![]() ![]() “They just don’t.The editorial board railed against Johnson on an array of issues, including his suggestion that Medicare and Social Security be classified as discretionary spending and support of the 2017 tax cut law. ![]() “Much as I’d like to ease into a quiet retirement, I don’t feel I should.” While other hard-right Republicans attempted to soften their stances on abortion and moderate some of their rhetoric in the final stretch of the campaign, Johnson doubled down on the nastiness: “They don’t particularly like this country,” Johnson said of Democrats during a September campaign stop. “I believe America is in peril,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal in January. Johnson had promised to retire after his second term, but had a change of heart earlier this year. He was first elected to the seat during the Tea Party wave of 2010 and reelected alongside Donald Trump, who narrowly won Wisconsin in 2016. This will Johnson's third term in office. “Why has he turned against America?” Johnson said of Barnes during the final debate, after they were asked to say something positive about the other. Despite having a more progressive background, Barnes did not run his Senate campaign as a firebrand, and instead tried to focus his message. Barnes, who was running to become Wisconsin’s first Black senator, was consistently attacked for being soft on crime and a radical. But Republicans ran an aggressive and negative campaign against the Democrat groups supporting Johnson were accused of running Willie-Horton style television ads and distributing racist mailers that darkened Barnes' face (Johnson's camp called the accusations “absurd,” per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). Joe Biden’s victory in Wisconsin in 2020 gave Democrats hope that they could harness the same base to propel Barnes to victory. But the polls tightened through the fall, and the Republican pulled ahead in the final weeks of the race. ![]() Barnes, a Milwaukee-native, had come off his Democratic primary victory in August with a lead over Johnson in polls. A staunch conservative, Johnson holds extreme positions on abortion, and social programs, and has aligned himself with much of the MAGA agenda. Johnson, one of Donald Trump’s top allies on Capitol Hill, was considered to be one of the most vulnerable sitting Republicans, thanks in part to his seemingly endless parade of controversies, from his promotion of misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and vaccines to his involvement in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results on January 6. “Truth has prevailed over lies and the politics of personal destruction,” Johnson added. In all Democrat strongholds, municipalities are reporting 100% of wards are in and counted," Johnson said on Twitter Wednesday morning. Johnson declared victory slightly before CNN and NBC projected the outcome, criticizing the networks for not calling the election sooner: “The corporate media is refusing to call a race that is over. Senator Ron Johnson has won reelection in Wisconsin, defeating Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes - a huge disappointment for Democrats, who saw the race as one of the best opportunities to flip a Senate seat blue. ![]()
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