| | | | |  | | By Brakkton Booker | With help from Ella Creamer, Rishika Dugyala and Teresa Wiltz
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POLITICO illustration/AP Photo | What up, Recast family! President Joe Biden, the oldest president in U.S. history, tests positive for Covid-19. The White House vows he'll power through because he's boosted and double vaxxed. Plus the Jan. 6 committee holds another prime-time hearing, Thomas Lane, one of the former Minneapolis police officers convicted of violating George Floyd's civil rights, is sentenced to 2 ½ years in federal prison. Today, though, we focus on the battleground state of Wisconsin. Mandela Barnes is looking to make history … again. Four years ago, Barnes, who is named after Nelson Mandela, rode the Democratic wave, helping to topple Republican Scott Walker's grip on the governor's mansion and in the process became Wisconsin's first Black lieutenant governor. Barnes, is a seasoned politician who, through the course of our conversation, politely works in multiple jabs at Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, the man he plans to unseat in the fall. POLITICO handicaps the general election contest as a toss-up and recent polls indicate Barnes has a fighting chance to beat Johnson — even with national trends suggesting Democrats are in store for a bruising in the November midterms. If he wins the general election, Barnes would be the Badger state's first Black senator. But first, he's got to secure the Democratic nomination. Barnes is facing an insurgent charge from Alex Lasry , the son of the billionaire co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks NBA franchise. As the Aug. 9 primary approaches, Lasry is rising and is now Barnes' chief rival. He loaned his campaign more than $12 million of his personal fortune to compete with Barnes, who was thought to be the odds-on favorite in the race. A recent Marquette University Law School poll last month showed Barnes leading Lasry by just a few percentage points — 25 percent to 21 percent — with more than a third of voters still undecided. Abortion has emerged as a key issue in the race in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Some see that as an advantage for Lasry, whose wife is chief of staff for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. But as Barnes revealed at a Democratic debate last weekend, he too has an abortion story. We chop it up about the fight for abortion access, why he says he's trying to break up the Senate's "millionaires club" and his bromance with John Fetterman , the Pennsylvania Democratic nominee for Senate. ◆◆◆ This interview has been edited for length and clarity. THE RECAST: What do you need to secure your nomination and take on Sen. Ron Johnson in the fall? LT. GOV. BARNES: The thing that's gonna win this race is the grassroots enthusiasm that we've been able to generate. That started at the very beginning of the campaign. But now, it's even stronger. The energy was probably not better evidenced than last week, when Sen. [Cory] Booker was in town. We held an amazing, gigantic rally at my high school in the gym. The people who were there, the diversity — people were just ready to go out to not just beat Ron Johnson, but the people know that better is possible.
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Courtesy of the Barnes campaign | THE RECAST: You've been the frontrunner in the Democratic primary for months now. A positive way to look at this is you've got the most support among folks who were being surveyed. Another way of looking at this, too, is your support has remained flat. Looking at the Marquette poll in February you were at 23 percent, dipped down to 19 percent in April and back up to 25 percent in June. While your closest rival has seen a steady increase in that time. How come you haven't been able to break away from this field? LT. GOV. BARNES: We have been massively outspent. There has been unprecedented self-funding in this race. And yet, we still have maintained our lead in polling, both independent polling and internal polling. I'm proud of the grassroots support that we've received so far. It's gotten us to this point. I can tell you, there's not a single candidate who has the enthusiasm. And if you look at the Marquette poll — I'm really glad you brought it up — because we are beating Ron Johnson with more support than any other person in the Democratic primary field. And I'm the only Democrat that's beating Ron Johnson with independent voters as well.
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| Every week, we sit down with diverse and influential characters who are shaking up politics. Who should we profile next? Let us know. Email us at therecast@politico.com .
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THE RECAST: I take your point on that. But if we were focusing on that same poll a sizable number of voters — 36 percent — say they're undecided. So as Wisconsinites are trying to pick between you and, perhaps, Alex Lasry, or one of the other candidates, how do you get them to cast a ballot for you?
LT. GOV. BARNES: It's important that we have a senator who actually understands the struggles that people are dealing with, people who can authentically connect with voters. Our support has been organic. And this is reflected, whether it's in my hometown, in Milwaukee, or in places like Wausau all the way up to Superior. I was also born and raised in the middle class. I know the challenges people are facing, because they have also been my challenges. And we have a Senate that is fundamentally broken because the people there who are in the Senate right now, do not truly understand what life is like for a majority of Americans. When I talk to people [on the campaign trail] it often comes up that the Senate is a millionaire's club that they want to see broken up because the Senate has not delivered for them.
