Term limits are mostly a Republican thing, and they don’t honor their term limits pledges, so they’re hardly anything at all.
“When Sen. Ron Johnson ran for re-election six years ago,” MSNBC says (here), “the Wisconsin Republican made a public commitment: He believed in term limits … and he would not seek a third term.” Yeah, right. He just broke that pledge.
Granted, it wasn’t obvious he would run again. MSNBC observed that “he’s [become] a far-right caricature … seen as more of a partisan clown than a serious policymaker” and is the GOP’s “foremost amplifier of conspiracy theories and disinformation.” The Milwaukee newspaper called him unfit for office and an “irresponsible representative of Wisconsin citizens.”
Johnson is the GOP senator who called the Jan. 6 insurrectionists “tourists.”
Wisconsin Democrats goaded him to run. They can read polls. A recent Marquette survey “found only 38 percent of the state’s voters intend to support his bid for a third term.” MSNBC said, “It’s no exaggeration to say Johnson is easily the GOP’s most endangered Senate incumbent.”
We’ll see. But Wisconsin is purple, not red; it’s notorious governor, Scotty Walker, is gone and replaced by a Democrat. Geographically, most of the state is GOP territory, but the population and votes are concentrated in Milwaukee, which has a large black population, and Madison, home of the University of Wisconsin with its large student population and a liberal stronghold.
In a perfect world voters would elect senators who are serious about governing, know how, and have experience. But America is half Republican, so you get senators like Johnson. You can argue that Democrats aren’t perfect, either, but a less-than-perfect Democrat almost always is still better than his Republican opponent. The GOP seemingly works hard to keep it that way. In this case, “Republican leaders, both on Capitol Hill and in the Badger State, strongly encouraged Johnson” to run again.
That doesn’t mean the Democrats will take over that seat in the midterm elections, but they think it improves their chances.
Wisconsinites will get over the promise of not running. [Edited comment]
They probably either don’t remember or don’t care, so there’s nothing to get over. It’s not the sort of issue that decides elections, merely evidence his word can’t be trusted.