Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Russ Feingold Loses Bid To Reclaim Wisconsin Senate Seat

— Former Democratic Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold failed in his bid to reclaim his seat in a race that had been projected to go his way.

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson received 51.8 percent of the vote to Feingold’s 45.5 percent.

Feingold called Johnson shortly after 11 p.m. on Tuesday to concede.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get the job done,” he said in a concession speech to supporters, the Wisconsin Star-Tribune reported.

“Obviously something is happening in this country tonight. I don’t understand it completely. I don’t think anybody does,” Feingold said, adding: “This could be one of the most challenging times in the history of our country.”

Feingold was a popular three-term senator swept aside in 2010 by Johnson, a Tea Party candidate.

Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine all came to Wisconsin in the final week of the race to campaign for Feingold and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Feingold was endorsed by the J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy lobby, which injected $250,000 into the race in recent weeks.

With three-quarters of the votes counted, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was ahead of Clinton by some 4 percent.

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.