Bill Glauber, and Jason Stein

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Casting an absentee ballot Monday, Democrat Russ Feingold touted the strength of early voting and gave a subdued response to Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson's claim that Feingold is a "phony."

“I respect Sen. Johnson and I respect the office he holds and I’m not going to go there,” Feingold said in response to repeated questions from reporters. "I realize when somebody's desperate, when a politician feels like he's probably going to lose, he gets a little shaky on that."

In the rematch between the two men for U.S. Senate, Johnson's campaign expressed confidence Sunday in a memo that said his campaign believes that it can close the gap with Feingold in the last two weeks of the race.

Johnson campaign manager Betsy Ankney wrote that "there’s no doubt that we enter the final two weeks of the campaign with the wind at our backs and Senator Feingold and his team on the run."

Feingold cast an early vote Monday in Middleton, praising a July federal court ruling that expanded the opportunities for local governments to accept absentee ballots and urging supporters to take advantage of it. The early vote totals in Democratic areas like Milwaukee, Madison and Middleton were encouraging for his campaign, he said.

“It’s a wonderful thing that has happened,” Feingold said of the court ruling, telling backers to “vote like crazy.”

An Oct. 12 Marquette University Law School Poll showed Feingold with a 2-point lead over Johnson among likely Wisconsin voters.

On Monday, the pro-Johnson super PAC, Let America Work, released a poll showing Feingold with 48% and Johnson with 46% and said the race was in a "statistical tie." The survey of 600 likely Wisconsin voters was conducted Tuesday through Thursday and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4%.

Jim McLaughlin, who conducted the survey, said the findings showed that "the ballot is deadlocked among voters who have heard of both candidates or have an opinion of both candidates. The race is polarized with both candidates maximizing their vote among their political base, but Ron Johnson has the advantage among independents who will most likely decide the election."

The survey also found that Johnson is running ahead of Trump. The presidential race showed Democrat Hillary Clinton with 48% and Trump, the Republican, with 43%.

The Johnson campaign said it had $5.4 million cash on hand at the end of September, compared with $4.8 million for Feingold.

The Feingold campaign announced late last week that it raised nearly $1.6 million in the first 19 days of October. The Johnson campaign has not yet announced its haul for the same period.

In a jab at the Feingold campaign, Ankney wrote: *While we knew they spent a lot on ineffective TV ads, we did not realize just how inefficient their operation is, spending millions on operating and fundraising costs alone over the most recent three-month period."

Ankney said the Johnson campaign has made more than 2.5 million voter contacts, including knocking on more than 1.3 million doors. The campaign said it had 80 field staffers and 40 offices open statewide.

On Monday, the Johnson campaign launched a digital ad aimed at Progressives United PAC, which Feingold helped create after he was ousted from the Senate in 2010.

The ad criticizes the way Progressives United spent its money.

In response to the memo and the digital ad, Michael Tyler, a Feingold spokesman, said: "Senator Johnson, down in the polls and desperate to stay in power has followed Donald Trump's lead and dragged his campaign to the gutter with angry rants and personal insults. But no amount of negative campaigning can hide the fact that Senator Johnson always sides with giant corporations and multimillionaires like himself, while Russ listens to and will fight for the middle-class and working families of Wisconsin."