 2016 PTSD talking, but I don’t want to underestimate Johnson again.

Definitely agree with that--I tend to think that Johnson will probably win. He's a savvy enough politician. I just don't think e's necessarily smart or competent, and whenever he speaks he generally says stuff that indicates he's not particularly smart. One can be good at politicking while not being particularly good at the job one is campaigning for.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

Just made a $15 donation to Barnes, this would be a huge seat if we won it and make the difference from incremental and real change.

[ProgressiveModerate]

he is a competent and smart dude

I am being completely serious here: What has he said/done to make you think this? I honestly don't get this view.

It might just be the 2016 PTSD talking, but I don’t want to underestimate Johnson again.

Definitely agree with that--I tend to think that Johnson will probably win. He's a savvy enough politician. I just don't think e's necessarily smart or competent, and whenever he speaks he generally says stuff that indicates he's not particularly smart. One can be good at politicking while not being particularly good at the job one is campaigning for.

Yeah I think that's a fair assessment. Some of it has to do with his internal team as well as they control a lot of the public optics.

[Mr. Smith]

Tbf, Feingold was a very hit-and-miss campaigner who literally already almost blew 1998, might well have been saved by Gingrich's overreach.

In 2010, he ran a bit lazily and got outspent.

And in 2016, iirc, he broke principles and started doing that "dark money" thing.

Who knows if RoJo actually still wins 2016 if say, Feingold did the correct thing and ran in 2012 and say, Tammy Baldwin is 2016.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

My question is where does Barnes make up ground from Biden? I'm sure Johnson does worse in Waukesha county than his 69% in 2016 but I still think he does better than Trump's 59% in 2020. The driftless is rapidly trending away from Democrats, and Barnes isn't the best candidate to appeal there. That leaves us with Dane which he probably does well there but will it be enough ? There is Milwaukee but he will have to do better than Biden there. The Milwaukee metro isn't very big actually - it is comparable to Pittsburgh.

[ProgressiveModerate]

My question is where does Barnes make up ground from Biden? I'm sure Johnson does worse in Waukesha county than his 69% in 2016 but I still think he does better than Trump's 59% in 2020. The driftless is rapidly trending away from Democrats, and Barnes isn't the best candidate to appeal there. That leaves us with Dane which he probably does well there but will it be enough ? There is Milwaukee but he will have to do better than Biden there. The Milwaukee metro isn't very big actually - it is comparable to Pittsburgh.

Blue Milwaukee is about 1/8th of the state and Madison about 1/10th so a swing is not enough for Barnes, they’d need to have the lowest drop off in turnout.

Perhaps Barnes could overpform in Kenosha and Racine? In 2020, it seems like the riots def had an impact on how they voted keeping arguably keeping both counties in Trump’s favor and barely budging from 2016 despite demographically one would have expected them to swing slightly left.

Overall, rural areas and small towns really are what dominates WI, but the state is competitive due to many of the rurals being relatively light R and Dems insane margins out of Dane County.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

My question is where does Barnes make up ground from Biden? I'm sure Johnson does worse in Waukesha county than his 69% in 2016 but I still think he does better than Trump's 59% in 2020. The driftless is rapidly trending away from Democrats, and Barnes isn't the best candidate to appeal there. That leaves us with Dane which he probably does well there but will it be enough ? There is Milwaukee but he will have to do better than Biden there. The Milwaukee metro isn't very big actually - it is comparable to Pittsburgh.

Blue Milwaukee is about 1/8th of the state and Madison about 1/10th so a swing is not enough for Barnes, they’d need to have the lowest drop off in turnout.

Perhaps Barnes could overpform in Kenosha and Racine? In 2020, it seems like the riots def had an impact on how they voted keeping arguably keeping both counties in Trump’s favor and barely budging from 2016 despite demographically one would have expected them to swing slightly left.

Overall, rural areas and small towns really are what dominates WI, but the state is competitive due to many of the rurals being relatively light R and Dems insane margins out of Dane County.

That should scare Dems, because if rural Wisconsin starts voting like rural Minnesota let alone Iowa, then it becomes a comfortably red state.

[Xing]

My question is where does Barnes make up ground from Biden? I'm sure Johnson does worse in Waukesha county than his 69% in 2016 but I still think he does better than Trump's 59% in 2020. The driftless is rapidly trending away from Democrats, and Barnes isn't the best candidate to appeal there. That leaves us with Dane which he probably does well there but will it be enough ? There is Milwaukee but he will have to do better than Biden there. The Milwaukee metro isn't very big actually - it is comparable to Pittsburgh.

