I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Sen. Ron Johnson is going to run for a third term. Nobody would act this crazy unless he wanted to win the hearts of Republicans.
When campaigning in 2016 against Russ Feingold, Johnson said that this would be his last term. After winning, he hedged on that commitment and now he says he won’t decide for a while longer.
His potential Democratic opponents are taking that to the bank. The announced candidates, Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, Milwaukee Bucks Executive Alex Lasry and state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, are all filling inboxes with pretty much daily fundraising appeals exploiting Johnson’s knack for enraging liberals. As a bonus, they’re not yet attacking one another, though that will come in time.
But while Johnson is an easy mark in a Democratic primary, the candidates might want to be careful what they wish for. It’s an open question if they would be better off running against Johnson or a relatively fresh-faced Republican in the November 2022 general election. While it is true that Democrats have won 10 of the last 11 statewide elections, Johnson has won two races against the formidable Feingold and next year will be an off-year election that should favor Republicans.
Still, it’s clear that Johnson isn’t trying to move to the center the way a traditional candidate would position himself if he thought he had his party’s nomination locked up and was looking past that to a general election. Instead, Johnson is doubling down on paranoia and conspiracy theories. Paradoxically, I think that means he’s likely to run again.
For starters, don’t underestimate Johnson’s near political death experience when he had a brush with the truth late last year. In early December Johnson had a private conversation with a GOP operative in which the senator admitted that Joe Biden had won the election. The operative spilled the beans that Johnson had been infected with factual information. Among normal human beings this was called reality, but among the GOP faithful this was (and among a lot of them it still is) heresy.
To make up for it, Johnson has gone on a conspiracy binge. During the lame duck period, he used his position as chair of the committee on homeland security to conduct hearings that gave voice to unhinged testimony calling into question the November election results and promoting quack treatments for COVID-19. Johnson was one of 10 Republican senators to challenge the Electoral College results that led to the violent insurrection, though he did back down after the riot.
Since losing his chairmanship he’s only become more bizarre. He said that the rioters in the Capitol insurrection "were people who love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law." Never mind that over 300 of them have been arrested and charged with crimes so serious that they bring potential prison sentences of up to 20 years. And never mind that many of these and the majority of those still at large are suspected of attacking law enforcement officers. But Johnson didn’t stop there. He went on to say that he would have felt threatened if those protesters had been part of the Black Lives Matter movement, making an obvious appeal to racism.
And just last week Johnson said that the government shouldn’t be pushing for widespread vaccinations but rather it should focus on “the vulnerable” Americans. He has not gotten vaccinated himself, arguing that he’s immune because he’s already had COVID, while public health experts recommend that even those who have had COVID should still be vaccinated. Johnson’s statements were filled with misinformation that threatens public health but bolsters his own political well-being among the die-hard Trump base. And the former president has already strongly endorsed Johnson, even though the senator has not yet announced he’s running for reelection.
One way to read all this is that Johnson had long ago decided to run again. When he was called out for truth-telling he had to double down on lies in order to seal off any chance of a challenge from his right. And now, with that accomplished, he’s banking on the idea that an off-year Republican wave and enraged and motivated Trumpsters will carry him to victory in the general election. Johnson has raised over a half-million dollars in just the first quarter of this year.
It looks to me like Johnson is running again. I wish I could be confident that that was good news for his eventual Democratic challenger.
