Wisconsin rematch is one of eight races that will determine Senate control
WASHINGTON — Democrats' fight to snatch control of the Senate from Republicans could come down to whether Russ Feingold is the first defeated senator to win a rematch in more than 80 years.
The Wisconsin Democrat is trying to take back the Senate seat he held for 18 years from Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who beat Feingold by 5 percentage points in 2010. The last time a defeated senator won a rematch was in 1934, according to the U.S. Senate Historical Office.
Feingold has been leading in most polls, but the race is tightening and political action committees from both sides are pouring millions of dollars into the state in the final days leading up to Tuesday's election.
The Wisconsin race and the contest in neighboring Illinois are considered Democrats' best chances to beat incumbent Republican senators, according to the non-partisan Cook Political Report and the Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report.
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"Wisconsin reflects what's going on nationally in a lot of ways," said Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "It's a swing state where Republicans swept in in the 2010 Tea Party wave and are now facing real difficulty in a presidential election year. Johnson and other Republican senators are having to play defense and navigate around Donald Trump and his controversies."
Six other Senate races — in Nevada, Missouri, Indiana, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and New Hampshire — are virtual ties heading into Election Day, and only Nevada is a seat currently held by a Democrat. Democrats need a net gain of five seats to win the majority, or four seats to split the Senate 50-50.
The Wisconsin race is the only competitive contest that is a rematch.
In the last 100 years, only one defeated senator beat the man who had beaten him to win back his seat, the Senate Historical Office's data shows. Democratic Sen. Peter Gerry of Rhode Island lost to Republican Felix Hebert in 1928 but defeated Hebert in a rematch in 1934.
Feingold is well-positioned to become the second rematch winner, Burden said.
"I think Feingold has the advantage because Hillary Clinton is still likely to win the state, no Republican has won the Senate race in Wisconsin in a presidential year since 1980, and he's slightly better known and slightly better liked than Johnson," he said.
Among Wisconsin's likely voters, 20% said they haven't heard enough about Johnson to form an opinion of their senator, who has a high-profile position in Washington, D.C., as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. About 15% of likely voters hadn't heard enough to form an opinion of Feingold, according to an Oct. 12 Marquette University poll.
A Monmouth University Poll released Oct. 19 showed Feingold with an 8-point lead over Johnson, and a Marquette University poll released Wednesday showed just a 1-point lead for Feingold. A compilation of recent polls by RealClearPolitics shows Feingold leading by an average of about 5 points.
"The race has narrowed, but Feingold remains well-placed to return to the Senate barring any major shakeup," said Patrick Murray, director of the non-partisan Monmouth University Polling Institute.
However, Republicans still believe they can save Johnson, and the billionaire Koch brothers and other conservatives are pumping millions into the race to buy ads attacking Feingold for his past support of Obamacare, which has recently hit patients with an increase of more than 20% in their insurance premiums. Feingold's supporters, including a group called End Citizens United group — Feingold is a hero to groups trying to limit money on politics because he championed the issue during his time in the Senate — are countering that effort by paying for ads attacking Johnson for voting to protect $21 billion in tax cuts for the world's biggest oil companies.
Here's a quick look at the seven other most competitive Senate races:
Illinois
Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth is up an average of 13 percentage points over Republican Sen. Mark Kirk, according to a compilation of recent polls by RealClearPolitics. Kirk, a moderate Republican in a Democratic-leaning state, is considered by many analysts to be the most vulnerable senator in this year's election. Kirk recently lost the support of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights advocacy group, and the gun control group Americans for Responsible Solutions after he questioned how Duckworth's ancestors could possibly have fought in the Revolutionary War since she was born in Thailand. The congresswoman's father was a U.S. Marine who fought in Vietnam and can trace his family back to America's fight for independence from England.
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Nevada
The race to fill the open seat vacated by retiring Democratic leader Harry Reid stands at a virtual tie between Republican Rep. Joe Heck and Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, the state's former attorney general. The tossup race represents the one state that Democrats are in danger of losing to Republicans, which would make it more difficult for the party to capture the majority in the Senate.
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Indiana
After leading in earlier polls, Democratic former senator Evan Bayh is now tied with Republican Rep. Todd Young in the latest Monmouth University Poll. The two men are battling for the open seat of retiring Republican Sen. Dan Coats. Republicans have succeeded in eroding Bayh's popularity by accusing him of having moved to Washington to make money as a lobbyist after he left the Senate.
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Missouri
Republican Sen. Roy Blunt and Democratic Secretary of State Jason Kander are in a virtual tie in a Monmouth poll released Tuesday, which showed Blunt with a statistically meaningless 1-point lead. The senator had led Kander by 5 points in August. Trump was leading Clinton 52% to 38% in the state — a big increase from the 5-point lead he held over Clinton in mid-October. Democrats have attacked Blunt for spending more time at his house in Washington than he does in Missouri and for the fact that his wife and three of his children are Washington lobbyists.
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Pennsylvania
Democrat Katie McGinty had a slight lead of 3 percentage points over Republican Sen. Pat Toomey — 47% to 44% — in the latest Monmouth University Poll released Wednesday. The two candidates were tied at 46% each last month. McGinty has been a strong supporter of Clinton, who had a 4-point lead over Trump in the poll, down from a 10-point lead in October. The poll of likely voters was split over Toomey's job performance, with 40% approving and 37% disapproving. Toomey has tried to distance himself from Trump, but has not said whether he will vote for him.
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New Hampshire
The race between two powerful women — Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte and Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan — remains a virtual tie. Ayotte leads in recent polls by an average of not quite 2 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics.
Voters' opinions of both candidates have gotten worse over the course of the campaign, according to the latest Monmouth poll. In late October, 40% of voters had a favorable opinion of both Ayotte and Hassan and 35% had an unfavorable view of them. A month earlier, 48% of voters had a favorable view of Ayotte and 47% had a favorable view of Hassan.
"This campaign has taken a toll on two politicians who started out as largely popular among their constituents," said Murray of Monmouth.
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North Carolina
Republican Sen. Richard Burr's slim lead over Democratic challenger Deborah Ross has slipped since early fall, according to polls compiled by RealClearPolitics. Burr had an average lead of nearly 4 percentage points on Sept. 2 , but that had fallen to less than 2 points as of Nov. 2. Burr made national news Monday when he apologized for saying he was surprised that Rifleman magazine didn't put a bull's-eye on a picture of Clinton that was featured on its cover.
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