Trump called Milwaukee a ‘horrible city’. Can Biden capitalise in Wisconsin?

Inside the Republican party’s headquarters in Sauk County, in the heart of the swing state of Wisconsin, signs of the upcoming US election — including a large cut-out of Donald Trump and a poster saying Joe Biden belongs in a nursing home — are everywhere.

Jerry Helmer, the county chair of the party, has just finished a two-hour coffee-and-doughnuts meeting with a group of party faithful, and sums up the mood.

“I can preach to you that anxiety is great among Republicans,” he said after the event in the small town of Rock Springs, whose population is just over 300. “We truly, truly feel that if we don’t elect Donald Trump, we are doomed.”

Wisconsin is the smallest of the “blue wall” of traditionally Democratic-supporting states surrounding the Great Lakes that could decide the US election. It has a heavy share of older, white and blue-collar industrial workers whose allegiance swings back and forth in elections — and Trump and Biden are neck and neck in the race to win them over.

Republicans were hoping for a boost when the party’s convention to formally nominate Trump is held in Milwaukee in July. But the former president last week called it a “horrible city” during a closed-door meeting with lawmakers in Congress in a gaffe that could cost him goodwill in the state.

In 2016, Trump stunned Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton by winning the state with a message that he could revive America with more populist economics and a rejection of globalisation that resonated with voters. Biden won it back by a whisker in 2020 as voters saw him as a better champion for the working class.

This year Trump leads Biden by just 0.6 percentage points in Wisconsin, according to the Fivethirtyeight.com polling average, making the outcome again a pivotal toss-up.

The state’s political fate will ultimately rest on whether Biden can again win over as many voters in the cities of Milwaukee and Madison, which are traditionally Democratic strongholds, while making inroads in the traditionally conservative college-educated Republican suburbs.

Trump, who is campaigning in Wisconsin on Tuesday, will be trying to solidify his support in the rural parts of the state while trying to erode Biden’s support among lower-income voters, including minorities, in the cities.

“It’s a battle for the hearts and minds of everyone,” said Doug Jones, a former Alabama senator who was campaigning for Biden in Wisconsin earlier this month. “This campaign is not going to take anything for granted.”

Sauk County, an area of 66,000 residents reliant on a mix of agriculture, tourism and manufacturing, is a key political bellwether for the state, and just one of two counties in Wisconsin that flipped back and forth in the last two elections. Trump won it by just 109 votes in 2016 — and in 2020 Biden regained it with a majority of 614.

At a concert in the main square of Baraboo, Sauk’s biggest city, the largely white, elderly crowd mainly tilted towards the incumbent president.

“I consider myself an independent but the Republican party has gone way to the right, and I can’t stand Trump,” said Steve Novak, a retired accountant, who just moved to the area from Green Bay, a larger industrial city in Wisconsin.

Novak is unsure whether Biden will win though. “Of the people I know it’s about 50-50,” he observed. “I really think the economy is starting to turn. And I don’t think Biden gets enough credit for it. But it’s going to be a hard sell because a lot of people go to the grocery store and just think it’s not working.”

Suzanne Covoloskie, another Biden supporter, added: “I’d like to think that people are smarter than falling for [Trump] again, but they fell for it before.”

Republicans believe a wave of dissatisfaction over high inflation, as well as fears of immigration across the southern border, will be enough to tip the state in Trump’s favour again.

“I’m hoping that people have had enough of the rising prices . . . everything even in Dollar stores is not $1 any more. Now it’s a $1.25 Biden special,” said Mike Twoney, a 64-year-old former circus performer and construction worker wearing a brown Trump cap. Many “blue-collar people” believed simply that “Trump is looking out for them a little more”, he added.

Democrats counter that Trump is a phoney populist who is attracting millions of dollars of funding from billionaires on Wall Street while promising big tax cuts for the wealthy and business and threatening cuts to the social safety net.

They also believe Biden’s record in championing policies that benefit the economy, including sweeping manufacturing and infrastructure subsides, are finally starting to resonate. In Sauk County, for example, the unemployment rate is 2.7 per cent, far below the national average.

“If you want a job here you can get a job . . . no one is working for minimum wage any more,” said Susan Knower, the Democratic party chair in Sauk County, speaking at a café in Baraboo.

Improvements to Route 33, funded by Biden’s infrastructure bill, had been a big gain for the community, she added.

Kent Miller, president of the Wisconsin Laborers’ District Council, a union representing many construction workers, also believes Biden could retain the state. He said the rebound of manufacturing in the US was a big difference between now and 2016, when Trump won over many voters on economic issues as well as his “boisterous” and “not politically correct” style.

“They’re more focused on voting their pay cheque than, you know, some of the things that might have been unique and different,” he said. “There was an appeal to [Trump], but I think the shininess of that object is getting dimmer.”

Another factor that could play in Biden’s favour is that the Democratic party has rapidly increased fundraising, as well as its ground operations, in Wisconsin.

Yet “double haters” — voters who are unhappy with Trump but also unwilling to support the incumbent president — are a risk for Biden. Not only do local residents complain about high prices generally, but the cost of housing and childcare in particular.

“Neither candidate is worth voting for,” said Edward Witczak, a 50-year-old father of eight in the town of Sauk City, who has voted for both Democratic and Republican presidents in the past but did not vote in 2020. “I can’t vote for the worst of two evils and that’s what we have again,” he added.

Knower is dismayed that the race is so tight. “Who’s going to vote for him now that didn’t vote for him last time? He [Trump] is absolutely a horrible danger, it’s hard for me to reconcile that he’s even in the universe in polling and how we could be even remotely close.”

But Helmer and the Republicans are gearing up for a contest that is expected to go down to the wire. A hint of how they are approaching the election can be seen in another sign at their local party headquarters, which displays the so-called seventh “rule” of a “gunfight”.

It read: “In 10 years nobody will remember the details of calibre, stance or tactics. They will only remember who lived.”

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