Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Russ Feingold Leads in Wisconsin — and he May Have Donald Trump to Thank

Can Donald Trump help a Jewish candidate in a tight U.S. Senate race?

Russ Feingold, a three-term senator who lost his Wisconsin seat in 2010, has found Trump’s controversial statements a useful tool in his effort to win back his seat.

Directing his criticism at incumbent senator Ron Johnson, Feingold took issue at his rival’s support for Trump despite the presumptive nominee’s racially-charged rhetoric. “Sen. Johnson said that if Trump said or did anything that ‘crossed a line,’ he’d have to withdraw his support for the Republican nominee,” Feingold’s spokesman Michael Tyler said earlier this month, following Trump’s accusations against a judge of Mexican heritage who had ruled against him in the Trump University lawsuit. “It’s clear from his response that racist comments from Trump don’t rise to that level for Sen. Johnson.”

And at least so far, this line of campaigning seems to be working for Feingold. A new Marquette poll published Wednesday shows the Jewish former senator from Middletown holds a steady, albeit small, lead over Johnson, an Oshkosh businessman. Among registered voters Feingold leads by 5% but his advantage increases to 9% when the poll zoomed in on voters likely to actually participate in the elections.

At stake in the Wisconsin race is not only Feingold’s political fate. Democrats are pinning their hopes on his win as a crucial stepping-stone toward taking over the Senate majority.

Feingold and Johnson are both trying to distance themselves from the unpopular nominees chosen by their parties for presidency and from any semblance of being professional politicians. Campaign ads that started airing in Wisconsin this month show both candidates in their home towns, ignoring their years-long record in Washington.

Johnson, after being hit by Feingold for his backing of Donald Trump, used a similar measure to swipe back at the Democratic candidate. “When is Senator Feingold going to withdraw his support for a candidate under investigation by the FBI for email practices that jeopardized our national security?” asked Johnson’s spokesman Brian Reisinger.

Wisconsin is viewed by both presidential campaigns as a key state and was scheduled to serve as the venue for President Obama’s first rally alongside presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton. The event was cancelled following the Orlando shooting attack.

Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected] or on Twitter @nathanguttman

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.