Russ Feingold's Path To Victory

Welcome back to Hotline On Call's Path To Victory. This week we are looking at the Wisconsin Senate showdown between Sen. Russ Feingold (D) and businessman Ron Johnson.

On Thursday, we looked at how Johnson -- a self-funder who wasn't on anyone's radar screen at the beginning of the cycle -- can unseat Feingold and get the Republicans one step closer to a Senate majority.

Today, we'll examine how Feingold can fend off the GOP environment and return to the Senate for a fourth term.

Without further ado, here is Feingold's Path To Victory:

Go Back To The Well: Wisconsin politics are often defined by personalities, so Democrats say Feingold needs to remind people why they liked him in the first place: His independence. That also happens to be a strong message for a Democrat in a Republican year.

In the Democratic primary in his first race in '92, Feingold became a surprise contender by airing clever, funny commercials while his opponents bashed each other. (One included Elvis Presley endorsing Feingold, another showed him opening a closet door and saying, "No skeletons.") As one Democratic strategist said, Feingold needs to "get maverick-y."

That message is starting to show up in Feingold's campaign. His latest ad ends with the narrator saying that Feingold's "stand against wasteful spending and automatic pay raises for members of Congress has earned him a lot of lonely lunches in Washington."

Democrats view the state as 45% Democratic, 45% Republican and the final 10%, who are mostly independents, deciding the election in the final weeks. Feingold will spend most of his time targeting those voters by touting his independence from the Democratic leadership in Washington.

Undermine Johnson: A big part of Feingold's campaign will revolve around defining Johnson. Democrats in Wisconsin believe Johnson is trying to run a national campaign -- anti-Democrat, anti-health care reform, anti-government spending -- on a local level.

Since Wisconsin voters respond to personalities, Democrats raise questions about whether Johnson is prepared to be a senator. They'll also raise questions about his character and ask voters whether they really know who he is and if they can trust him.

For example, Democrats will say that Johnson is dishonest in his claim to have created jobs without government support because he accepted a federal grant. They will also try to paint Johnson as out of the mainstream for statements about Social Security being a "ponzi scheme" and for appearing to endorse the Tea Party.

One contrast that has polled particularly well for Democrats is support for free trade agreements. Feingold was one of just a few senators who opposed free trade agreements in the '90s. Johnson has said that he supports them. Those agreements, Democrats will argue, have led to Wisconsin jobs going overseas and, according to their polls, that resonates with Wisconsin voters.

Dane of Johnson's Existence: For Feingold to win, he has to get very strong turnout from Dane County, where he is from. Madison, the home of the University of Wisconsin, is there, and it is the liberal bastion of Wisconsin. In '08, it gave Pres. Obama 73% of the vote to John McCain's 26%.

In '98, when Feingold had his closest race to date against then-Rep. Mark Neumann (R), Feingold pulled 113K votes out of Dane and Neumann only earned about 48K. In '04 Feingold expanded on that, taking 195K votes -- more than double businessman Tim Michels (R).

Similarly, Feingold must pull a lot of votes out of urban Milwaukee and Milwaukee county. Unlike its three suburbs, Milwaukee is predominantly Democratic. He will likely also need run up the score there.

Feingold's campaign boasts 16 offices and it insists it will pull voters from all over the state. As we mentioned yesterday, the Fox River Valley, the area running from Green Bay to Lake Winnebago, is a key battleground. This is the Green Bay media market and will be key to Feingold. If he can run even or a little better than Johnson here, he'll be in good shape. In '00, Al Gore ran even in the Green Bay market and narrowly won Wisconsin by about 5K votes. Six years later, Gov. Jim Doyle performed strongly in the market and won by 8%.

See Also: Ron Johnson's Path To Victory