Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, generally considered the upper chamber's most vulnerable Republican incumbent heading into the midterms, has been projected the winner in his tough race with Democrat opponent Mandela Barnes.
Newsmax projected Johnson would prevail against Barnes, who trailed 49.58% to 50.42% with 93% of the vote counted.
NBC News and CNN also called the race for Johnson, who thus won a third term after a nasty campaign.
Johnson and allied outside groups said Barnes was soft on crime and criticized the Democrat for supporting the end of cash bail, which they linked to the 2021 Waukesha Christmas parade attack.
In that attack, a 39-year-old man who had been released from custody on $1,000 bail after being accused of domestic violence crashed his SUV through a crowd, killing six people and injuring dozens more, The Hill reported.
During a debate last month, Barnes accused Johnson of caring more about helping wealthy donors than assisting working-class residents.
Johnson responded by citing that Barnes had spent more than $600,000 in taxpayer money on security detail, The Hill said.
President Joe Biden won Wisconsin in 2020 by 20,000 votes, or less than a percentage point. That was a big reason Democrats saw Johnson as their best chance to oust a Senate Republican.
Johnson, the senior GOP member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, would take a lead role in investigating the Biden administration if Republicans win control of the upper chamber.
"The senator’s priorities with a GOP majority and his role as chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations would be uncovering and exposing the truth regarding our miserably failed response to COVID-19, corruption and politicization of federal law enforcement and our intelligence agencies, and continuing our ongoing investigation into the corruption of Hunter Biden and the Biden family," Johnson spokeswoman Alex Henning told The Hill.
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