Ron Johnson pursues a scorched-earth path to reelection

Ron Johnson’s approval ratings are underwater in a swing state that President Joe Biden won.

Instead of moving to the center, though, as he faces reelection this fall, the Wisconsin senator has become the face of conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and the 2020 election in the Senate. He has said that gargling mouthwash can kill the coronavirus, Jan. 6 was a mostly “peaceful protest,” and unvaccinated people around the world are being sent “basically into internment camps.”

For a vulnerable senator staring down a tough campaign, the string of head-turning remarks seem to defy political logic. But it turns out that Johnson’s shoot-from-the-lip style is a feature, not a bug, of his campaign for a third term. GOP strategists and officials say his unfiltered remarks are generating enthusiasm among a party base conditioned by Donald Trump, and appealing to independents who loathe Washington.

“He’s still perceived as an outsider. He’s not part of the GOP establishment in D.C., he never has been, and Wisconsinites like that,” said Bill McCoshen, a Wisconsin-based Republican strategist, who is not working on the race. “They may not agree with what he says every time, but they like the fact that he’s willing to speak his mind, and he’s not politically correct.”

Even Democrats largely aren’t campaigning this year against the controversial comments Johnson has made, instead focusing on the senator’s alleged self-dealing in Washington in an attempt to strip him of the non-politician veneer that helped him win past elections.

“Kellyanne Conway was right when she said voters vote on what affects them, not what offends them,” said Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. “But nobody likes being ripped off by someone who's out to serve themselves. And that's the core of our message.”

Despite Johnson’s hard turn to the right, this closely watched contest that could determine party control of the Senate is a coin flip, according to both Democratic and GOP consultants — a reflection of the fact that Republicans across the country face an extremely favorable political environment.

Yet at the same time that he has served up red meat for the base, he’s also hedged his bets by presenting a softer side in TV ads in past elections. Johnson is replicating that playbook in this year’s midterm election.

He has run spots this campaign that highlight the Joseph Project, a program Johnson co-founded with the late African American Pastor Jerome Smith Sr., to help people in Milwaukee find jobs. One features Smith’s widow, Markeitha Smith, who attests, “I never would have thought that Ron Johnson would have ever been somebody who I can say is family. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, he actually came here.’”

In his successful bid in 2016, Johnson aired similar commercials on the initiative. His other positive spots this year are emotional testimonials from people who said his “Right to Try” legislation — which allows those with life-threatening diseases or conditions to try experimental drugs — saved their or their loved ones’ lives.

“It shows a more sensitive side to somebody who’s been working out in Washington, D.C. for the last 12 years,” said Brandon Scholz, former executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party. “Instead, somebody’s on the local news talking about helping people and jobs in a place you wouldn’t expect to see Ron Johnson, in center city Milwaukee.”

A Wisconsin-based Democratic strategist who worked on the 2016 Senate race, in which Johnson defeated former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, said Johnson has won in the past because he excited GOP diehards on right-wing radio while also appealing to white suburban women with his TV ads.

“Ron Johnson has been consistently underestimated as a candidate,” the person said, requesting anonymity to speak frankly. “He has figured out how to be different people to different audiences.”

In regards to his comments about Covid-19, Johnson has said previously that he did not mean that mouthwash should be an alternative to the vaccine, and his office pointed to an Australian quarantine site when asked about his internment camp remarks. Speaking about the Capitol riot, while he downplayed the events of Jan. 6, he condemned the violence that day.

The case that Johnson can win reelection this year rests in part on a standout number — he outperformed Trump in 2016 by 74,000 votes, including in Milwaukee and Dane counties, where Madison is located, as well as in suburban Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington, or “WOW,” counties, reliably GOP areas where Trump experienced some slippage in 2020.

Republicans are also counting on Johnson to benefit from voters turning against Democrats nationally. In Wisconsin, 52 percent of voters disapprove of Biden's performance, while 43 percent approve, according to a Marquette Law School poll in February.

GOP strategists said Johnson has shown the ability to unify the MAGA base and more old-school Republicans in the suburbs, while also picking up anti-establishment independents. In Wisconsin, they said, many swing voters are not traditional moderates, but instead are more defined by their loathing of Washington and the state capitol.

In commercials in his previous campaigns, Johnson leaned into being the only manufacturer in a sea of lawyers in the Senate.

“Ron Johnson is truly his own man. He could say anything tomorrow, and you could call me and I’d say, ‘I had no idea he was going to say that,’” said a person close to Johnson. “That’s full of risk and that’s full of hand-wringing by the establishment Republicans and it’s full of alarm-ringing by the media. And it’s also full of authenticity with voters, including swing voters, not just the base.”

At the same time that Trump lost his second bid in Wisconsin, Republican congressional candidates in total also outperformed the then-president by more than 50,000 votes — evidence of the willingness of some conservative and swing voters to cast their ballots for those in the GOP not named Trump.

Still, Democrats view the race as a top opportunity to pick up a Republican-held seat. After nearly a dozen years in the Senate, they think they can pierce Johnson’s image as an outsider businessman. In fact, they think it’s already been popped: Johnson is viewed unfavorably by 45 percent of voters, compared to 33 percent who see him favorably, according to the recent Marquette poll. Twenty-one percent said they hadn’t heard enough about Johnson or didn’t know.

“I think it is entirely possible that Democrats have a bad night nationally, and Ron Johnson still loses,” said Joe Zepecki, a Wisconsin-based Democratic strategist who is not working for any Senate candidate. “That's how much trouble I really genuinely believe that he's in here.”

Democrats have seized on a plan to paint Johnson as self-serving for pushing for a provision in Trump’s tax bill that benefited his own company and campaign donors. In 2017, Johnson held his vote for the legislation until he secured a bigger tax cut for “pass-through” entities, arguing that small businesses would be undercut at the expense of corporations otherwise.

Opportunity Wisconsin, an anti-Johnson group, has aired more than $3 million of negative ads hitting him for “passing tax laws that benefit himself.” And Democrats think he recently put his foot in his mouth in a way that makes their case for them. At a meeting with GOP activists this month, Johnson was asked how to fight back against attacks about the tax bill.

“Now, did my business benefit? Sure,” Johnson said. “Did some of my donor businesses? Sure. When you give tax relief to everybody, everybody benefits.”

Jake Wilkins, a spokesperson for Johnson, defended his advocacy for the tax legislation as “single-handedly keeping small businesses competitive with the big guys by insisting on tax cuts for everyone.”

Wilkins also touted the senator’s work on the Joseph Project and Right to Try: “Based on what he has accomplished, Senator Johnson believes he is in a strong position to win reelection. His strategy will be to do what he has consistently done: work hard and simply tell the truth.”

Charlie Sykes, a Wisconsin native and anti-Trump ex-Republican, previously supported Johnson but now compares him to Joseph McCarthy, the former Wisconsin senator who led a demagogic red-baiting campaign.

“Johnson should be the most vulnerable Republican in the country,” he said. But given the political mood, the race “leans Republican, even as unpopular as Johnson is, unless the Democrats can really get their act together.”