Wisconsin’s Field of Democratic Senate Hopefuls Is Lining Up on Left of Biden

At candidate forums, liberal heroes like Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont are mentioned by the Wisconsin contenders more frequently than the party’s current national leader and White House occupant.

The contest is one of about a half dozen nationally likely to determine control of the Senate. The incumbent, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, could benefit from drawing a November opponent too progressive for a state filled with independent voters.

It is the mirror image of what’s playing out in some other key states, including Arizona and Pennsylvania, where Democrats say they stand to benefit if GOP voters nominate candidates too conservative or too closely aligned with former President

Donald Trump.

The composition of the Wisconsin field, which includes roughly a dozen candidates, reflects the national party’s progressive tendencies in recent years. It also showcases a geographic reality that requires Democrats to win over large numbers of progressives in the state’s two biggest cities, Madison and Milwaukee, to win a statewide nomination.

While there hasn’t yet been any credible public polling on the Wisconsin race, early fundraising suggests there are four top Democratic candidates: Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, as well as Alex Lasry, the son of a billionaire hedge-fund manager who is also co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team, and Tom Nelson, the top elected official in a county southwest of Green Bay.

The incumbent—a staunch supporter of Mr. Trump who is rated as one of the most vulnerable incumbent senators by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report—announced Jan. 9 that he is seeking a third term. He’ll be campaigning in a national environment favorable for Republicans, while also confronting some of the worst poll ratings of his career.

Mr. Johnson has embraced Mr. Trump’s false claims of widespread election fraud in 2020. He has also questioned the push to vaccinate people against Covid-19, citing possible safety concerns.

“While Democrats trip over themselves to prove who is the most liberal, Senator Johnson is speaking directly to Wisconsinites about the issues that matter: reckless spending, government overreach, and standing up for freedom,” Anna Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said.

The state’s primary isn’t until Aug. 9. That allows plenty of time for potential infighting among those in the Democratic field—something that is already emerging—as Mr. Johnson tries to boost his image through paid advertising before he’s more directly confronted.

Wisconsin, which narrowly backed Mr. Biden, has elected both progressives and conservatives to statewide office. In 2018, it re-elected Democratic

Sen. Tammy Baldwin,

the first openly gay person to serve in the Senate and one of the chamber’s most liberal members, by almost 11 percentage points.

Three of the four top fundraising Democratic candidates participated in interviews for this story; an aide to Mr. Barnes said he was unavailable over the course of more than a week.

All of the top four support legalizing marijuana, an idea Mr. Biden hasn’t embraced. They also want to see the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster rule eliminated, something Mr. Biden recently backed on a limited basis for voting legislation.

Messrs. Barnes and Nelson support Medicare for All, a proposal promoted by progressives and opposed by Mr. Biden that would create a universal federal plan.

Mr. Lasry supports “Medicare for all who want it,” echoing a slogan offered by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg when he campaigned for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. The less-aggressive proposal, which goes further than what Mr. Biden has supported, would allow Americans to buy into a government plan while preserving private insurance.

“We’re talking about being a progressive who can get things done,” said Mr. Lasry, who has worked for Goldman Sachs, former President

Barack Obama’s

White House and the basketball team his father, Marc Lasry, co-owns.

Ms. Godlewski stopped short of supporting Medicare for All, although she agrees with Mr. Sanders and other progressives that dental, vision and hearing coverage should be added to Medicare. “We need to have universal healthcare,” she said. ”I don’t want to scrap our entire system and start over.”

She’s said she supports an “Elizabeth Warren-style wealth tax.”

Mr. Nelson offers the firmest endorsement of the Green New Deal, a statement of goals put forward by progressives in 2019 that, among other things, aims to slow climate change by ending U.S. reliance on fossil fuels within 10 years.

In an interview, Mr. Nelson said many Democrats haven’t done an effective job of explaining the benefits of Medicare for All or the Green New Deal. “They are issues that a lot of folks embrace,” he said.

Mr. Barnes, who worked as a community organizer before being elected to the Wisconsin Assembly in 2012 and to his current post in 2018, might have the most progressive record among the top candidates. Republicans are highlighting a photo of him holding a T-shirt printed with “abolish ICE,” a slogan popular with those who want to eliminate the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

He also tweeted in 2020 that “defunding the police only dreams of being as radical as a Donald Trump pardon,” a reference to a progressive rallying cry that has proven politically toxic for Democrats. Mr. Barnes, his state’s first Black lieutenant governor, declined to distance himself from the slogan when asked about it by an interviewer last year.

“I don’t support defunding the police,” he said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal late last week. “What I do support is investing just as…