Potential Wisconsin Senate matchups show Johnson in tight race with Democrats: poll

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is polling neck and neck with several Democratic Senate challengers in hypothetical matchups, with three out of four Democratic primary candidates edging just past him, according to a new poll released Wednesday.

A Marquette Law School Poll survey of Wisconsin created hypothetical matchups between Johnson and the four top Democratic challengers — Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, Wisconsin state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson.

Among 803 Wisconsin registered voters polled, Johnson received 44 percent in the hypothetical race against Barnes, who received 46 percent.

In another hypothetical matchup, Johnson received 43 percent support compared to Godlewski’s 45 percent.

Nelson barely edged past Johnson in a possible matchup, receiving 44 percent support to Johnson’s 43 percent.

The Republican incumbent fared slightly better when matched against Lasry, garnering 45 percent of the vote against the Milwaukee Bucks executive, who received 42 percent support.

“By definition, the results for all registered voters reflect a very high turnout, those for both ‘very’ and ‘somewhat’ enthusiastic voters reflect an intermediate turnout, and the results for only those who are ‘very enthusiastic’ reflect a lower turnout,” the poll writers noted.

Among “very enthusiastic voters” alone, however, the poll shows Johnson edging past all four Democratic candidates in hypothetical matchups.

All four of the matchups are within the poll’s 4.3 percentage point margin of error.

Among Democratic primary voters, the margin of error is 6.2 percentage points and for Republican primary voters, it is 6.3 percentage points. 

The polling was conducted after the latest public hearing of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The hearing showed a text exchange between a person, identified as a staffer to Johnson, communicating with an aide to former Vice President Mike Pence about sending him an alternate slate of electors.

A spokesperson for Johnson tweeted on Tuesday that the senator had no involvement in a fake elector scheme.

“The senator had no involvement in the creation of an alternate slate of electors and had no foreknowledge that it was going to be delivered to our office. This was a staff to staff exchange. His new Chief of Staff contacted the Vice President’s office,” Alexa Henning, the Johnson spokeswoman, tweeted.

“The Vice President’s office said not to give it to him and we did not. There was no further action taken. End of story,” she added in a follow-up tweet.

The poll was conducted between June 14 and June 20.