MILWAUKEE — For months, Wisconsin Republicans telegraphed their eagerness for Mandela Barnes, the state’s first Black lieutenant governor, to be the Democratic candidate to take on Sen. Ron Johnson.
Johnson’s GOP allies are already on the attack, aligning Barnes, a 35-year-old progressive, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and calling him too “radical’’ for the purple state.
But Johnson’s own strategy involves a more urgent task: rehabilitating his image.
“I’m trying to tell people who I am. I’m pretty proud of what I’ve accomplished in life, both in the private sector and as a United States senator,” Johnson told NBC News in an interview Tuesday. “I’d much rather lead with that — I’d much rather win based on that message.”
Johnson’s ability to reintroduce himself in a more positive light — his favorability has been on a steady decline since 2019 among voters here — is key to Republicans’ strategy to retain a Senate seat that could ultimately determine control of the chamber, where Vice President Kamala Harris is now the tie-breaking vote.
Several Johnson aides and allies said the senator has privately fumed over Democrats’ depiction of him as a Washington insider who’s profited off of his position and lost touch with the average Wisconsinite — a message that Barnes is now helping to steer.
“Lies and distortions are effective, they’re very good at it,” Johnson said, referring to Democrats. “I don’t want to engage in the politics of personal destruction. I will not become what they’ve become.”
At the same time, the two-term senator cannot risk alienating members of his own party if he is to have any chance of survival in November; motivating a strong base turnout will be essential to victory in the battleground state. In the latest Marquette Law School poll, released Wednesday, Barnes leads Johnson by seven points with 51% support of those surveyed, to Johnson's 44%; the poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percent. In June, Johnson trailed Barnes by just two points, 46% to 44%, within the margin of error."Barnes is getting a nice post-primary bump — not with partisans,” Marquette Law School poll director Charles Franklin said in a livestream presentation of the new poll. “He’s getting it from independents.”
And despite the early zeal to compete against Barnes, Republicans are also approaching their Wisconsin strategy with some caution, with some privately acknowledging they’ve learned lessons from Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s January 2021 win in Georgia. In that campaign, Republicans depicted Warnock as a radical and liberal — the same attack the GOP has already launched against Barnes.
Johnson’s first TV ad focused on his personal biography, highlighting to residents in a state he has served since 2010 that he spent his younger years delivering newspapers and bailing hay on his uncle’s farm before marrying his wife, now of 45 years, and moving to Oshkosh to run a business with her brother. More positive ads focusing on his biography and his record in the Senate are to come, according to his campaign. It’s messaging that Johnson, who personally writes many of his own ads, hopes will blunt what he views as Barnes’ attempt to snatch the mantle as the candidate with the “working class” bonafides.
Johnson’s persona, meanwhile, has been increasingly defined by the controversial headlines he routinely captures over his statements on issues like abortion, his perpetuation of dubious and unproven Covid treatments, and even the recent FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump’s residence in Florida. Many of those headlines, he charges, are a result of his opponents and the media purposely contorting his words in an effort to demonize him. Johnson has also closely aligned himself with Trump, who won Wisconsin in 2016 but narrowly lost in 2020. This week, however, Johnson sidestepped questions about whether he’d invite Trump to campaign with him in the fall.
A campaign aide said Johnson is most unnerved by Democrats’ depiction of him as a “billionaire bogeyman in it for himself” and at shots at his integrity, including two ethics complaints that were lodged against him. One, questioning his flights to Florida from Wisconsin, was dismissed. Still pending is a complaint over a $280,000 gift to a chief of staff — payments, according to his campaign, that were meant to cover the longtime employee’s cancer treatments.
Johnson campaign spokeswoman Alexa Henning said in a statement to NBC News that those were legitimate gifts from the senator's personal funds that were fully disclosed.
"He is confident that this frivolous complaint, like a prior complaint filed by a Democrat operative that was dismissed last month, will be dismissed because he has done absolutely nothing wrong, and in fact, has been a faithful steward of taxpayer dollars," Henning said. "This is another pathetic and disgusting attempt by the Democrats and their allies in the media to smear the senator’s character and integrity."
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