page_title: 1992 United States Senate elections
section_title: Wisconsin
hierarchical_section_title: 1992 United States Senate elections / Wisconsin
caption_attribution_description: English: Results of the Wisconsin gubernatorial election, 2006 by county. Blue indicates counties that voted for Doyle, red for Green.
context_page_description: The 1992 United States Senate elections, held November 3, 1992, were elections for the United States Senate that coincided with Bill Clinton's victory the presidential election. Both parties swapped a pair of seats, resulting in no net change in partisan breakdown.
  Democratic victories over Republicans John F. Seymour and Bob Kasten were cancelled out by the defeats of Democrats Wyche Fowler and Terry Sanford. The election of four new Democratic women to the Senate was notable. Due to a special election in California, both of California's Senate seats were up for election in 1992. These seats were won by Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. Thus, California became the first state to have elected women to occupy both of its Senate seats. No man has represented the state in the Senate since, as of 2020.
  Democrat Carol Moseley Braun, became the first African-American woman in the United States Senate.
context_section_description: Incumbent Republican Bob Kasten ran for re-election to a third term, but was defeated by Democratic State senator Russ Feingold.
  Feingold, who had little name recognition in the state and was campaigning in a primary against a pair of millionaire opponents, U.S. Congressman Jim Moody and Milwaukee businessman Joe Checota, adopted several proposals to gain the electorate's attention. The most memorable of these was a series of five promises written on Feingold's garage door in the form of a contract. Also noted was Feingold's advertising campaign, which was widely compared to that used by progressive candidate Paul Wellstone in his victorious Senate campaign in Minnesota. Shot in the form of home movies, the ads attempted to portray Feingold, who always referred to himself as "the underdog running for U.S. senate," as a down-to-earth, Capra-esque figure, taking the audience on a guided tour of the candidate's home and introducing them to his children, all of whom were enrolled in public school.
  The ads also contained a significant amount of humor. One featured Feingold meeting with an Elvis Presley impersonator, who offered Feingold his endorsement. (Bob Kasten responded to the Elvis endorsement with an advertisement featuring an Elvis impersonator attacking Feingold's record.) Another showed Feingold standing next to a pair of half-sized cardboard cut-outs of his opponents, refusing to "stoop to their level" as the two were shown literally slinging mud at one another.
  During the primary campaign, Feingold unveiled an 82-point plan that aimed to eliminate the deficit by the end of his first term. The plan, which called for, among other things, a raise in taxes and cuts in the defense budget, was derided as "extremist" by Republicans and "too liberal" by his Democratic opponents. Feingold also announced his support for strict campaign finance reform and a national health care system and voiced his opposition to term limits and new tax cuts.
  Feingold won by positioning himself as a quirky underdog who offered voters an alternative to what was seen by many as negative campaigning of opponents Jim Moody and Joe Checota. On primary day, Feingold, whose support had shown in the single digits throughout much of the campaign, surged to victory with 70 percent of the vote. Seven weeks later, while Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Ross Perot split the Wisconsin presidential vote 41%-37%-21%, Feingold beat Kasten by a margin of 53 percent to 46 percent.
caption: County results
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