Dennis Boyer, a former lawyer who retired years ago to his farm in southwestern Wisconsin, says there is no question who he will vote for and many people he will speak to in November: it is Joe Biden.
Boyer, an independent voter who described himself and said he did not vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in 2016, said that the coronavirus pandemic, despite not being as virulent in the state as in many others, “has really exposed problems that pretty much connect with everything “to the point that” voters of all stripes here really have a reason to oppose Donald Trump. “
“It is a convergence of all the great problems of our time: health care, race, inequality. Even basic decency and human dignity. I think it really is activating many people here and certainly activating many people who were not terribly active here. in 2016, “said Boyer, who does remote part-time work with a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes civic engagement through conversation.
“Almost any way to cut it, it is difficult to defend the president,” he said.
Though months to go before the general election, interviews with multiple Wisconsin voters, current and former lawmakers, party officials, political strategists, pollsters, policy watchers, and union officials paint a picture of a critical battlefield escaping of the president’s reach. Despite the infection, death rate and COVID-19 unemployment figures, sources said there are warning signs for Trump’s re-election campaign in almost every corner of the state, which turned red for the first time since 1984 .
And while enthusiasm for Biden isn’t exactly robust, the increased investment and focus of his Wisconsin campaign, as well as a litany of unforced errors by Trump and the numbers of subsequent polls his campaign is seeing are enough to worry. even to most of the prominent republican state.
“It is difficult for him at any time, and he is not always really talking about issues related to the economy, security or public health,” former Governor Scott Walker said in an interview when asked if Trump was driving. the pandemic and recent observations such as his expressed desire to “slow down” testing for the virus were jeopardizing his chances of winning again in Wisconsin.
“This will be a referendum on the president, and it will be a referendum based on the three things people are concerned about right now: their health, the health of the economy, and how safe things are in the state.” Walker said. “They really need to continue to address those three issues.”
Smaller COVID-19 numbers don’t mean minor challenges
Wisconsin has not been as affected by the outbreak as other states: its total COVID-19 cases, death count, infection rate per capita, and death rate per capita, as well as its percentage of the state workforce that has reported First-time Claims Unemployment benefits since March 14 are better than those in at least half of the states, although Wisconsin has seen a modest increase in COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks.
But its residents still feel the pain of the pandemic a lot, and recent polls seem to indicate that many feel it is Trump’s fault.
Biden led Trump among Wisconsin registered voters 49 percent to 41 percent, according to a survey by the Marquette Law School, the state’s gold standard for polls, released last week. (The latest RealClearPolitics average from recent polls also indicated an upward battle for Trump, showing he would lose Wisconsin to Biden in a head-to-head matchup, 48.5 percent to 42 percent.)
Marquette’s poll, however, also showed that Trump’s overall job approval declined from the previous month’s poll, to 45 percent (with 51 percent he says he disapproves), while approval of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic fell to 44 percent (with 52 percent saying they disapprove).
Critically, the poll also found that support for Trump fell among Republicans, while support for Biden increased among independent voters.
“Certainly, the consensus of public opinion in Wisconsin is that the president has done more to hurt himself than he has to help himself,” said the director of the poll, Charles Franklin, professor of political science at the Marquette University.
Charlie Sykes, a former conservative radio host in Wisconsin who opposes Trump, said: “Wisconsin voters are paying attention to their lack of empathy and their failure to deal with the crisis responsibly.
“Independents are pulling away from Trump. That’s a big problem,” added Sykes, an MSNBC contributor who founded the conservative news site The Bulwark.
A ‘solid roadmap to victory’ for Biden
In many ways, repeating Trump’s surprise, the narrow 2016 victory in Wisconsin, which won by just under 23,000 votes, was always going to be an onerous undertaking. And the runs that have occurred in the state since then suggest that even before the pandemic, Trump faced a much more motivated Democratic base than in 2016.
In 2018, the national “blue wave” of Democratic victories had a particular weight in Wisconsin, where Democrat Tony Evers defeated Walker (who, since 2011, won two general elections and one recall election) and Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin comfortably won choice over Leah Vukmir, whom Trump endorsed.
