Wisconsin is in election mode
In a state that both sides say may well decide the presidential race, 2020 has already arrived.
BLACK RIVER FALLS, Wis. — It’s more than a year before the presidential election, but across the state of Wisconsin it could be fall 2020.
Dozens of Democratic volunteers were combing neighborhoods to knock on doors in La Crosse and Whitewater on a recent weekend, while volunteers worked phone banks in Milwaukee. Republican county chairs were being trained in grass-roots campaigning in Green Bay and Hayward. And in Jackson County — a rural area that Donald Trump won in 2016 after decades of Democratic dominance — GOP leaders were already working to ready the troops.
“Democrats have been doing everything they can to discredit President Trump,” Doug Rogalla, GOP chairman in neighboring Monroe County, said at a party dinner. “We have to do everything we can to reelect him.”
Most voters across the country are not yet giving much thought to the 2020 presidential election. Those who are paying attention are mostly focused on the big field of Democrats running for their party’s nomination. But in Wisconsin, a state that strategists on both sides think could decide the 2020 race, the parties are arming to the teeth earlier than ever.
“The general election has already started here,” said Ben Wikler, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, who said a 17-person field staff was in place and canvassers have already knocked on 200,000 doors.
Republicans are holding campaign training sessions for local activists several times a week. The Trump campaign named its Wisconsin state director last summer, months earlier than is typical. Andrew Hitt, chairman of the Wisconsin GOP, said he hears the same refrain as he travels the state.
“It’s crazy, but almost everywhere I went I heard the same thing: We are working now like it’s the summer of 2020, not the summer of 2019.”
The hyper-mobilization here is a reminder of a central fact about the battle over Trump’s reelection: While it will be an expensive and emotional contest with monumental stakes for the country, it may end up being fought in a relatively small number of states.
Among the most crucial are Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which Trump won by minuscule margins in 2016.
Of the three, Wisconsin could be the hardest for Democrats to recapture. Its electorate has the highest percentage of white bluecollar voters— who were a key source of support for Trump — and the lowest percentage of nonwhite voters, Democrats’ strong suit.
One measure of how seriously Democrats take the battle for Wisconsin: They decided to place their 2020 nominating convention in Milwaukee and are using the event to sink deep organizing roots in a state that Hillary Clinton never visited in 2016.
Barack Obama easily carried Wisconsin twice. But his solid margins were exceptions. Most Democrats’ victories in presidential and statewide races have been exceedingly narrow. Al Gore won the state by 0.2 percentage points in 2000; John F.
Kerry won in 2004 by just 0.4 points.
Trump’s victory was also by the skin of his teeth: He beat Clinton by 0.7 percentage points, thanks in part to a drop in turnout among Democrats from previous elections and strong showings by two third-party candidates.
A poll of Wisconsin voters by Marquette University Law School released Wednesday that included hypothetical matchups between Trump and top Democratic contenders found former Vice President Joe Biden leading Trump 50% to 44%. It also gave a polling edge to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, but by narrower margins.
The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee are working with the state party to train local party leaders and activists in voter registration, canvassing and other organizing basics. Republicans have already hired 14 field staffers around the state and hope to double the 61 GOP staffers that were there in 2016, a Trump campaign official said.
Jackson County, one of 23 Wisconsin counties that Trump flipped from blue to red in 2016, is an important battleground. It twice voted for Obama and then for Trump. The 27-point swing was one of the biggest in the state. The county’s largest city is Black River Falls, population about 3,500.
Bill Laurent, who chairs the county Republican Party, said Trump helped bring out a wave of new Republican voters. He portrays the Democratic Party’s drift to the left as a threat to voters’ freedom.
“We have a major political party, we have major presidential candidates, we have the media touting socialism,” Laurent said at the recent county GOP dinner.
Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to build on their success in the 2018 midterm and avoid the pitfalls of the 2016 election. Wikler said the party fell short against Trump not just because Clinton never campaigned in the state but also because the party’s organizing structure was largely dormant until after Clinton clinched the nomination in mid-2016.
After her defeat, thenparty Chairwoman Martha Laning revived an Obamaera organizing style of building a community-based team that would remain active year-round.
That’s what Anita Loch has been trying to do in Whitewater, a city of about 14,000 between Madison and
Milwaukee, where Democrats dominate in the city but Republicans have more strength on the outskirts.
Loch’s group, Whitewater Democrats, this summer started hosting presidential debate-watching parties at a local bar. They set up an information table at the farmers market. And not long after Labor Day, they started canvassing.
The same thing was going on in La Crosse, on the western edge of the state, as a party organizer greeted volunteers with coffee, ponchos and clipboards at a coffee shop. Carol Klitzke, a college teacher who said she had knocked on 100 doors the weekend before, came back for more.
In a couple of hours, Klitzke identified two voters who had supported Trump in 2016 but seemed persuadable, including Jaclyn Dunnum.
“Trump does a great job, but should not be let out of his office,” Dunnum told Klitzke, referring to the president’s use of Twitter and other verbal attacks.
Other voters showed no sign of budging from Trump, including one woman who said opposition to abortion was her main concern.
A big question is whether Democrats in the Midwest will be able to make inroads — to at least reduce their losing margin — in rural areas like Jackson County, possibly by winning over farmers who are squeezed by Trump’s farm policies.
“So far there is the tribal loyalty to Trump,” said Charlie Sykes, a conservative who for years had a popular talk radio show in Wisconsin. “We don’t know how long that lasts. He cannot afford to lose a percentage point.”