MIDDLETON, WI (WTAQ) – Wisconsin has never had a rematch in a U.S. Senate election.
But unless some other well-known figure comes out, it’s likely that Democrat Russ Feingold will get a second chance to defeat Republican Ron Johnson in 2016.
Feingold Thursday announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat he held for 18 years until Johnson unseated him in 2010.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analyst Craig Gilbert says next year’s election will have a much different backdrop than 2010, when Republicans cleaned house while President Obama was in the middle of his first term.
First of all, voter turnouts are much bigger in presidential elections than in the off-years — and a Johnson-Feingold race will take place as voters choose a new president next year.
If Johnson wins, he would be the first Republican to win a Wisconsin U.S. Senate seat in a presidential year since 1980, when Bob Kasten removed Gaylord Nelson.
After Feingold’s announcement Thursday morning, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee immediately endorsed him. That group called Feingold a “tenacious champion for the people of Wisconsin.”
State GOP director Joe Fadness called Feingold a “Washington insider” with “a long record of pushing a radical agenda that does not play well on Main Street, Wisconsin.”
(Story courtesy of Wheeler News Service)
