WI-SEN 2022 Megathread: Who stole my cheese?

[Brittain33]

“There is no God”-lewski

[Brittain33]

https://apnews.com/article/government-and-politics-wisconsin-senate-elections-election-2020-874003bb009ecf23441d19955a496c84

Barnes is in

[Brittain33]

Ron Johnson says Trump lost due to ticket splitting, perhaps this is an attempt to moderate his image ahead of a re-election bid?

Or he doesn't want his voters discouraged and not turning out because they believe the vote is rigged.

[Brittain33]

I would assume Ron Johnson is looking forward to run against the Wisconsin version of Charles Booker.

Why, because they’re both Black men? Barnes has been Lt. Governor for a full term. Booker was just a state rep.

[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.

[Brittain33]

I have a feeling that any vote Johnson might have gotten for supporting SSM, is forever lost to him because of Dobbs, so he may as well stick with his base.

[Brittain33]

Gay marriage was massively unpopular pre Obergefell.

Obergefell was in 2015, and in 2014 Gallup polled SSM as 55% favorable, 42% unfavorable among the public on a continuous rise.

It may have been massively unpopular among Republicans before Obergefell. It certainly wasn’t among all Americans or independents.

As a same-sex married person who was married when SSM was still unpopular in Massachusetts, I can tell you the tipping point in the country came in 2012.

[Brittain33]

Suggestions for a new thread title?

[Brittain33]

Huh, this is proving difficult.

[Brittain33]

Suggestions for a new thread title?

Stop, stop, he’s already dead

GA-SEN already has a title.