Photo credit: Michel Curi
Anyone who has followed Wisconsin politics over the years is used to local media overhyping the importance of the state in determining the Democratic nominee and ultimately the presidency. It’s happened ever since Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy crushed Minnesota Sen. Hubert Humphrey here in 1960. This time, though, it’s the national media that have identified Wisconsin as “the single state upon which the election could turn,” in the words of veteran Washington Post political analyst Dan Balz.
That’s the reason the Democratic National Convention is coming to Milwaukee next July. Balz actually expects four states—Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida—to decide the presidential election. Of those, he says Wisconsin might become the biggest focus nationally for both parties, especially because of its higher percentage of white, non-college-educated voters who are Donald Trump’s strongest remaining supporters. Anybody wonder why?
All four states voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 but flipped to Trump in 2016 by a percentage point or less. Trying to predict corruptly managed, narrowly decided Florida elections has always been foolish, but all three northern states already redeemed themselves in the 2018 midterms with Democratic victories in their gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. Democrats also flipped six seats in the U.S. Congress formerly held by Republicans in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Losing College Grads and Farmers
Trump’s alienation of college-educated voters has taken a political toll on his party in what used to be reliably Republican suburbs. It’s even visibly diminished the party’s edge in what was once the state’s richest source of Republican votes: the counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington. “Those counties are still voting Republican, but as much as 16 points less on the margin now than they were,” said Charles Franklin, who conducts the Marquette University Law School political polls.
Whether Trump wins reelection may very well depend on how much longer he can hold onto the support of the state’s farmers who are literally becoming collateral damage in his disastrous trade war with China. For a year and a half, more than two dairy farms a day have gone out of business in Wisconsin. Nearly 700 closed down last year. In the first half of this year, 449 went under, up 25% from the same period last year.
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That’s just dairy. Growers of corn, soybeans, ginseng and cranberries in Wisconsin all have lost hundreds of millions of dollars as China continues to slash imports of U.S. agricultural products in response to Trump’s escalating tariffs on goods coming into the U.S. from China, which, in turn, raises prices every day for farmers shopping at stores like Walmart. Total American agricultural exports to China were $24 billion five years ago. They fell to $9.1 billion last year under Trump and dropped another $1.3 billion in the first half of 2019.
But wait. Didn’t Trump create a brand-new welfare program for farmers hurt by his trade war? According to an analysis by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, payouts from the initial $16 billion appropriation were exactly what you’d expect from a Republican welfare program. A small number of wealthy corporate farms received more than half the money. One huge agribusiness in Missouri received $2.8 million. Eighty-two of the richest farmers received more than $500,000 each. The top 1% of recipients averaged $183,331. The bottom 80% of desperately struggling farmers averaged less than $5,000. Don’t spend it all in one place.
Who’s Doing Great?
Trump deals with the economic devastation of farmers’ lives the same way he deals with every problem: He lies about it constantly. When Trump showed up for a $3 million Republican fundraiser in Milwaukee in July, he brought the good news to Wisconsin farmers that they were doing great: “Some of the farmers are doing very well… We’re over the hump. We’re doing very well.” All that has changed since is Trump has announced two more increases in tariffs on imports from China raising prices for U.S. consumers and China retaliated by slashing U.S. agricultural imports even further. Wisconsin is well into its fourth straight year of leading the nation in farm bankruptcies.
There are plenty of reasons to be encouraged by the early organizing of the Wisconsin Democratic Party under a new activist chairman, Ben Wikler, formerly a national leader of MoveOn.org. But it’s still good to run scared right up to Election Day 2020.
After being embarrassed by a sleazy, unqualified candidate we didn’t think could be elected in a decent country, we should never underestimate Trump’s hateful message. But Trump really isn’t some kind of stable political genius who can never lose the support of those who voted for him even when he’s destroying their lives.
Proving we’re a more decent country than Trump’s bigoted, un-American version will require volunteers actively reaching every voter who wants democracy to work for everyone, not just those who live in gold towers. That’s our responsibility as “the single state upon which the election could turn.”
