Johnson widens lead over Barnes to six points in Wisconsin Senate race  

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has widened his lead over Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes just ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections, according to a new Data for Progress poll.  

The new results put the incumbent up 6 points, with 53 percent of voters saying they’d cast their ballot for Johnson and 47 percent saying the same of Barnes.  

Voters on both sides of the aisle overwhelmingly support their party’s respective nominee, with 99 percent of Democrats backing Barnes and 97 percent of Republicans backing Johnson. Independents, meanwhile, were split 50-50 between the candidates. 

Other recent polling has shown Johnson with a slimmer lead. In the last few weeks, a survey from Marquette Law School found the incumbent up 2 points, a Fox News survey found Johnson up by 3 points and an Emerson College Polling-The Hill survey put him ahead by 4 points.

The closely watched race could be crucial to which party controls the Senate going forward. 

Johnson last week sidestepped a question on whether he’d concede if he lost the Senate race, saying “I sure hope I can, but I can’t predict what the Democrats might have planned.” 

Conducted Nov. 2-5, the Data for Progress poll surveyed 1,504 like Wisconsin voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.