Senate Democrat candidate Mandela Barnes has asked for emergency help to remain competitive against opponent Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) by asking former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden to campaign for him in Wisconsin.
Pleading for Obama’s help is not the only Democrat Barnes has summoned to his side, Politico reported. He has also asked Vice President Kamala Harris, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), and socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for immediate assistance.
Wednesday polling shows Johnson is pulling away from Barnes and is now up by 6 points just 26 days from election day.
Barnes appears to believe he is in such a bind that he requested Biden’s help. Barnes had previously refused to campaign with Biden, choosing instead to visit another side of the state when the president wanted to lend a hand.
“Mandela walked in the Milwaukee parade and then went to support Wisconsin workers at events across the state, including in Racine where UAW Local 180 has been on strike for over 100 days,” Barnes explained his absence after Biden’s September visit to Wisconsin.
It is unclear if Obama will campaign with defund the police candidate Barnes, who has also advocated for allowing felons to retain the right to vote. He also claimed police do not prevent crimes. According to Wisconsin Right Now, Barnes has allowed at least 884 convicted criminals back onto the streets by releasing them on parole.
None of the dates have not been set for the reinforcements’ arrivals, but Sanders’ team seems to recognize the urgency of Barnes’s failing prospects. “Sen. Sanders believes that in the coming election we need to energize working-class voters and grow turnout,” Faiz Shakir, a top adviser to Sanders, told Politico. “He intends to play an active role in making that happen.”
Barnes is one of the most radical Democrat Senate candidates in the 2022 cycle. Johnson and the Republican National Senatorial Committee have successfully branded Barnes as a soft-on-crime radical. In Friday’s debate last week, Johnson ripped Barnes for his radical prison policies.
“They’ve already reduced it 15 percent. And they’ve paroled about 884 criminals. You’d think they start with nonviolent. No. Only 11 percent were nonviolent – about 100 criminals,” Johnson said. “If you want to reduce crime, first of all, you have to fully fund the police. My opponent is opposed to fully fronting police budgets, to keep criminals in jail.”
Barnes will have to defend his policies in Thursday evening’s debate at 7 PM EST. It appears Barnes will try and avoid speaking about his record and instead debate abortion law, the sixth most important topic to Wisconsinites. Inflation and crime remain the top two issues in the state.
The Barnes campaign announced Wednesday it was refocusing its attention on the sixth most important issue with just 26 days left in the race. Yet questions remain if Barnes’s focus on abortion will help him overcome his five point deficit in the polls.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.