Democrat Mandela Barnes, who is serving as Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor, is unlike any other Democratic candidate this cycle, and he’s especially unlike any other Democrat running in a state as purple and polarized as Wisconsin. An unabashed progressive who touts endorsements from left-leaning Democrats like New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Vermont’s independent Senator Bernie Sanders, Barnes has continued advocating for racial justice and confronting climate change while many in the Democratic Party have become more tentative in hopes of avoiding  “defund the police” rhetoric and an increase in energy prices. This leaves him isolated in the Badger State, which has swung towards Republicans in recent years, especially at the state level.

He faces a man emblematic of Wisconsin’s modern pivot to the right in incumbent Republican Senator Ron Johnson. Having promised in the past to only seek two terms, Johnson declined to retire and opted to seek a third term this cycle, fulfilling Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s wish not to have to contest another open seat. Johnson is among the most prolific disciples of misinformation in the Republican conference, falsely claiming that the COVID-19 vaccine is responsible for deaths among athletes; touting the unrecommended drug hydroxychloroquine as treatment for the disease, downplaying the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 (it “didn’t seem like an armed insurrection,” he claimed about something which was very much an armed insurrection); and – of course – lying about the actual outcome of the 2020 election. 

This last item in particular deserves some additional emphasis as the Badger State is at the center of many of the baseless conspiracies about the 2020 election. For starters, following Biden’s win of both the national election and the state of Wisconsin, Johnson made unsubstantiated claims about the level of fraud, noting there has “always been some voter fraud that the mainstream media and unfortunately, many officials just simply ignore.” He was unable to provide any examples and instead noted that “I’m not alleging anything because I have no proof.” The former Republican Chair of Brown County (home to Green Bay), Mark Becker, claims that Johnson even admitted to him that he knew the election was not fraudulent and was too fearful of Trump’s base to say so (Johnson denies this). By mid-December, Johnson acknowledged that the election was legitimate, said he’d vote to certify it, and – still acting as chair of the Homeland Security Committee – said that the alleged election fraud was not at a scale that would have changed the outcome of the election anyway. A couple weeks later, he decided to change his mind again and vote against the certification of the Electoral College… but after the Capitol was stormed, he ultimately voted for certification. It’s since come out that Johnson tried to hand fake Wisconsin and Michigan electors to Mike Pence on the 6th so, there’s also the chance Ron Johnson is the most confused and deranged man in Washington.

Johnson finds himself in a bit of hot water on the regular, famously noting that he didn’t fear for his safety during the storming of the Capitol but that he might have if they were “Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters” (a quote he prefaced by saying “this is going to get me in trouble”). Polls seem to point to a close, even Democrat-favoring Senate race this cycle. Maybe Democrats can woo more women to the polls in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned – something that appears to be a strong motivator in the Midwest. Maybe Barnes’ progressive appeal can deliver on a hypothetical left-leaning strategy to provide a blueprint for victory in working class, white, Republican-leaning states. But polling errors have historically plagued the Badger State, showing eight point leads for Biden in 2020 which turned out to be way off as Biden ended up winning by just over half of a percent. That makes Barnes’ average lead of two points seem far riskier, doesn’t it?

Wisconsin is almost irrefutably the most important state from an electoral standpoint (save for possibly Georgia) and it has been for most of the last decade. It was the tipping point state (the state that delivered the decisive 270th electoral vote) in 2020 and in 2016, though its narrow margin for Biden in 2020 actually represented Republicans’ largest Electoral College edge in 70 years. Yet, there are few states whose consistent path towards one party has seemed as obvious as Wisconsin, and that’s why, despite Johnson’s obvious hypocrisies and scandals and the supposed Democratic odds, we rate this race Lean Republican. 

As we’ve unpacked at length on this site before, Wisconsin is characteristic of what we’ve dubbed the “Midwestern Reality.” It (like so much of the Midwest) has moved decisively to the right as its college graduates flee, its growth slows, racial animus hits breaking points, and its predominantly white voters are wooed by the conspiratorial wing of the Republican Party. Ron Johnson isn’t an outlier; a quick drive outside of Wisconsin’s urban centers depicts a part of America very much on board with his message not because they believe it, but because it captures the pervasive aim of negative partisanship: antagonizing Democrats for the sake of it. Compromise isn’t desired here. In fact, it is the antithesis of politics in America’s Dairyland. In 2021, we wrote that “there may be no state more reflective of America’s political divide than Wisconsin. It is a state trapped in brinkmanship and partisan rancour, a place where romanticization about middle America has enabled complacency and made this confrontation mainstream, where rage against the ‘elite’ is alive and well, and where resentment against what America really looks like has fomented for decades. It’s unfortunate we can and must make this same observation in 2022, tipping the odds ever-so-slightly in favor of Johnson.

See all 2022 Senate Ratings | Methodology