Wisconsin in center of 2022 politics
Big races, close histories spotlight familiar states
Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia were the four closest states in the last presidential race.
They’re also the only four states expected to have top-tier races for both governor and U.S. Senate in next year’s mid-terms.
In short, “ground zero” in American politics in 2022 looks a lot like “ground zero” in 2020.
The Senate races in these battleground states will go a long way toward deciding control of that 50-50 chamber.
And their contests for governor will be doubly important because they will decide who sets the voting rules in states most likely to determine the 2024 presidential race.
In Wisconsin, which has been on a perpetual battleground footing for most of two decades, the last election has quickly blended into the next one.
“There is no question there is more of a permanent campaign now,” said Democratic consultant Joe Zepecki.
Democrats started airing ads against Republican Senator Ron Johnson this past January — almost two years before his seat is on the ballot, even though Johnson is yet to decide whether to seek re-election.
“We’re the most closely divided state in the union… Wisconsin is poised once again to become a national political obsession,” said state Democratic chair Ben Wikler, who noted on Twitter the other day that it was just “602 days until the midterms.”
His GOP counterpart, Republican state chair Andrew Hitt, said he has already met in Wisconsin with advisers to former president Donald Trump to strategize about the 2022 elections, which he expects to bring massive levels of political attention, money, and
effort to the state.
“It’s going to be very intense,” said Hitt. “It’s going to be a game of inches here.”
The Wisconsin elections for president in 2016, governor in 2018 and president in 2020 were each decided by fewer than 30,000 votes.
Questions hang over 2022 landscape
As they are in other top battlegrounds, strategists here are weighing a series of political questions looming over the mid-term that go beyond the familiar (and always important) fundamentals like the state of the economy and the president’s approval ratings:
What will the new congressional and legislative districts look like in the first election after redistricting?
What will be the path of the pandemic and when will it allow a full return to in-person campaigning and organizing?
How will people cast their ballots, and will people who chose to vote by mail during the pandemic in 2020 continue to do so?
How will the voting laws, under bitter dispute by the parties, change in these states?
Can Trump still mobilize Republican voters from the sidelines? Will he still motivate Democrats to turn out against the GOP?
Not least, there’s the simple question of who the major party nominees will be in the marquee statewide races that will dominate the campaign.
The jockeying begins
Democratic incumbent Tony Evers is expected to run for re-election in Wisconsin but hasn’t announced a decision. Former Lt. Gov Rebecca Kleefisch is among those expected to seek the GOP nomination for governor, but it’s unclear how big the GOP field will be.
In the Senate race, two Democrats are already in — Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson and Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry – and others are expected to join.
But the biggest question mark is Johnson, the GOP incumbent who said in 2016 he’d only serve two terms but is weighing whether to seek a third. (Johnson has ruled out a bid for governor).
“I would not be surprised if we get into early 2022 before (Johnson) makes his decision,” said Hitt, the state GOP chair.
If Johnson actually waits that long to decide, it would leave the Senate field deeply unsettled for almost another year and put other would-be Republican Senate candidates on ice, forestalling them from launching their own campaigns.
It also could affect the GOP field in the governor’s race, since some Republicans eyeing a Senate bid might choose to run for governor if Johnson seeks a third term.
Johnson has said repeatedly he feels no urgency to decide.
“It’s not my decision to make. It’s Senator Johnson’s,” said Hitt. “The reality is he is going to make this decision on a time period that works for him.”
That hasn’t stopped Democrats and liberal groups from launching an unusually early volley of ads against Johnson, who has become a national lightning rod and target of criticism over statements he has made about the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol and other subjects.
If he runs, this will make Johnson an especially big fundraising vehicle and spending target for Democrats nationally.
“I think one thing we learned in the last cycle is there is no date that is too early to start getting the word out,” said Wikler of how early the campaign is heating up.
The Democratic National Committee is airing ads in Milwaukee and other battleground markets around the country touting Biden’s $1.9 billion stimulus plan.
A progressive issue advocacy group called Opportunity Wisconsin has put roughly a million dollars behind an ad campaign that started last month criticizing Johnson over his opposition to stimulus checks in the COVID relief plan.
“We’re pushing elected officials to support policies to help Wisconsin families and workers,” said Meghan Roh, the group’s director. “We’ve seen Sen. Johnson as a big barrier to that.”
GOP strategist Keith Gilkes said he doesn’t think those ads will have any impact on Johnson’s political standing, given how far away the election is.
“It’s all predicated on making donors and the grassroots and the base happy,” he said of the early advertising.
Johnson’s is one of just two GOP-held Senate seats in the country in states that voted for Biden last year, meaning the Wisconsin Senate race will be a huge national priority for both sides whether or not Johnson is on the ballot.
Meanwhile, Republicans and conservative groups are eyeing a top congressional target of their own in Wisconsin, 24-year House Democrat Ron Kind of La Crosse. Kind won a narrow victory in 2020. But his western Wisconsin district was carried by Trump twice and is one of just seven House districts in the country that voted Democratic for the U.S. House but Republican for president.
The Trump factor: 2 scenarios
With Trump neither on the ballot (as he was in 2016 and 2020) nor in office (as he was in 2018 and 2020), the former president’s effect on the midterms is a simmering question for both parties.
Republicans would like to believe that Trump’s ability to appeal to and mobilize blue-collar voters and rural voters will carry over beyond his presidency while his baggage with suburban voters and more educated voters will not.
“That’s something Republicans have to wrangle with. How do they walk that line and restore their appeal with suburban women and men and how do they maintain what they gained in rural areas?” Gilkes said.
Because of how polarizing Trump is, Gilkes sees his departure from office as a chance for Republicans to have a “bounce-back in Wisconsin” and an “opportunity to reassert themselves in places where they lost ground.”
Wikler, the Democratic chair, offered the opposite scenario.
“Trump’s absence from the ballot is bad news for Republican turnout. It also looks like the anti-democratic forces he inspired will keep motivating Democrats to show up” and vote, he said.
“I think the big question really is how much activity does the (former) president do?” said Hitt, the state Republican chair.
Hitt said there are things Trump can do “under the radar” to help mobilize his own supporters in the mid-term without inflaming Democratic turnout, such as “using his list and data program to turn voters out.”
“On the other hand, if the (former) President drops into Waukesha, there are going to be pluses and minuses about that,” said Hitt, referring to the big GOP suburban county where Republicans lost ground under Trump.