Thread by @benwikler

BREAKING: RON JOHNSON JUST ANNOUNCED HE’S RUNNING FOR RE-ELECTION. He’s the worst senator up in ‘22—AND the most vulnerable. We can defeat him. Chip in any amount and let’s end Ron Johson’s political career for good. secure.actblue.com/donate/ronjohn…

Ron Johnson is, infamously, @TheWorstSenator. (If you question that distinction, click through to that account.) He burst into a new level of national prominence & loathing after 1/6, when he fed the insurrection—then denied it was an insurrection at all.

And we can’t forget how Johnson scammed every American by giving massive tax breaks to his biggest donors and himself—while, by the way, paying virtually nothing in state income taxes in 2017, and opposing tax breaks for the middle class.
apnews.com/article/busine…

For a while last year, Ron Johnson appeared all over late-night shows. Not as a welcomed guest, but as a national embarrassment. Comedians could not seem to stop making fun of him. For Wisconsinites, Johnson’s no laughing matter.

Democrats across the country know that one more vote in the Senate would make *all the difference.* Replacing Johnson with a strong Democrat opens the door to enormously consequential reforms that touch everything we care about.

Let’s face it: there are lots of terrible far-right Republicans in the Senate. But here’s the critical thing. Johnson is *vulnerable*—only 36% of Wisconsinites approve of him.

https://twitter.com/ppppolls/status/294106642482618368

Ron Johnson is not just vulnerable—he’s THE MOST vulnerable. EASILY the most vulnerable, per the Cook Political Report, one of the nation’s most respected and recognized national election watchers.

We have a real opportunity to end Ron Johnson’s political career over the next year. Help us do it—chip in at this link: secure.actblue.com/donate/ronjohn…

Now, as obvious as it might be to us that Johnson is unfit to be in the Senate, we can’t underestimate him. The polling shows us too many Wisconsinites don’t have an opinion of him. If Johnson gets to those folks before we do, they’d be enough to send him back for a third term.

Johnson’s strategy has been clear for months. It’s the same one he used to win in 2010, and 2016: ride a Republican wave, and then bamboozle the voters who aren’t paying much attention. In 2010, it was the Tea Party wave. In 2016, the Trump wave.

For 2022, Johnson’s plan is to ride what he hopes is yet another Trump wave. And his appeals to Trump’s vanity have been working: Trump endorsed him, even before he announced his candidacy. Predictably, his fundraising shot up.
apnews.com/article/donald…

Ron Johnson is counting on the Trump base to try to win again in 2022. He’s not even pretending to try to appeal to everyday Wisconsinites. His outrageous comments have a purpose: to stoke the Trump base with COVID-denying & often racist dog-whistling. It’s ugly. But it can work.

Johnson and his style of politics are so repellant that it’s easy to not take him seriously. But in Wisconsin, you should NEVER take anything for granted. In 2016, national Republicans left him for dead. (He’s nursed a grudge against Mitch McConnell ever since.) He won anyway.

So—no matter how low his polling goes, expect this race to be close. We at @WisDems will not take anything for granted. We’re organizing like we’re 1 point behind. This is Wisconsin, after all, the home of the nail-biter.

Oh, and there’s one other crucial piece of this equation: we Democrats won’t have a nominee until very late this year. Per state law, our primary is on August 9, 2022. We’ve got a dynamite 12-candidate field. Whoever the nominee becomes, we need to prepare their path.

Having a large primary field of candidates and a late primary election isn’t necessarily a disadvantage. 16 candidates ran against Scott Walker in 2018. We won. 27 candidates ran against Trump in 2020. Won again. We know how to do this: Start early.

The key to making a late primary work to our advantage is by building a full-scale campaign through the party NOW, rather than waiting until the fall. That means building up statewide organizing infrastructure for the general election & communicating nonstop to define Johnson.

If you’ve been following @WisDems, you know that we’re already deep into this work. In fact, we haven’t stopped organizing since we won the White House in Nov 2020. We have neighborhood volunteer teams and organizers all over the state. Help us scale up: secure.actblue.com/donate/ronjohn…

On the organizing front, there’s a lot of chatter in the press and Twitter about energy on the GOP side. What’s less reported but more unusual, under a Democratic president, is grassroots energy among Dems. But we’re seeing exactly that kind of energy in Wisconsin.

Our massive #1Year2Win organizing Weekend of Action brought out more than a thousand volunteers, WI Democratic leaders, and @WisDems staff to reach out to 100,000+ Wisconsinites about Johnson’s terrible record. We vastly outstripped previous records.

https://twitter.com/benwikler/status/1457838215499599876

#1Year2Win illustrated our relentless work post-2020. It showcased the grit and commitment that our volunteers, organizers, and party members have to send Johnson packing. Pitch in now to help us keep doing it for the next 10 months: secure.actblue.com/donate/ronjohn…

We’ve also taken every available opportunity to communicate with voters about Ron Johnson. In fact, @WisDems ran the first television ads this election cycle *in the country,* slamming Johnson after the insurrection. nytimes.com/2021/01/13/us/…

Johnson kept lying about the insurrection. He’s never stopped. So we’ve never stopped holding him accountable for it.

As outrageous as his support for armed insurrection & COVID conspiracists might be, his biggest vulnerability is his consistent pattern of enriching himself & his biggest donors while turning his back on regular folks. So we’re hammering him on that, too.

We know that as the election gets closer, voters get less receptive to new information. So our goal is to inform people throughout the next year—so that as Election Day approaches, we’re not trying to convince them. We’re reminding them of things they already know.

The impact of work by the party, our allies, our primary candidates, and many others to spread the word about Johnson has been undeniable from the public polling: the share of voters without an opinion of him is dropping. We have to drive it down further.

Johnson’s official campaign begins today. Which means that, starting today, Johnson will be in overdrive to push out disinformation about himself, to undercut the truths that we’ve been sharing.

Can you chip in now to help us ensure that Johnson’s campaign gets off on the worst possible foot? Help fuel our organizing and communicating to make sure Ron Johnson doesn’t get a third term of disastrous senatorial malpractice:
secure.actblue.com/donate/ronjohn…

And if you're not able to chip in today, help us get the word out?

The most important way you can do that is by quote-tweeting the first tweet of this thread.

Thanks in advance!

UPDATE - It's been 24 hours since Ron Johnson announced his re-election campaign, and we had an absolutely huge response yesterday!

We have just $10K left to hit our Ron Johnson rapid response goal. Can you help us hit it?

Amplify this thread & chip in: wisdems.org/ronjohnson