MILWAUKEE — National Republicans have chosen Wisconsin for a series of firsts this presidential cycle.
In August, the Republican National Committee held its first primary debate in Milwaukee, just a month after announcing Wisconsin would be the inaugural state for its new early voting initiative. And in a first for the organization and Milwaukee itself, it will hold its nominating convention in the city next July.
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The message is unequivocal: Republicans are invested in Wisconsin, one of a handful of states that will decide who occupies the White House in 2025.
Such efforts have failed to move the needle in past cycles — in 2012 alone, President Barack Obama lost North Carolina despite Democrats holding their convention in Charlotte, while Republican nominee Mitt Romney lost Florida despite a Tampa convention.
Nonetheless, Republicans are betting they can make tangible inroads with voters by staking out a sustained presence in Wisconsin.
The state is winnable for the GOP. Donald Trump demonstrated that in 2016 when he broke through Democrats’ blue wall to win four years in the Oval Office. But it’s also fickle, flipping to President Joe Biden in 2020.
As the two men appear headed for a rematch — Trump remains the decided favorite for the Republican nomination — the contest will inevitably be close. Trump won the state by 23,000 votes, only for Biden to win by a similar margin in 2020. The RNC believes it can tip the scales back in Republicans’ favor next year, however, with a strategy that is part charm offensive and part media blitz.
The centerpiece of that strategy is the convention. Speaking to the press at a Thursday walkthrough of the Fiserv Forum, the sports arena where tens of thousands of Republicans will flock to select their presidential nominee, RNC officials quipped they were planning a “four-day TV show” that would allow the GOP to broadcast to the country its values as a party.
Yet it was just as evident they see in the convention an opportunity to make a good impression in Wisconsin. The economic benefit is a start — all told, RNC officials estimate the event could bring $200 million to the region.
Showing up is another part of that effort. Anne Hathaway, the chairwoman of the convention’s organizing committee, emphasized that the RNC has made a point to invest in the community, bringing school supplies when delegates came into town for their first summer meeting of the convention. Staff have, among other gestures, also packed lunches at a local food pantry.
“We haven’t focused, at least in Milwaukee, on red and blue politics. We’ve been focused on being good community partners,” Hathaway told the Washington Examiner in an interview after the media walkthrough.
Much of that emphasis is taking place in the host city itself, which several full-time staff call home, but the RNC hopes the goodwill, and attention, it’s generating will translate into votes statewide come Election Day.
“I think that there’ll be some folks who are independent voters, maybe soft Democrats, that will give us a second look, because we’ve been good citizens and we’ve done the right thing,” Hathaway said.
Milwaukee County itself is deep blue — Biden won it by 40 points in 2020 — meaning Republicans are realistic about the sort of inroads they can make there, but the surrounding suburbs are red yet increasingly competitive counties.
The convention gives the party a unique opportunity to appeal to swing voters while energizing the activists who will help turn out those votes.
There’s been some softness in the Milwaukee suburbs of late as Republicans disaffected by the antics of Trump either stayed home or voted for Biden last cycle. Democrats are banking on that trend continuing if the former president, now running in the shadow of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, becomes the nominee. They see the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last year as another issue working in their favor.
“Our goal is to find and connect with the many thousands of former Republican voters who have been alienated by the extremism of the MAGA GOP and are ready to cast a ballot for Biden in 2024, and then to make sure those voters do, in fact, turn out,” said Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party.
Wikler expects 2024 will once again be close — the latest polling has Trump and Biden in a dead heat — and told the Washington Examiner his party is preparing for the contest like it will be an “absolute jump ball.” But he predicted the Democratic Party will come out on top, as it has in recent statewide races.
“My sense from the energy that we’re hearing across the state is that the ball would tip towards the Democrats in 2024,” Wikler added.
Republicans failed to unseat Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) in last year’s gubernatorial race and suffered a stinging loss in April, when voters elected a liberal judge to the state Supreme Court.
