Republicans Can’t Seem To Recruit Someone To Run for Senate in Wisconsin, Despite Vulnerable Democratic Incumbent

The Wisconsin GOP is having a hard time recruiting an experienced candidate to run for Senate in a state that President Biden carried by less than a point in 2020 and where one of the most conservative senators, Ron Johnson, successfully defended his Senate seat in 2022.In June, the National Republican Senatorial Committee released a poll it commissioned that found that Congressman Mike Gallagher was trailing Senator Baldwin, a Democrat, in the state by only one point, 46 percent to 47 percent, with 7 percent undecided.Since then, though, the 39-year-old veteran and newly appointed chairman of the House’s China Select Committee has passed on the opportunity to run for Senate, saying he couldn’t step away from his work on the committee.“Accomplishing this mission and serving Wisconsin’s 8th District deserve my undivided attention,” Mr. Gallagher said in a statement. “Therefore, I will not run for the Senate in 2024 and will pursue re-election to the House.”While Mr. Gallagher, 39, appeared to be Senate leadership’s preferred candidate, given the poll results and various reports about recruitment efforts, he isn’t the only veteran Republican to pass up a Senate bid.As it stands, Mr. Gallagher, Congressman Bryan Steil, and Congressman Tom Tiffany have all passed on the opportunity, publicly saying they wouldn’t run.Of the state’s House delegation, this leaves Congressman Scott Fitzgerald, Congressman Derrick Van Orden, and Congressman Glenn Grothman as potential GOP recruits. The representatives have not publicly expressed interest in running.A former governor of the state, Scott Walker, a one-time presidential candidate, has also passed on the opportunity, announcing in March that he would not seek the nomination and instead would continue as chairman of the Young America’s Foundation.“I don’t see myself in the Senate,” Mr. Walker told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “After getting so much done as governor, I would be bored as senator.”An associate editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, Miles Coleman, tells the Sun, “The lack of prominent Republicans may also speak to the environment, or at least what candidates perceive the environment to be.”“Baldwin has usually kept above-water, but not stellar, approval ratings — on paper, this could make her vulnerable. But Democrats have won more recent statewide elections in Wisconsin, and are still overperforming in special elections across the country,” Mr. Coleman says. “The result may be that Republicans are more reluctant to put themselves out there.”Even though Wisconsin has been a perennial swing state, one that Mr. Biden carried by 0.7 points in 2020, and where Mr. Johnson defended his seat in 2022, winning re-election by a point, tides appear to be shifting in Wisconsin.In April, a liberal Wisconsin supreme sourt justice, Janet Protasiewicz, defeated a former state supreme court justice, Daniel Kelly, by 55.5 percent to 44.5 percent. The election, which revolved in no small part around abortion rights, signaled unusual strength from liberals in the state, and though it was technically a nonpartisan election, the large margin of victory for the Democratic-backed candidate may have convinced some potential Republican recruits to keep their powder dry.Another effect of the state supreme court election that could become a wild card in the 2024 Senate race is that the supreme court — now with a liberal majority — is likely to be involved in a redistricting case in Wisconsin.The state is home to some of the “most extreme partisan gerrymanders in the United States,” according to the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.The current maps have generated a congressional delegation with six Republicans and two Democrats, even though the state is often split nearly evenly between the two parties in terms of popular support.This means any decision from the supreme court on gerrymandering would likely benefit Democrats in the state, which could lead to one of the state’s Republican representatives deciding to pursue the Senate seat.In Mr. Coleman’s opinion, Messrs. Van Orden and Steil would be the most likely to pursue the Senate seat in that scenario, though it would likely depend on the specifics of the new maps.Mr. Coleman also says to look out for potential wealthy businessmen who could self-fund a campaign, as the GOP has been attempting to recruit this sort of candidate elsewhere, like in Pennsylvania, where the Republicans are pressuring a businessman and former Department of Commerce official, Dave McCormick, to run.Earlier this week, the first official Republican candidate entered the race, though the 40 year-old college student is by most accounts a long-shot candidate. The chairwoman of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point College Republicans, Rejani Raveendran, is currently the only Republican seeking the nomination, and she promised in a comment to the Associated Press to bring in “new people with new ideas.”

Republicans Can’t Seem To Recruit Someone To Run for Senate in Wisconsin, Despite Vulnerable Democratic Incumbent

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