WAUKESHA, Wis.- Just one day before the election, GOP Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson seemed optimistic about his chances of retaining his seat in the upper chamber — a critical win in Republicans’ battle to retain the majority.
Johnson was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of roughly 250 supporters in Waukesha, Wis., the last stop on his four-day bus tour with House Speaker Paul Ryan. After speaking with thousands of Wisconsinites during the final stretch, the senator said he was confident in what he was hearing from voters.
“Just the five hours I spent at Lambeau Field yesterday, working the crowd, talking to all the tailgaters and stuff, I was very pleased with the warm reception, with the reactions from people,” Johnson told reporters at a campaign stop at PACUR, the manufacturing company he helped build in Oshkosh, Wisc. “They are seeing through Sen. Feingold’s lies, they know he had 34 years of trying to figure these problems out and he created the problems.”
Despite once being considered a lost cause by many in his race against former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, whom he unseated in 2010, he managed to close what was once a 16-point gap.
With the race now in a virtual dead heat, a list of politicians — including vice presidential nominee Mike Pence, Ryan, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Republican Policy Committee Chairman Sen. John Barrasso — have come out to stump for the senator during his final push.
The Johnson camp has largely attributed the momentum it’s seen to its strong ground game, fundraising numbers and positive messaging.
“Senator Feingold sent an email on September 24th where he cites knocking on 84,000 doors for the cycle. At that point, we were knocking on 84,000 doors per week – and now we plan to hit an additional 750,000 doors before election day,” an internal memo obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation reads. “Our fundraising prowess and lean operation have allowed us to have an advantage on the airwaves going into this final stretch.”
A source familiar with the campaign’s strategy said they anticipated being down in the polls in early months due to Feingold’s early cash advantage, leading the Johnson camp to remain strategic about when and how their resources were being utilized.
“We knew that if Feingold kept spending the way he did on an ineffective message we would end with more money than him, which happened,we have more cash on hand than him, and we knew that the race would start to tighten, which happened,” the source told TheDCNF. “Now it comes down to just these last few points and really what it came down to, it’s kind of like the saying ‘wait until you see the whites in their eyes,’ this was a ‘whites in their eyes’ strategy.”
As the race grew tighter, Democrats decided to dump $2 million into Feingold’s campaign in late-October, signaling the seat was in play.
“He wasted all that money at a bad time, with a bad message,” the source told TheDCNF. “Harry Reid tried to rescue Russ Feingold because we, on our own essentially, brought it to within the margin of error. So, all the groups that are coming in now for us is icing on the cake, which is just a very big layer of icing.”
Between the campaign’s strategy of highlighting Johnson’s experience in job creation while painting Feingold as a career politician, and the emphasis it’s placed on grassroots efforts — which they say can make a difference of around two to three points, they believe the senator is well positioned to upset the Wisconsin Democrat on Nov. 8 .
“We knew that if it came down to ground game, we could win,” the source said. “That was always the x-factor, and now that the polling is tight and now that we have more resources going than Feingold and now that all the groups are in, it just comes down to turning people out and that’s what Wisconsin Republics do, so we are feeling really good.”
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