It has not been uniform defeats for Republicans. Brian Schimming, the chairman of the Wisconsin GOP, noted the state elected a Republican treasurer in 2022 and sent Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) to Congress in a district that had not voted red in more than two decades.
But Republicans are still battling the narrative that Democrats have the momentum heading into 2024.
Schimming is not worried. He considers Biden to be a uniquely weak president, in part due to his handling of the economy. Biden’s economic approval ratings are 20 points underwater, according to the RealClearPolitics average.
“I would not want their set of issues right now,” he told the Washington Examiner, “because the bottom line is they’re stuck unless something comes out of nowhere.”
“I never say never and I never say always, but the truth of the matter is, we have a historic opportunity here to take the state back,” Schimming added.
Biden is polling better against Trump in Wisconsin than in some other battleground states, but Schimming considers it heartening they are even tied considering the two impeachments and 91 felony charges against Trump.
“The fact that Donald Trump, who they’ve dropped various political nuclear bombs on for going on six years straight, is essentially tied in Wisconsin is a good sign for us,” he said. “Not a bad sign.”
Republicans acknowledge the Milwaukee suburbs have become more competitive in recent cycles but see early voting, a practice Democrats have long capitalized on, as one way to reverse that trend. In fact, Wisconsin is the first state the RNC chose to build out its “Bank Your Vote” program earlier this year.
“We’ll put the money behind it. We’ll put the staff resources behind it,” said Schimming, a member of the initiative’s leadership team. “It is going to be a major focus.”
Democrats will also have to contend with a fresh focus by Republicans on courting minority communities, a segment of the population that traditionally votes Democratic.
The RNC has opened two outreach centers in Milwaukee in the last few years, one to appeal to Latinos on the city’s south side and another in the north to reach black voters. Just last week, the host committee for the convention deposited $100,000 in Milwaukee’s only minority-owned bank.
Republicans face a long road to earning the minority vote. Diverse Milwaukee remains a Democratic stronghold. But the national effort has inspired activists down to the state and local levels.
Hilario Deleon, the chairman of the Milwaukee County Republicans, credits his emphasis on such outreach for his election to the post last year.
“People don’t trust Republicans because they don’t know Republicans,” he said. “They don’t understand the message, because we don’t talk with them about the message.”
Deleon does not expect Milwaukee to turn red anytime soon but, like other party officials, is hoping to build a track record with communities they have historically ignored. If Republicans can move the needle even a handful of points, it could prove decisive in a state as competitive as Wisconsin.
“It’s tough. It’s not easy. We’re in a sea of blue,” he said. “But there’s pockets of red there, and there’s a lot of purple in there that we can go connect with and try and sway our way.”
The local party today attends community events celebrating everything from Juneteenth to Cinco de Mayo.
Democrats’ own turnout operation in Milwaukee will prove critical to Biden’s reelection prospects. The president was able to win the state, in part, because he improved on 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton’s numbers there four years earlier.
Cavalier Johnson, the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee, credited Republicans for hosting their convention in the city, calling it a “smart move” that sends a message of engagement to voters.
“I would say, doing that and hosting the debate here, you’re getting coverage, you’re letting folks know that you’re on the ground — you’re paying attention,” he told the Washington Examiner.
But he considered repeated visits to the state by Biden officials over the last three years as sending a similar message and predicted Wisconsinites would reject Trump at the ballot box, as they did in 2020.
“They know what they’re going to get with Donald Trump. They know that he’d double down and probably even be worse than he was in his first term,” he added.
Hathaway, the organizing committee chairwoman, said the RNC has been investing in Wisconsin for decades, noting new technology she helped deploy as its original political director when Scott Walker ran for county executive back in 2002.
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But having the convention in Milwaukee, she said, sends a message to voters, and Democrats, that Republicans will “fight for every vote,” in Wisconsin and every other battleground.
“It just reinforces that we believe every state is on the map,” she said.
