Senators face re-election challenges
Several issues confronting Johnson, Baldwin
It has been 77 years since Wisconsin voters rejected a U.S. senator after just one term in office.
But that streak will be tested twice in the next three years.
Wisconsin has two firstterm senators, and in both cases their second encounter with the voters is likely to be more perilous than their first.
Republican Ron Johnson is widely seen as one of the Senate’s most endangered members in 2016. He trailed potential Democratic challenger Russ Feingold by the startling margin of 16 points (38% to 54%) in a recent poll by the Marquette University Law School.
Democrat Tammy Baldwin will be on the ballot two years later, in 2018. And while it’s crazy to handicap a race three years away against an unknown opponent in an unforeseeable political climate, she has her own political challenges, including a wave of bad publicity over the way she
handled reports of abuses at thetomahvamedicalcenter.
Johnson and Baldwin don’t have much in common politically. In fact, they are the ultimate Senate odd couple. The two are further apart ideologically than any other pair of senators from the same state, according to a congressional rating system widely used by political scientists.
But when you examine their vulnerabilities, you find some intriguing parallels. And they help explain why Wisconsin’s next two Senate races are almost certain to be among the hottest in the country:
Dangers of six-year cycle. Both Wisconsin senators won their seats under very favorable election conditions.
Baldwin ran in a presidential year (2012), when sky-high turnouts tend to favor Democrats because they produce a more diverse electorate. Helping fuel her victory was President Barack Obama’s 7-point margin at the top of the ticket.
Johnson ran in a midterm (2010), when turnout is lower and the electorate is whiter and older and better for Republicans. In fact, it was the best year for Republicans in Wisconsin in more than seven decades.
But because senators serve six years, a candidate who wins office on a presidential ballot must run for re-election on a midterm ballot— and vice versa.
This makes the second election a potential turnout trap for first-term senators like Johnson and Baldwin.
The Wisconsin electorate was10% nonwhite when Johnson won in 2010, but 14% nonwhite when Baldwin won in 2014, according to exit polls. Voters under 30 were 15% of the electorate in 2010 but 21% in 2012. Conservatives made up a bigger share of voters in 2010 than they did in 2012. And liberals made up a bigger share of voters in 2012 than they did in 2010.
The turnout differences between midterm and presidential elections won’t automatically dictate the outcomes of the 2016 and 2018 Senate races here. But they do mean that in this one important respect, conditions will be less favorable for the incumbents in their second election than they were in their first one.
Polarization. One reason that Wisconsin senators Herb Kohl, Russ Feingold and Bill Proxmire were able to win multiple terms in past decades was that they carried a significant minority of voters in the other party. But crossover voting for major office has all but disappeared in recent cycles as the state’s electorate has polarized along party lines. In a fairly purple state such aswisconsin, that helps keep electionsclose, sincecandidatesin both parties can count on overwhelming support from their own side.
Voters here are polarized over both Johnson and Baldwin. In Marquette’s polling since 2013, Johnson has averaged a 59% positive rating and
Bill Proxmire 6% negative rating from Republicans, and an11% positive rating and 48% negative rating from Democrats. Baldwin has averaged a 70% positive rating and 8% negative rating from Democrats, and an 8% positive rating and 67% negative rating from Republicans.
Ideology. Wisconsin is a swing state that has shown itself capable of electing liberals, conservatives and centrists. But candidates further from the political center are potentially vulnerable in the fight for the small share of swing voters who often decide close races.
Johnson is the seventh most conservative member of the U.S. Senate, according to ideological rankings of congressional voting devised by political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal. Baldwin is the Senate’s second most liberal member in those rankings. No other state has two senators at such opposite ends of the spectrum. Their opponents will make the most of their voting records.
The parallels don’t end there.
Both are running for re-election in an era when Congress is held in very low esteem.
And both will likely face political attacks over how lawmakers responded to problems at the VA Medical Center in Tomah, including whistleblower complaints that veterans were chronically overmedicated. This has been a much bigger political headache for Baldwin than for Johnson; she has admitted her office mishandled the issue and has disciplined her staff. But the issue will likely be used by opponents against both candidates.
Where does all this leave Johnson and Baldwin?
They each have their individual political strengths and weaknesses (which we’ll explore in future stories).
But they share some re-election challenges. Their popularity ratings aren’t terrible. But they aren’t the kind of