Republican Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) was projected to defeat radical Democrat Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D) on Thursday with 93 percent of the vote counted.
The projected victory is significant victory because Wisconsin was one 21 Republican-controlled seats up for election. Democrats only had 14 seats to defend. Wisconsin, along with North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, was among the most competitive Republican seats to hold.
Overall, the Badger State Senate race was the fifth most expensive Senate race at $185,811,066, according to Open Secrets. Barnes’s campaign spent $32,040,023 million trying to unseat Johnson.
Leading in the polls since mid-September, Johnson defeated Barnes by highlighting his soft-on-crime record. Barnes was one of the most radical candidate in the 2022 cycle.
Barnes supported defunding police departments and allowing felons to retain the right to vote. He said police do not prevent crimes.
Wisconsin U.S. Senate candidate Mandela Barnes speaks at a rally Saturday, Oct. 29, 2022, in Milwaukee. Republican Sen. Ron Johnson and Barnes are honing closing arguments in a Wisconsin race that could be critical in which party controls the U.S. Senate. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
“Police don’t prevent crimes from happening,” Barnes falsely stated on Real Talk with Henry Sanders. “We don’t live in a surveillance state nor would you want to.”
Barnes believed in abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), permitting driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, and giving in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants. He derided small business owners as “selfish” for wanting to serve customers during the pandemic.
Barnes also favored an entirely government-run healthcare system, eliminating the Senate filibuster, packing the Supreme Court, and passing the Green New Deal, which would destroy the American economy to reshape it into a socialist utopia.
The Wisconsin Senate contest was one of seven fiercely contested battleground states that determined which party would control the Senate. To retake the chamber, the GOP needed to hold Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and retake either Arizona, Nevada, Washington State, New Hampshire, or Georgia to have a one-seat majority in the Senate.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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