Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
When Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson (R) announced in January that despite promising to retire after his second term, he’d run for a third for the sake of the nation, party strategists wasted no time in dubbing him the most vulnerable Republican Senate incumbent this cycle.
But with just five weeks left until the midterm elections, Johnson is inching ahead in the polls against Democratic nominee Mandela Barnes, the state’s lieutenant governor and a rising star on the left. As the clock runs out on Democrats’ chance to seize a seat that seemed well within their reach, some are scratching their heads on what sort of political Kevlar Johnson’s got on.
After all, with a far-right record like Johnson’s, and in a swing state like Wisconsin, operatives believed there’d be so much for Democrats to work with—but with those political blessings comes a curse.