ADAMS, Wis. – Nate Zimdars, a Democratic candidate for the Wisconsin State Assembly, arrived at the VFW shelter here after marching in the local Independence Day parade, ready to meet with voters at an annual outdoor chicken barbecue called ” Chic Nic “. Although the event was organized by the local Republican Party, Zimdars was far from nervous behind enemy lines. He was eager.
The county changed from blue to red in 2016, Zimdars noted, which meant it could change again. Plus, the National Democrats had done him a favor: They elected former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for the top of their ticket.
“Biden presents himself as someone moderate and experienced on both sides of the aisle,” said Zimdars. “My family and close friends, who are a little more on the Republican side of the fence, said that if Biden became the candidate, they would vote for him.”
Such persuasion is at the core of Mr. Biden’s campaign strategy, designed to bring together moderates, older adults, working class voters of all races, and former supporters of President Trump. The approach helped him jump to an early position in the polls, both in national polls and in changing states like Wisconsin, where Trump won by less than 23,000 votes in 2016. It also helped him fend off Trump’s attacks, which he has tried of electing Mr. Biden as a radical progressive despite his long career as a moderate legislator.
But if Biden hopes to maintain his lead as November draws near, Wisconsin Democrats like Zimdars have some advice, similar to the famous medical principle of “do no harm,” or the words of warning from the hit HBO series “The Wire. ” “:” Make it boring “.
Being politically aggressive is Biden’s draw, they said, boosting his ability to attract progressives in Milwaukee, moderates in suburbs like Waukesha, and more rural voters in places like Adams County, one of the state’s 22 counties that voted for Trump. after endorsing President Barack Obama in 2012.
They do not regret that Biden is not a historic candidate like Obama or Hillary Clinton, or that he lacks progressive policies like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, they are grateful for that.
After the 2016 election, Ms. Clinton was criticized for running a risk-averse campaign that seemed confident that voters would find Trump’s conduct inherently disgusting. Four years later, faced with a change in the electoral landscape, many Wisconsin Democrats believe that Biden can win the state with that exact playbook.
Biden is “the perfect candidate for this area right now,” said Matt Mareno, chairman of the Waukesha Democratic Party.
“Trump’s rallying cry was that he was a stranger coming to fix the establishment, and now he is the establishment,” Mareno said. “We are seeing more and more college educated white voters abandon it and we see more older people leaving it. We are seeing that the coalition completely dissolved to the central base of its support. “
Several characteristics inform Biden’s strategy, including his long career as a bipartisan lawmaker, Trump’s panoramic response to the pandemic, and Biden’s identity as an older white man, the type of politician easily categorized as “presidential.”
There are a variety of ways that Biden can build a general election coalition in a battlefield state like Wisconsin.
You could focus on getting voters back in low-population areas, where Ms. Clinton suffered heavy losses in 2016.
You could take advantage of recent Democratic efforts to target college-educated white voters that Mr. Trump has sometimes rejected, particularly in suburban counties like Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington, where Mrs. Clinton outperformed Mr. Obama but also lost some votes. to third party candidates.
Or you could try to motivate trusted Democratic voters like youth, black voters, and Latino voters in Milwaukee, the Democratic stronghold where turnout decreased significantly in 2016.
Biden’s aides say he will seek to attract persuasive voters and motivate the party’s base, mimicking the successful campaign by Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin, a progressive who won reelection in 2018 by 10 points. Biden led Trump by 11 points in Wisconsin in a poll by The New York Times and Siena College last month, and the latest polls from other battlefield states like Pennsylvania have been even better for him.
Rep. Mark Pocan, a Democrat who represents Madison, said Biden’s campaign had already surpassed Clinton’s in terms of investment and attention to Wisconsin. Mr. Pocan said the Clinton campaign “took the purple state for granted,” citing both the lack of visits and financial support for the voting candidates.
“Donald Trump came and lied to us, but at least he showed up,” he said, calling the Democrats’ 2016 losses a “duh moment” for the party. It was the fall of Democratic voters in Wisconsin, not a large Republican turnout, that most helped Trump win there, he said.
“When one candidate doesn’t campaign and the other does, hopefully he can get the results we got,” said Pocan. “But no one will ever make that mistake again.”
This does not mean that Mr. Biden has avoided skepticism from central Democratic constituencies, such as youth and progressive minority voters, the same groups that frequently harassed Mrs. Clinton and endorsed Mr. Biden’s rivals in the primary .
In fact, the same polls that show Mr. Biden confidently before Mr. Trump also find him with lukewarm numbers among youth and minority voters. His favorability index declined in a recent poll by NBC and The Wall Street Journal, fueled by change among younger Democrats.
At a Milwaukee protest in support of the Black Lives Matter this month, 23-year-old Larissa Gladding said she considered voting for Biden the unfortunate cost of beating Trump. “It doesn’t even seem like it’s a youth election or that she wants youth to vote more,” she said, adding that she still planned to vote for Mr. Biden anyway.
Dominique Tonneas, 24, who was interviewed at a fireworks show in Muskego and who plans to vote for Trump in November, said Biden’s age and long career meant he would not bring a new perspective to the table. She said she planned to vote for Trump, who is only a few years younger, because he preferred his economic policies.
What is already clear: the last months, which have presented the largest protest movement in the history of the United States and a pandemic that continues to kill thousands and alter the social and economic fabric of the country, has forced Mr. Biden and the Mr. Trump to adjust the structure. and the message of your campaigns.
Sue Schaetzka, who attended Chic Nic in Adams, said she voted for Trump in 2016 and planned to do so again in November. But she said the events of the past few months, and particularly the nation’s response to the coronavirus, had changed the way people in her social circles felt about the president.
Schaetzka was not sure Trump could win the state again this year, particularly against a Democrat like Biden.
“With everything that is happening with Covid, I know some people are reconsidering,” said Schaetzka.
“People like Biden more than Hillary,” he added. “I don’t know if it’s her past and all that, but they didn’t trust her.”
At the Milwaukee protest, young liberals said they planned to vote for Mr. Biden, but the exact things that help him attract people like Ms. Schaetzka are what make them reluctantly supportive, even resentful.
They portrayed Biden as too ideologically moderate and as a personally intrigued old man, a criticism that mimics the nickname “Sleepy Joe” that Trump has tried to popularize.
Diarelis Rodríguez, who marched in the protest, said she understood young people who saw Biden and Trump as two sides of the same coin.
“Biden is part of the problem. He helped with the Drug War and he really doesn’t understand the problems we need him to do, “said Rodriguez, 18.” The people I’m talking to don’t want to vote because they don’t want to participate in a corrupt system. “
But Ms. Rodríguez still said she planned to vote for Mr. Biden in November, although both she and Ms. Gladding wanted him to embrace more activist rhetoric on issues of racial equality and police recall.
There is a reason why you don’t have. Twenty kilometers away, Waukesha Democratic Party leaders said they recently sent a phone call from a skeptical voter who said he wanted to vote for Biden, but was concerned that Democrats would become hostile to police officers.
A volunteer named Scott Prindl called the woman. Prindl, 65, said the woman had a family in law enforcement and so did he. During the phone call, he explained the Black Lives Matter movement and its goals, as he saw them.
“The real Black Lives Matter protests are the ones that are peaceful,” Prindl, who is white, told the woman over the phone. “It is strangers who enter and wreak havoc,” he said, referring to the destructive political groups that protesters say turned some of the protests violent.
The woman was comforted. She will vote for the Democrats in November, she said, and for Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump.