Even more troubling to Republicans were the results of the state Supreme Court election in April. Liberal judge Jill Karofsky defeated conservative judge Daniel Kelly, who was also endorsed by Trump, in an election that took place despite the pandemic, in which voters donned masks and gloves and challenged long lines to vote.
“When you look at whether there is real and true Democratic enthusiasm here, well, you saw it in the 2018 election and the spring Supreme Court election,” Sykes said. “This is what anti-Trump sentiment looks like.”
“And, obviously, it is exacerbated by the wide uncertainty created by his pandemic response. All of that is what is driving the dynamics in the state right now,” he said.
However, it was Baldwin’s 2018 victory, which took home the highest percentage of any candidate for governor or senator in the state in 12 years, that could present the best plan for a Biden victory, strategists and lawmakers said Democrats.
Baldwin, one of the most liberal members of Congress, had 17 counties that Trump had run two years earlier, including rural working-class areas along the Minnesota border, working-class counties around Green Bay, and some suburban counties south of Milwaukee and around Madison. In particular, he won almost 40 percent of the vote in Waukesha County, the Republican fortress that encompasses the western suburbs of Milwaukee, and 42 percent of the vote in Ozaukee County, north of Milwaukee, levels that No Democratic presidential candidate has reached in more than 20 years.
So Democrats in the state took it as a promising sign last week when Biden announced a Wisconsin team led by two veterans of the 2018 Baldwin campaign.
“This is a huge improvement over four years ago, as it refers to the level of seriousness the party shows in bringing Wisconsin,” said US Democratic Rep. Ron Kind, whose western Wisconsin district comprises multiple counties that Trump flushed in 2016.
State Representative Robyn Vining, a Democrat who overturned a conservative State Assembly district that includes part of Waukesha County in 2018, said: “Baldwin’s hires were incredibly smart. They will help Joe Biden follow a solid path to victory. in this state”. “
When asked about his other investments in Wisconsin, the Biden campaign pointed to three virtual events targeting the state specifically with Joe or Jill Biden since May 20, as well as eight more since May 8 that featured substitutes for the campaign. The campaign declined to say how many voters it had practically reached since the campaign went fully digital on March 14, but did say that in a recent “virtual weekend of action” organized by the state Democratic Party, “thousands” of Volunteers made “hundreds of thousands of phone calls.”
Democrats in the state also said that the Democratic National Convention, to be held in Milwaukee next month as a largely virtual and small event due to the pandemic, could be a valuable tool to help mobilize voters and volunteers.
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Trump Victory, the joint operation between Trump’s re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee, said that during the time the campaign was digital-only, it made 4.2 million online voter contacts in Wisconsin and conducted 180 virtual training sessions. with more than 600 volunteers The campaign said it resumed in-person voter contacts on June 8.
Additionally, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence visited the state last week: The President, as part of an official administration trip, toured a shipyard outside Green Bay, while the Vice President, as part of a campaign visit, toured Milwaukee outskirts. Republicans said the trips showed that Trump will prioritize the state, while Democrats said the trip showed that the campaign feels vulnerable.
“I think once people in Wisconsin discover the real Joe Biden and once we refresh the memories of voters here of all the things that Trump has done and can do again for the economy that the people of Wisconsin will go after Trump.” said United States Republican Representative Glenn Grothman, who represents a solidly Republican Milwaukee-Madison district that Trump easily led in 2016. “You can change it.”
Republicans and Democrats also said that whether Biden’s virtual events are moving forward remains an open and meaningful question. But right now, it’s a question that may not matter much, as public opinion in the state is strongly leaning against Trump.
“The minds of the people here are more or less determined about Donald Trump,” said Joe Zepecki, a Milwaukee-based Democratic strategist. “But people here want to know more about Joe Biden.
“Trump has been doing nothing more than hurt himself, and that only makes Biden’s job, facing a sitting president, generally a difficult task, a little less difficult.”