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Mandela Barnes, left to right, Sarah Godlewski, Alex Lasry, Tom Nelson and Steven Olikara participate in a televised Wisconsin Democratic U.S. Senate debate, Sunday, July 17, 2022, in Milwaukee. | Morry Gash/AP Photo | THE RECAST: So when you're talking about breaking up this Senate millionaire's club, I mean, I understand this is a "Wisconsin nice" type of primary campaign, but you're obviously referring to Alex Lasry and his personal fortune. LT. GOV. BARNES: That's not the only person. Ron Johnson is a multimillionaire. THE RECAST: Sure, sure. But focusing on this primary, task number one is securing the nomination. Are you concerned that having two millionaires competing in the general election cancels out Democrats' message that they are the ones who can bring some relief to struggling Wisconsinites? LT. GOV. BARNES: I'm focused on Ron Johnson, who is an out of touch ultrawealthy politician, who is self-serving and cannot relate to the struggles of people here in Wisconsin. THE RECAST: Let's switch gears to abortion, which has emerged as a top issue in the campaign. What can Congress, particularly the Senate do to enshrine federal access to abortion, rights that are no longer in place because of the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe? LT. GOV. BARNES: Some of the things we can do is make sure that women who are in states like Wisconsin are able to travel without repercussions if they need to get abortion care. Expanding the majority in the Senate is paramount, ending the filibuster, codifying the right to choose into law too, but we need to elect a pro-choice majority. We haven't had that. With that being said, I shared my personal story on stage at the debate on Sunday.
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| That was her choice and that's a choice that should be available to every woman across the entire country. If she did not have that choice, I wouldn't be here today. THE RECAST: One of the ideas that is being floated, particularly in Democratic circles, is expanding the number of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. Where do you fall on this issue? LT. GOV. BARNES: It's a conversation that I'm open to. But what I'm focused on at this moment is reform of the courts. I am in favor of term limits. And I think that our Supreme Court justices should abide by the same ethics standards as every other court in the country. I would venture to say there's probably not enough votes to expand the number of Supreme Court justices right now, anyway. So what we need to do is take the immediate steps to codify the right to choose, solidify voting rights in this country, and to do the work that we need to be done to help rebuild this middle class. The overturning of Roe is just the beginning. They're coming after voter rights, they're coming after the right to marry who you love, even contraceptives. We see just how fragile these rights actually are.
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Protesters gathered outside the state Capitol building in Madison, Wis., Friday, June 24, 2022, in advance of a protest. | Harm Venhuizen/AP Photo | THE RECAST: The Wisconsin Supreme Court earlier this month in 4-3 ruling said the state has to significantly curb, almost eliminate, most drop boxes in the state. How will this impact voter turnout, particularly in your primary contest? LT. GOV. BARNES: The state Supreme Court has acted as a partisan extension of the Republican-controlled Legislature. This is just another step in their effort to take away more fundamental rights that we have fought for. It's never been more important than now to elect leaders who are accountable to the people. In the Senate, I will fight to expand access to the ballot box and to make sure that every person in this state gets their voice heard. I started my campaign a year ago talking about how broken the Senate is. That's why the very first plan my campaign released was a democracy and accountability agenda . In our plan it calls to hold accountable people who tried to subvert our democracy. THE RECAST: Before we go I want to ask about this bromance you have with John Fetterman. You're both running in swing states crucial to your party's chances to expand their Senate majority. What sparked this friendship and have you spoken to him since he won the Democratic nomination for the senate and his stroke two months ago ? LT. GOV. BARNES: When John Fetterman ran for the senate in 2016. I donated $25 to his campaign. THE RECAST: A whole $25? LT. GOV. BARNES: Hey man, I gave him $25. I'm broke (chuckles). I haven't even given my own campaign $25. But I tell you, we ended up meeting once we got elected lieutenant governor or maybe it was when he became the nominee in 2018. Just two tall, bald dudes, just trying to get the job done.
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Fetterman greets supporters at a campaign stop, May 10, 2022, in Greensburg, Pa. | Keith Srakocic/AP Photo | It's been a bonding experience. THE RECAST: Have you talked to him since his stroke? How is he doing? LT. GOV. BARNES: I've hit him up a couple times. You know, things seem good. Things feel good. The last messages I sent them, I told him: "You're out there killing it man. I'm just checking in." He's more than on the mend, this dude is about to become a U.S. senator. ◆◆◆ OK fam, you know the drill, some quick pop news items, then off to the fun stuff ahead of your weekend. POLITICO's Kyle Cheney and Nicholas Wu break down last night's prime-time Jan. 6 committee hearings … and what's in store for future ones. Speaking of Fetterman, the Senate nominee in Pennsylvania … POLITICO's Holly Otterbein and Marianne Levine on how he's been campaigning since his stroke two months ago. The past haunts the present in Kenyan writer Okwiri Oduor's short story, " The Other Rosalie ." Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the editor in chief of the new "Oxford Dictionary of African American English." Black people, he says, took English and "reinvented it, to make it reflect their sensibilities and to make it mirror their cultural selves." Cannot. Wait. Jordan Peele is back with another horror classic, "Nope." For some zen … stretch out with this piece, by our very own Teresa Wiltz, on traveling to Goa, India, to study yoga . Mexican-Dominican singer Ambar Lucid is "Timeless."
|  | Check out " Anything's Possible " tonight, a coming-of-age tale following a Black trans high school senior navigating love written by Ximena García Lecuona. Rookie artist Doechii has a brand new song. Lots of NSFW language, but her flow is nice.
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