I could see Barnes doing slightly better than Biden in Driftless (though worse than Feingold) for the simple fact that trends at the statewide level lag a bit behind presidential trends. It’s the same reason why I’d expect Johnson to do better than Trump in the WOW counties. He could also do marginally better in some rural parts of the state. Overall, a lot is going to come down to turnout, though.

And while yes, rural WI voting like rural PA would be terrible news for Democrats, Waukesha and Ozaukee voting like suburbs in other states would be awful for Republicans, though these aren’t things we can expect to happen for certain, since each state is unique.

[ProgressiveModerate]

My question is where does Barnes make up ground from Biden? I'm sure Johnson does worse in Waukesha county than his 69% in 2016 but I still think he does better than Trump's 59% in 2020. The driftless is rapidly trending away from Democrats, and Barnes isn't the best candidate to appeal there. That leaves us with Dane which he probably does well there but will it be enough ? There is Milwaukee but he will have to do better than Biden there. The Milwaukee metro isn't very big actually - it is comparable to Pittsburgh.

Blue Milwaukee is about 1/8th of the state and Madison about 1/10th so a swing is not enough for Barnes, they’d need to have the lowest drop off in turnout.

Perhaps Barnes could overpform in Kenosha and Racine? In 2020, it seems like the riots def had an impact on how they voted keeping arguably keeping both counties in Trump’s favor and barely budging from 2016 despite demographically one would have expected them to swing slightly left.

Overall, rural areas and small towns really are what dominates WI, but the state is competitive due to many of the rurals being relatively light R and Dems insane margins out of Dane County.

That should scare Dems, because if rural Wisconsin starts voting like rural Minnesota let alone Iowa, then it becomes a comfortably red state.

Many of it's rurals already are pretty deep red, at least relatively for it's geographical region. It's really driftless and the rurals around Madison that are the lighter red rurals. Places like Eau Claire and  La Crosse seem unlikely to start voting red themselves, but both def have spheres of influence that are quite large and those rural areas Rs also have a lot of room.

Of the "big 3", I think Wisconsin has the greatest chance of going the route of Ohio because of how rural the state is. MI and PA will always have counter shifts in cities that are more likely to cancel further R gains with rural voters out.

It's also notable that WI rurals aren't losing as badly as many of the states around it and infact some are growing.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

My question is where does Barnes make up ground from Biden? I'm sure Johnson does worse in Waukesha county than his 69% in 2016 but I still think he does better than Trump's 59% in 2020. The driftless is rapidly trending away from Democrats, and Barnes isn't the best candidate to appeal there. That leaves us with Dane which he probably does well there but will it be enough ? There is Milwaukee but he will have to do better than Biden there. The Milwaukee metro isn't very big actually - it is comparable to Pittsburgh.

Blue Milwaukee is about 1/8th of the state and Madison about 1/10th so a swing is not enough for Barnes, they’d need to have the lowest drop off in turnout.

Perhaps Barnes could overpform in Kenosha and Racine? In 2020, it seems like the riots def had an impact on how they voted keeping arguably keeping both counties in Trump’s favor and barely budging from 2016 despite demographically one would have expected them to swing slightly left.

Overall, rural areas and small towns really are what dominates WI, but the state is competitive due to many of the rurals being relatively light R and Dems insane margins out of Dane County.

That should scare Dems, because if rural Wisconsin starts voting like rural Minnesota let alone Iowa, then it becomes a comfortably red state.

He replicates Tammy Baldwin margins, lol Barnes has lead in every poll stop Dooming on Barnes even TRAFALGAR has Barnes up 2 he and Evers ran as a  team and beat Scott Walker and Prez Obama with Veep Biden won WI in 2008/12, Obama endorses Barnes in 2018 as LT Gov

[Brittain33]

My question is where does Barnes make up ground from Biden? I'm sure Johnson does worse in Waukesha county than his 69% in 2016 but I still think he does better than Trump's 59% in 2020. The driftless is rapidly trending away from Democrats, and Barnes isn't the best candidate to appeal there. That leaves us with Dane which he probably does well there but will it be enough ? There is Milwaukee but he will have to do better than Biden there. The Milwaukee metro isn't very big actually - it is comparable to Pittsburgh.

Blue Milwaukee is about 1/8th of the state and Madison about 1/10th so a swing is not enough for Barnes, they’d need to have the lowest drop off in turnout.

Perhaps Barnes could overpform in Kenosha and Racine? In 2020, it seems like the riots def had an impact on how they voted keeping arguably keeping both counties in Trump’s favor and barely budging from 2016 despite demographically one would have expected them to swing slightly left.

