RIVER FALLS, Wis. — With Republicans needing to flip just one seat next week to take control of the U.S. Senate, a close battle in Wisconsin between incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson (R) and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D) has emerged as one of the nation's key races.
A new poll released Wednesday by Marquette Law School put Johnson in front of Barnes by just two points.
Johnson, who is seeking his third term in the Senate, spent his afternoon in Western Wisconsin with campaign stops in River Falls and Hudson. Although President Trump won both Pierce County and St. Croix County by double-digits in 2020, Johnson did not mention the former president by name, instead focusing the message on his opponent in the Senate.
"There's almost not a day that goes by where a new tweet or a new audio clip or a new video clip surfaces," Johnson said in River Falls, "which demonstrates Mandela Barnes' contempt and disdain for America, for law enforcement, for Wisconsinites."
On his own campaign trail, Barnes painted Johnson over the weekend as "a person that for 12 long years, has turned his back on every single person in this room, every single person in this state." He crisscrossed parts of southern Wisconsin on Wednesday with campaign events in Platteville, Janesville and Madison, as he looks to narrow the gap against the Republican.
The U.S. Senate is currently split evenly at 50-50 among Democrats and Republicans, giving Democrats the thinnest of majorities in the chamber with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tiebreaking vote. While states like Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia are considered competitive Senate races, the Johnson-Barnes matchup increasingly looks like one that could help determine the fate of the Senate majority.
At a rally Saturday in Milwaukee, former President Barack Obama stumped for Barnes and Gov. Tony Evers, who is in a similarly close race against Republican challenger Tim Michels.
Obama's harsh remarks about Johnson and his plan for Social Security drew considerable attention. Although Social Security and other entitlements are currently considered "mandatory" programs, Johnson supports categorizing them as "discretionary" so that Congress could review spending levels during the annual budget process.
"Some of your parents are on Social Security. Some of your grandparents are on Social Security. You know why they have Social Security? Because they worked for it," Obama said. "They worked hard jobs for it. They have chapped hands for it. They had long hours, and sore backs, and bad knees to get that Social Security. And if Ron Johnson does not understand that, if he understands giving tax breaks for private planes more than he understands making sure seniors who've worked all their lives are able to retire with dignity and respect, he's not the person who's thinking about you and knows you and see you, and he should not be your senator from Wisconsin."
During a speech in River Falls on Wednesday, Johnson said that Obama had "shamelessly" attacked him.
"I think President Obama is completely out of touch," Johnson said in an interview after the event. "It was bizarre how angry he was, as he was telling falsehoods about myself and my kids. It was very disappointing. I thought it was quite shameful, honestly."
Johnson also told KARE 11 that suggestions about him wanting to cut Social Security are a "total lie."
"I've never said that. I want to save Social Security," Johnson said. "I've just been putting out that the greatest threat to any government program, is the massive out-of-control government spending."
Johnson has written that "without oversight, and because of neglect, the entitlement programs so many Americans now rely on are not on a sustainable course."
"We need to look at the entire budget, and start prioritizing spending," Johnson said Wednesday. "But the top of the priority list is obviously Social Security, Medicare, and defense."
Barnes, meanwhile, supports increasing the Social Security tax cap to keep the program running and preserve future benefits.
While Johnson hit Democrats on issues of inflation and crime during his trip to Western Wisconsin, he did not mention the issue of abortion in his speeches.
Barnes, however, has made the overturning of Roe v. Wade a significant issue in his campaign. If elected, he has said he would vote in favor of codifying Roe into federal law.
In recent months, Johnson has said he supports exceptions to Wisconsin's ban for rape and incest and further clarified in an interview Wednesday that each state should hold a new voter referendum to decide how to proceed.
"Any politician that wants to take away a woman's right to choose, who wants to put our Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block, and send our Wisconsin jobs out of state or overseas," Barnes said recently, "does not deserve our consideration, does not deserve our vote and certainly does not deserve their seat in office."
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