The myth of the political strength of Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin has been exposed. I wrote a column in these pages a number of weeks ago explaining that Baldwin is very beatable, contrary to conventional wisdom that Wisconsin鈥檚 U.S. Senate seat wasn鈥檛 really in play in 2024 and was likely a "safe hold" for the Democrats. That was nonsense from typically clueless political pundits.
Now, a new Marquette University Law School poll shows Baldwin in a dead heat, tied 50-50 with Republican challenger Eric Hovde. So much for Tammy鈥檚 safe seat.
Baldwin actually has no strength at all because she has no actual political identity. She may be the most anonymous member of the entire U.S. Senate. Even in Wisconsin, she鈥檚 remarkably unknown. Just about everybody can identify then state鈥檚 other senator, Republican Ron Johnson, but Baldwin is barely known at all. She is essentially a generic Democrat. If voters want to keep the Senate under Democrat control, they will vote for Baldwin. If they want the Republicans to take the Senate, they鈥檒l vote against her. She brings nothing personally to the table one way or another.
There isn鈥檛 anybody who can associate Baldwin with a single issue. She鈥檚 the opposite of Johnson, an aggressive senator who is outspoken on numerous issues. Baldwin is outspoken on nothing. She keeps her head down and votes the Democrat line on everything. She doesn鈥檛 attempt to move her party one way or another. She just sits there and keeps her mouth shut.
The advantage politically to Baldwin鈥檚 approach is that she doesn鈥檛 particularly antagonize anybody, unlike Johnson, who drives leftists nuts. In this way, Baldwin is often compared to the senator she succeeded, Herb Kohl. While Kohl likewise kept a very low profile in D.C., he was extremely well-known in Wisconsin because of his ownership of the Bucks, his scholarship funds and the family name which lives on in the department store chain his family founded. Baldwin has none of that. Kohl called himself "nobody鈥檚 senator but yours." Baldwin is just Nobody.
What percentage of Wisconsinites would recognize Baldwin if she walked into a Brewers game or showed up at a concert? My guess is that it鈥檚 less than 10%.
That means Baldwin will do as well, or as poorly, as the Democrats will do in Wisconsin in 2024. We are the ultimate battleground state. It is very likely that Wisconsin may determine the outcome of the presidential election. The Trump and Biden (or whatever Democrat is on the ballot if they finally tap senile Joe on the shoulder and tell him the gig is over) campaigns will spend fortunes on Wisconsin. It is very likely that every single voter who chooses Trump will also pick Hovde and whoever votes for Biden will pick Baldwin. In other words, if Trump wins the state, so does Hovde. Baldwin brings no residual strength at all.
Then why did she win so easily in 2018? That was Baldwin鈥檚 first reelection bid after initially winning in 2012. She was given some benefit of the doubt over her low profile because she was only a first-term senator. But Baldwin is exposed now. Everybody knows she is lazy, lacks influence, is regarded as a lightweight by her own party and is nothing more than a vote for the Democrats on the roll call.
Ron Johnson knocked off a similarly lazy and ineffectual senator in 2010 when he beat Russ Feingold. Feingold, too, was thought to be unbeatable. But Johnson was able to characterize Feingold as a leftist, and a lazy one at that, because Feingold had developed no actual persona in the minds of the voters. Ditto for Baldwin.
There are two issues that will drive the debate in 2024: abortion and the border. There is no denying that abortion is a political problem for the Republicans. Sad as it is, voters keep opting to make all abortions legal all the time. Even solidly red states like Florida could be in play because of the obsessive love of legal abortion among some voters, particularly suburban women. But the Democrats have their own problem. Biden鈥檚 decision to flood America with millions of illegal immigrants has infuriated much of the nation, including most moderates and even some Democrats. Baldwin is in lockstep with her party on refusing to enforce immigration laws.
Unlike Leah Vukmir in 2018, Hovde will be very well-funded in running against Baldwin. Hovde is wealthy and his sudden strength in the polls will lead national donors to give him money now that they see Wisconsin is winnable. What鈥檚 unknown is how effective of a candidate Hovde will be. (For starters, he can shave the mustache.) If he entrusts his campaign to the usual morons who mismanage GOP political efforts, he can blow this.
In the end, voter turnout will likely determine if Trump wins Wisconsin and carries Hovde along with him. The Democrats proved in 2020 they are light-years ahead of the Republicans in getting their marginal people to vote. The GOP has to embrace early voting. Further, the party has got to end these asinine internal feuds which come from both wings of the party. If those things happen, Trump can win the state as he did in 2016 and if that happens, Hovde will beat Baldwin and end a political career that in 10 years no one will even remember.
Mark Belling is the host of a daily WISN radio talk show.