Overall, rural areas and small towns really are what dominates WI, but the state is competitive due to many of the rurals being relatively light R and Dems insane margins out of Dane County.

That should scare Dems, because if rural Wisconsin starts voting like rural Minnesota let alone Iowa, then it becomes a comfortably red state.

Conversely, if suburban Wisconsin starts voting like suburban Minnesota, it rebalances. We’ll see if abortion rights is a factor or not that eclipses defending racial segregation as a motivator.

[wbrocks67]

Hasn't Barnes made it a point of his campaign to be in more rural areas?

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

The users act like Tammy Baldwin didn't beat Tommy Thompson 2012, she didn't have a real opponent in 2018 but she did beat Tommy Thompson and Obama won WI, Paul Ryan was selected as Romney running mate to win WI and CO and Romney failed

There was a real chance that Romney was gonna win VA too but whom came to Obama rescue Veep Joe Biden he beat Ryan in the Debate, and Biden is Prez now

If Tammy Baldwin can beat Tommy Thompson so can Mandela Barnes but Rs have no problem with Tim Scott or Walker or Clarence Thomas.or Sure Woodbury infamous Larry Elder win Cali recall

Herschel Walker may in fact win he isn't Trumpian that's why we need WI, PA, OH either NC or FL so D's can have 53 votes and Rs can't win back Sen in 2024 with OH, MT and WVA, Gwen Graham is probably gonna run against Rick Scott especially if Demings beat Rubio and she is tied like BEASLEY is, in NC there is a 3rd party spoiler

If we don't win NC or FL IN or IA can flip with OH we have plenty of seats in play for Sen it's a Prez map

[Koharu]

Hasn't Barnes made it a point of his campaign to be in more rural areas?

Yes. He's also been pretty gung-ho about talking about the value of farmers, which people eat up despite under 12% of workers actually being employed in ag jobs.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

538 has upgraded Barnes chances to 47% and BEASLEY 37% and Ryan 25% they have GA 50% but it's a Runoff state NC, OH, and WI will flip before GA because it's more likely WARNOCK is going to a runoff I think that's why users like Sir Muhammad thinks WI is Lean R but it's a 303 map and WI not GA gets us over 270

Like in 24, it's more likely we won OH or FL or NC because we have Gov race in NC and key Senate races in OH and FL, GA doesn't have a SEN race until 26 and Ossoff will win

[Progressive Pessimist]

For lack of anything else to watch last night, I ended up catching Barnes doing a short interview with Ali Velshi last night on MSNBC, and from the sounds of it he has a really excellent message going. He is already pouncing on Ron Johnson's retiree comments and trying to paint him as someone who, in his 12 years in Washington, has only ever helped his dark money interests. I'm really impressed with how he has been campaigning so far...I just don't know if I trust Wisconsin to be receptive to it.

[walleye26]

Regarding the rurals-I’ve mentioned this before, but with the exception of the Driftless, I don’t think the northern Wisconsin rurals can get much more R because of high Native American populations and retired Twin Cities/Chicago liberals. Places like Rusk County (where Biden got 31%), Taylor County (25%), Langlade (33%), Oconto (28%), Florence (26%), Polk (35%), Barron (36%) are all pretty heavily red. In places like Barron County, you have increasing Somali populations which are starting to register to vote, and rural areas like Sawyer County, Vilas County, Bayfield County, and Ashland County all have <10% Native populations that vote heavily D. Sprinkle in some retired Liberals in places like Minocqua, Spooner, Hayward, and Solon Springs, plus a few teachers & government employees and you should have a Dem floor of about 25% in most of those places.

However, the Driftless is a place that could cause some trouble for Wisconsin Democrats…if places like Crawford, Vernon, and Lafayette vote 70% R that’s a different story. I somewhat expect trends in places like Ozaukee County to balance that out, but we will see.

[Ferguson97]

https://twitter.com/igorbobic/status/1567545742381797376

[wbrocks67]

He either doesn't care at this point or is actively trying to lose.

[SnowLabrador]

Even if he's trying to lose (which I don't buy at all), he might still win. Wisconsin's getting redder.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

No one cares about ssm. If he loses it will be because of ss statements and election denialism

[ProgressiveModerate]

Why do folks treat WI as such a different animal than MI or PA? All 3 states have had similar voting history for quite and while yes, Wisconsin definitely has the densest rurals, the MI/WI/PA have also remained pretty tight knit for 2 decades now.

Sure in the future, I could see the argument that WI is the most likely to start zooming right, but so far there haven't been any elections which have really suggested WI is suddenly gonna be like 5 points to the right of PA.