The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Washington bureau chief says the 2016 presidential election will attract a favorable electorate for Russ Feingold in his rematch against Sen. Ron Johnson.

Feingold lost his Senate seat to Johnson in the 2010 midterm election, which according to the Journal Sentinel’s Craig Gilbert was by some measures the best year for Republicans in Wisconsin since the 1930s. Gilbert said that midterm elections have been harder for Democrats than presidential elections because the electorate is smaller, older, less diverse and generally tends to be a little more conservative.

"If Feingold can just hold his own among independents and the electorate tilts a little Democratic, that’s a winning formula," Gilbert said.

Feingold has jumped out to an early lead in the race, according to a Marquette Law School poll conducted last month. Gilbert reported that Feingold’s current popularity ratings are better than almost any politician the school has asked about in its more-than three years of polling. The survey found Feingold leads Johnson by 16 points, with an almost 20-point advantage with independent voters. In contrast, Feingold lost independent voters in 2010 by nearly 12 points.

Gilbert said that Feingold holds a respectable favorability rating at about 25 percent, even among the state’s Republican voters. Gilbert said it's "a pretty remarkable number in the day and age in which we live, and in Wisconsin where people are so polarized that almost nobody gets any support from voters in the other party."

Gilbert added that even when he lost, Feingold’s image was never all that negative.