Ron Johnson's Path To Victory

Welcome back to Hotline On Call's "Path To Victory," where we look at the marquee races of the cycle from both sides.

This week, we're examining Wisconsin's Senate race, where businessman Ron Johnson (R) is challenging Sen. Russ Feingold (D).

Feingold was believed to be safe this year, having won his last re-election campaign by a comfortable 11-point margin. But the souring environment for Democrats combined with Johnson's hefty checkbook and some smart campaigning have put the contest squarely in the toss up column.

As usual, we'll start with the challenger. Johnson was practically a gift to national Republicans. He wasn't on the NRSC's radar at the beginning of the cycle and now may be poised to be the next senator from Wisconsin. After talking to Republicans in Wisconsin and D.C., here is Johnson's Path To Victory:

Ron Johnson, Job Creator, v. Russ Feingold, Pro Forma Democrat: The Johnson campaign views this race as a simple choice between two candidates with significantly different backgrounds. It'll seek to tout Johnson as a 30-year job creator, pointing to his Pacur plastics business in Oshkosh.

The campaign plans to contrast that against Feingold, who it will attempt to paint as a career politician who has no experience creating jobs in the private sector. (This strategy is clear in Johnson's latest ad.)

In the year of the outsider candidate, Republicans are confident this message resonates. They point to statistics that Feingold has voted with the Dem leadership between 75% and 90% of time (a claim the Feingold camp disputes). As one Republican said, "We're going to rip off the mask of independence" that has been a large part of Feingold's political persona.

In particular, the Johnson camp has found one attack to be particularly effective in their polling: Feingold's vote for the economic stimulus package. Voters already believe the stimulus hasn't worked, Republicans say, so Feingold's falling in line behind the Dem leadership is particularly damaging.

See Also: Russ Feingold's Path To Victory

Of course, Johnson also has the benefit of being able to spend freely to get these messages to voters. In his recent pre-primary FEC report, Johnson outraised Feingold -- $1.2M to $920K. The report also shows that Johnson has chipped in $4.4M of his own money to the campaign so far, and campaign sources say he's willing to spend whatever it takes to win.

Brew Milwaukee: Milwaukee, a major population center, is solidly in the D column, but the areas around it will be key to Johnson's vote total. The three surrounding counties -- Waukesha, Washington and Ozaukee -- gave John McCain (R) 60% or more in '08, even as the state went for Pre. Obama by 14%.

On election night, one key metric to watch will be Johnson's margin in Waukesha. If he can match Feingold's margin in the heavily Democratic Dane County, he'll be in very good shape.

Get Foxy: Johnson will have to win the Fox River Valley, which has quickly become the battleground of this race. The valley starts at Green Bay in the north and follows the river down to Oshkosh and Lake Winnebago.

Voters in this valley are largely Catholic, socially conservative and in '06 and '08 they went heavily for Democrats. Republicans with experience running campaigns in the state say Johnson needs to break 50% -- hopefully getting 53% or more -- in Brown County, the home of Green Bay, and Outagamie County, which lies just to the west.

Johnson has the advantage of being from -- and launching his business in -- Oshkosh, which lies Winnebago County and is also part of the valley. Because of that, he'll probably need to do even better than 53% in that county.

To put those numbers in context, when then Rep. Mark Neumann (R) narrowly lost to Feingold in '98 by 3% -- Feingold's closest race to date -- he carried Brown with 53%, Outagamie with 54% and Winnebago with 51%.

Johnson is also hoping that House races in two districts that are anticipated to be more competitive than usual will help drive up GOP turnout. Republicans have strong candidates in former "Real World" star Sean Duffy in WI 07 -- the northwest part of the state -- and expect to have a strong candidate to face Rep. Steve Kagen (D) in WI 08 -- the northeast part of Wisconsin.