WI-SEN 2022 Megathread: Who stole my cheese?

[Meatball Ron]

why is the democratic field in this race so mute compared to the other big senate races?

I mean, Godlewski is a state row officer, young, telegenic, and outran Evers/Barnes and Kaul in 2018. She’s not getting a lot of buzz for some reason but I don’t really see why she isn’t a top tier candidate.

[Meatball Ron]

I also wonder why Barnes isn't a great candidate??

What makes Barnes such a bad candidate?

Who said he was? I think he's probably the strongest candidate the Dems can put up here (Kind is probably equally strong, but he's not running)

[Meatball Ron]

Yeah, Johnson not running for re-election actually hurts Democrats unless the GOP runs an extremely boring candidate.

Lean R -> Likely R.

How so? If Johnson ends up not running, this is straight tossup.

Johnson is more likely to lose a general election than someone like Mike Gallagher. Of course, this will be a very hard seat for Democrats to win in the likely 2022 environment.

I know this is the conventional wisdom on the site, because Johnson is "toxic" or "extreme" or "an insurrectionist" or whatever (these are all accurate labels; the scare quotes were to imply that they don't matter electorally). But do we have any real evidence that it's true? Given his over-performance in 2016, and the innate advantages of incumbency, and his presumable popularity among Trump voters...I'm just not sure he's any weaker than Gallagher or whomever the WI GOP would put up. MT Treasurer has made some good posts on this point and could probably argue it better than me.

[Meatball Ron]

Why are people so against Barnes on Atlas? He seems like he’d do as well as Godlewksi, and seems to have a better campaign message than her.

I’ve answered this one many times on this board before, but again, here goes:
1) he has a history of neglecting to pay taxes and fees; he had many unpaid and delinquent taxes on his condos in Milwaukee
2) he lied about his college degree
3) his comments about the Kenosha shooting were quite harsh and anti-police
4) he has a somewhat complex relationship with the black establishment in Milwaukee; he was a state rep for awhile, but then tried to challenge another black state senator and got pretty handily crushed.

My brother said recently he talked with a friend who pretty high up in the WISDems, and his friend told him that it looks as though they will consolidate pretty quickly behind Barnes. Kind isn’t running, and Godlewski lived in DC until 2017 so she would be portrayed as a DC insider. They really don’t have a better option.

Obviously you are in the ground in WI and I am not, but other than maybe #3, these items (especially #4) seem like thing that will ruffle feathers in political circles but not matter to real life voters.

Godlewski feels like a paper tiger to me and I think Barnes has the potential to be really strong (though this race is still an uphill battle).