The hottest Senate race of the 2016 cycle is a rematch that flips the dynamics from six years ago on its head: The one-time self-funding millionaire incumbent is now the underdog, and the favored challenger is a previous three-term senator whose past campaign-finance pledges and modest means made him a perennial target.
First-term Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., knocked off liberal icon Russ Feingold in 2010 by tapping into Tea Party sentiment and plowing $8.8 million of his fortune into the race.
Feingold almost lost re-election in 1998 because he refused to allow his campaign, the Democratic Party or affiliated outside groups use “soft money” to counter the millions of GOP-backed dollars that poured into the state on behalf of his opponent that year. Feingold again rejected third-party help and fell to Johnson in 2010, after independent groups spent approximately $3 million on the race, the bulk of which benefited Johnson.
Feingold’s name is synonymous with campaign finance reform known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which is more commonly referred to as McCain-Feingold. And the former senator is again campaigning against the shadow groups and anonymous donors that have multiplied since the Supreme Court rolled back most of his signature legislation with the 2010 Citizens United ruling.
In recent weeks, he has asked Johnson to adhere to the “Badger Pledge,” which would see both candidates donate 50 percent of the cost of an outside ad to a charity of his opponent’s choosing for every third-party ad that benefits them.
But this go-around, Feingold dropped a pledge he first made in 1992 to raise the majority of his campaign war chest from inside the Badger State. That has Johnson, an Oshkosh businessman who made his fortune in plastics manufacturing, crying foul.
“Sen. Feingold has yet to tell Wisconsinites everything about his own shady outside money group and how much it supported him, his staff, and his personal ambition,” Johnson campaign spokeswoman Betsy Ankney told the Wisconsin Radio Network when Feingold pushed the issue last month. “Until he comes clean about that, there’s nothing else to talk about.”
Feingold later retorted: “I’m amused by somebody who not only makes no pledges, but has no problem sucking up huge amounts of corporate contributions,” according to Madison.com. “This guy’s lecturing me on pledges I made going back to 1992? It’s ridiculous,” he said, referring to the Club for Growth’s plans to dump $2.5 million into Wisconsin on Johnson’s behalf.
Beyond criticizing Feingold for accepting more out-of-state donations, Ankney was seizing on a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report that Feingold’s former PAC, Progressives United, which he formed after leaving office in 2011, spent the bulk of what it raised on operations. That includes salaries for one-time Feingold aides, many of whom are back working for the Middleton Democrat.
Feingold is also under fire for accepting money for speeches and appearances he made after leaving the Senate, and before his former Senate colleague, Secretary of State John Kerry, appointed him special envoy to the Great Lakes region of Africa in June 2013.
“During his nearly two decades in Washington, D.C., former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold fashioned himself as Mr. Clean — a lawmaker not interested in the perks of public office,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote recently. “Feingold, for instance, was a regular critic of honorariums, fees paid by special interests in exchange for speeches to the group’s members.”
According to the Journal Sentinel, Feingold accepted $103,117 for speeches and appearances. Since announcing his candidacy in May, he has refused similar payments.
In the most recent Federal Election Commission filings, Feingold raised $2.2 million in the quarter ended June 30. Johnson raised $2 million.
For now at least, Feingold’s new approach to funding doesn’t appear to be hurting him. The latest Marquette University poll showed Feingold leading Johnson 47 percent to 42 percent.
