Thread by @benwikler

MONTH-END DEADLINE—Ron Johnson is the ONE incumbent Senator likely running in 22 whose race is ranked a toss-up. He’s got a pure Trump strategy: say anything; rile up his base. We're scaling up to win. Help WisDems hit 99 new monthly donors by midnight Sat:wisdems.org/defeatjohnson

It might seem like Ron Johnson is shooting himself in the political foot. His unapologetic extremism almost seems designed to repel swing voters in an evenly divided state like Wisconsin. But he’s got a strategy, and it’s not dumb.

We know from first-hand accounts that Johnson thinks a *lot* about the huge number of voters who turned out for Trump in 2020—the highest number of Republican voters in state history. The previous record was held by Johnson himself.
thebulwark.com/my-call-with-r…

Those voters turned out for Trump even after the COVID pandemic, the massive job loss, the lies, the impeachment, the cruelty, the criminality, and all the other horrible things about the Trump years. Johnson took notes.

Now, Johnson seems to be doing everything he can to annoy the general public and the mainstream media, even if it endangers public health and safety. He held a press conference to undermine confidence in vaccines—then doubled down defending it.
jsonline.com/story/news/pol…

In fact, all the criticism seemed to delight him, and make him more likely to keep ramping up his outrageousness.
msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-…

Very much echoing the constant debunking that Trump racked up during his presidency, Johnson scored a four-Pinocchios fact check from the Washington Post. Here’s the thing: to Johnson, this was likely more of a trophy than a disgrace.
washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/…

Every time Johnson gets denounced by mainstream news outlets, he takes to right-wing outlets and the speaking circuit to yell loudly that he’s being silenced. “I won’t be silenced by the Left,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal this spring, non-silently.

Johnson pushes conspiracies, rewrites recent history, and peddles hate and division from under a thick layer of self-righteous smarm… and then gives speeches at Republican events painting himself as the victim when he gets criticized for it.
madison.com/ct/news/local/…

It’s all very familiar—because it’s the Trump playbook to a T. Ron Johnson might not have the bleak bullying magnetism that Trump flaunted, but he understands the blocking and tackling of right-wing grievance politics, and he’s betting his career on it.

It is not without consequences. Specifically, Johnson is a charter member of the right-wing Anti-Vax Caucus that is preventing the United States from reaching herd immunity to COVID-19, and people are dying as a result. That’s a price Johnson is apparently comfortable with.

But here’s the thing to sear into your mind: It appears to be working. Johnson, playing coy, hasn’t even announced yet—but he’s already scored Trump’s endorsement, he’s becoming a national far-right poster boy, and his small-donor fundraising shot up last quarter.

As @WisPolitics reported, “Johnson had only cracked six figures for fundraising twice since reporting $483,941 during the second quarter of 2017.” Last quarter, he raised $1.2 million.

wispolitics.com/2021/johnson-r…

In other words, for a senator as bad as Ron Johnson in a state as evenly divided as Wisconsin, you’d want to imagine that beating him would be a slam dunk. But we should very much treat it as a toss-up race, and plan accordingly.

Democrats have a dynamite field of candidates in the Senate primary, and will have a terrific, vetted nominee by the time the primary concludes. But the primary isn’t until August 9, 2022. We can’t wait—we need to execute strategy *now.*
politico.com/news/2021/07/2…

Beating Johnson has two fundamental components. Call them persuasion and mobilization. Persuasion means making sure that those folks who *are* disposed to be alienated by Johnson’s extremism actually hear about it. That means year-round communication.

Mobilization, meanwhile, means ensuring that the many folks who find Johnson to be terrible… actually vote. There’s typically massive drop-off from presidential to midterm elections. We have to engage folks year-round to support them in turning out next year.

Johnson and the GOP have a different strategy: mobilization and suppression. There’s no effort to bring, say, Biden voters over to vote for Johnson. But the right is very enthusiastic about ensuring that Biden voters don’t vote at all.

So, alongside persuasion and mobilization, we also have to counter suppression at every level—through year-round voter protection work, through movement-wide registration efforts, and by cutting through disinformation so people know Dems are actually delivering.

All of that is work that can’t begin in August of 2022. It’s work we’ve already been doing for months through the state party here in Wisconsin. It’s work that succeeded in beating Trump. But we need your help to scale it up.

Monthly donations are magic for organizing—because when you know funds are going to come in each month, you can hire staff on a longer time horizon, which means you can attract great talent.

The organizers that your monthly donations allow us to hire are charged with building and training local neighborhood volunteer teams that learn every inch of their turf. Which, again, takes time! But that slow, patient work has a massive payoff.

Speaking of which, we’re hiring! Pass along this job description to ensure we have a pool of high-quality applicants eager to organize across Wisconsin.

wisdems.org/get-involved/j…

Johnson’s highly public vacillation about whether he's running is a good strategy for staying in the news. Once he announces, the will-he-or-won’t-he stories disappear. But it also means he can’t start building an organizing operation. That’s a gift to us.madison.com/wsj/news/local…

We’ve got to make the most of that gift. We’ve got to learn from what worked and didn’t work in years past—and ramp up investment in organizing *now,* before the GOP starts knocking on doors. Help us reach 99 new monthly donors by midnight Saturday!

If you wake up with foreboding dread about the future of our democracy, knowing that you’re a monthly donor to @WisDems will make you feel a bit better.

Sign up to give here: wisdems.org/defeatjohnson

If you wake up with gratitude for a Democratic president, Senate, and House, and a Democratic governor in Wisconsin, share the love by becoming a monthly @WisDems donor by signing up here: wisdems.org/defeatjohnson

If you wake up, spend your day, & go to bed full of absolutely clear conviction that Ron Johnson should not be serving in the United States Senate, you’re not alone. So join the people who turn that conviction into action by becoming a monthly donor here: wisdems.org/defeatjohnson

… and whether or not you become a monthly donor, share this thread to help spread the word! Politics is a team sport. Let’s make the campaign to end Ron Johnson’s political career even more viral than anti-vaccine disinformation. Let’s do this together.

If you start a monthly donation, please let me know below! 👇

I want to personally thank you ✨