Here & Now

Wisconsin's 2022 US Senate Race Takes Shape

Frederica Freyberg:

In electoral politics, incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson announced this week he would in fact run for reelection after vowing he would only serve two terms. He is known for maligning COVID-19 vaccines, has described January 6th as mostly peaceful protests and is a reliable defender of Donald Trump. A dozen Democratic candidates have lined up to run for the seat. Numbers that will narrow to one in an August primary. Wisconsin as usual is in the spotlight with this election regarded as a state to very much watch. Director of the Marquette University Law School poll, Charles Franklin, has some thoughts on this race and he joins us now. Hi, Charles. Happy New Year.

Charles Franklin:

Hey. Happy new year to you.

Frederica Freyberg:

So would you describe Ron Johnson as vulnerable in this election?

Charles Franklin:

Yeah. I think vulnerable is probably the right way to put it. In late October, we asked would you vote to reelect Johnson or vote for someone else. Just 38% said they’d vote to reelect. But we asked the same question about Governor Tony Evers and only 40% said vote to reelect. So I think both incumbents face the need — they’re building from a strong base, but they still need another 10 or 12 points to reach that magic 50% level. Senator Johnson’s favorability is a little bit more unfavorable than favorable now and that has come down over the last three years, sort of steadily. So that puts him in a vulnerable position. But a lot hinges on the campaign between now and next November.

Frederica Freyberg:

How do his strident positions on things like COVID-19 vaccines play in Wisconsin, which is now overrun with infections and hospitalizations?

Charles Franklin:

Right. We’ve asked how much do you trust Senator Johnson for information about COVID and the coronavirus. That’s down in the 30% range that say they trust him. It’s over 50% that say they don’t trust him. Again, Tony Evers is sort of the reverse of that. About 54 or 55% trust him and 30ish or 40% don’t trust him. So Senator Johnson’s positions on that play well with Republican voters, and especially Republican voters who are themselves skeptical of the vaccine. But even among Republicans who have been vaccinated and are concerned about the coronavirus, Senator Johnson’s favorabilities are lower among that group of Republicans. So at the margin it helps him with the base, but maybe hurts him with some of those Republicans that have some doubts about where the party has gone lately. That’s only about 20% of Republicans, so it’s a small minority.

Frederica Freyberg:

Overall, though, as you were mentioning, his poll numbers in your latest polling were under water for favorability, but you said that his base very much favors and supports him.

Charles Franklin:

This is one of the things to watch throughout next year’s elections, is the base of both parties. For Senator Johnson, it’s a Republican base that overwhelmingly likes President Trump, that is skeptical about the 2020 election and at the margin at least more skeptical than the public at large on the vaccine. And Johnson’s standing with them is very strong. But the independents in the state, who are only about 10% of voters, but, hey, we have a lot of close elections where 10% could matter, those folks are more like those Republican skeptics. They’re not as positive towards Senator Johnson, and they’re going to definitely need to be won over if he’s going to win.

Frederica Freyberg:

In 2016 his Democratic challenger in a rematch, Russ Feingold, was polling ahead of Johnson going into that election. Are Wisconsin voters hard to figure?

Charles Franklin:

A little bit. That’s part of my job, is trying to figure the inscrutable voters. The thing about 2016 that I think really needs to be emphasized is that in 2015, a year before the election, Senator Johnson was getting some of his lowest favorability ratings on record. He was well under water, a little more under water than he is now. But over the next 12 months to the election, he steadily improved those ratings until he was net positive by November, and while Feingold led the race through the winter and the spring, through late summer, all the way to election day, we saw in our polling Johnson closing the gap and closing it to the point where it was a dead heat in the last polls before election day. And of course he ended up winning by just over three percentage points.

Frederica Freyberg:

So meanwhile lots of money pouring into this election race and the one for governor. Who is your money on in that race for governor?

Charles Franklin:

Oh well, I think there we also see a close race. At this point Rebecca Kleefisch is the only — as far as I know — officially-declared candidate, unless something changed in the last few hours. Here we’re seeing the money flowing into both of those campaigns. We’ve not done any polling on that race yet except, as I said, that reelect number for the governor, 40% would reelect, a little over 50% would vote for somebody else and others say they don’t know what they would do. So I expect we’re going to see two very close races here. But it’s interesting that both incumbents of two different parties are nevertheless down there around 40%. It shows that voters are grumpy and they’re kind of grumpy with both of the incumbents right now.

Frederica Freyberg:

The grumpy electorate. Charles Franklin, thank you so much for joining us.

Charles Franklin:

Thank you.