Swing State Deep Dive: Wisconsin

Day two of our swing state deep dives brings us to Wisconsin, the Badger State. Of all the seven swing states – Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, and Georgia – Wisconsin is the state that looks most likely to break in Vice President Kamala Harris’ favor, as she leads former President Donald Trump by 1.2 points in the RCP Average. 

Wisconsin, much like Michigan and Pennsylvania, is defined by its white working-class population. Over half (58%) of the state’s voters are non-college educated white people, according to the Fox News Voter Analysis. That is a solid 15 points higher than the national electorate.

This demographic favored Trump by 11 points in the last presidential cycle, and the former president hopes to grow that margin to gain Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes. The Harris campaign will in comparison focus on maximizing turnout in cities and suburban areas by activating voters of color and college-educated voters, two demographics she performs well with.

Three polls released in the past three days show just how tight the race is in Wisconsin: Quinnipiac put Harris up 1 point (49%-48%), Marist had Harris with a 1-point lead (50%-49%) and The Hill/Emerson placed Trump up by 1 (49%-48%). 

One key factor in Wisconsin will be third-party candidates, people who have not been getting much press lately but whose presence on the ballot could significantly impact the outcome of the race.

In 2016, when Trump beat Hillary Clinton by less than 0.8 points (22,000 votes), then-Green Party candidate Jill Stein won over 31,000 votes, while Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate, won 106,000 votes. In 2020, when Biden beat Trump by less than 0.7 points (20,000 votes) Stein failed to qualify for the ballot.

These numbers are bad news for Harris, because Stein is a qualifying Green Party candidate once more, polling at 1% in the Quinnipiac poll. Democrats attempted to remove Stein from the ballot, as well as independent candidate Cornel West, but the state Supreme Court denied the challenges. Democrats understandably fear the two left-leaning candidates may siphon votes from the Harris-Walz ticket.

Also on the ballot in Wisconsin is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was running as an independent candidate before he dropped out and endorsed Trump. Kennedy, who will also officially appear on the ballot in Michigan, attempted to decline his nomination, but a Wisconsin state statute denies him the ability to remove his name from the ballot. Kennedy has said he does not wish to be a spoiler, and the general consensus is that he would be more likely to take away votes from Trump than Harris.

Stein, West, and Kennedy will join Libertarian Chase Oliver, the Constitution Party’s Randall Terry, and Claudia De la Cruz of the Socialism and Libertarian Party on Wisconsin’s ballot.

Wisconsin voters can start casting their mail-in ballots as early as Sept. 19, one of the first states to open the voting process. Harris and Trump have been focused on the Badger State for several months and are expected to ramp up their campaign events in the coming weeks.

Trump spoke at a rally in the small town of Mosinee as recently as Sept. 7, where he pledged to clamp down on unfettered immigration, a hallmark of his campaign. His running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, visited the Western city of Eau Claire on Sept. 18 to discuss the same topic.

Vance argued that the border policies (or lack thereof) of the Biden-Harris administration have allowed illegal immigrants to flood across the southern border, devastating all parts of the country. The situation, Vance says, has made places like Wisconsin, which are geographically far from the southern border, “border communities.” 

Wisconsin voters trust Trump and Vance more on immigration than they do Harris, by a margin of 7 points (52%-45%), according to the Quinnipiac poll. They also trust Trump more on the economy (51%-47%), but favor Harris on issues like preserving democracy (50%-47%) and abortion (53%-40%). The margin is closest on whom voters trust more to handle “a crisis that puts the country at risk,” with 49% of Wisconsinites saying Harris and 48% saying Trump.

Harris plans to hit back at the Trump campaign in a rally on Sept. 20 in Wisconsin’s capital, Madison. It will be her fourth event in the state since she launched her candidacy in July. The Harris campaign has created a mammoth operation in the Badger state, reporting that supporters in Wisconsin have knocked on more than 500,000 doors in less than two months.

The differing tactics of the Trump and Harris campaigns are perhaps made most clear by where they’ve chosen to host their rallies. Trump last spoke to an already-zealous base in a town whose population is less than 5,000, where most people are working-class and know their neighbor’s business. Harris will speak in a city of 270,000, a college town harboring a diverse population.

Both campaigns, then, seem to be sticking to what they know. It will be a game of who can get their base to vote – in Wisconsin and across all seven swing states.