On Saturday, former president Donald Trump will make his first visit to the deeply red, mostly rural region of the crucial battleground state of Wisconsin for a rally where he plans to emphasize the economy.
In the days preceding Tuesday’s presidential debate, where their competing economic plans are anticipated to take center stage, Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have been discussing their economic ideas more frequently.
On Thursday, Trump pledged to spearhead a “national economic renaissance” by reducing government spending and corporate taxes for American producers, boosting energy output through increased tariffs and a reduction in regulations, and reducing government spending overall.
To encourage more people to start their own enterprises, Harris has recently advocated raising corporate tax rates rather than collecting Social Security and tip income and increasing tax incentives for small firms.
Wisconsin has seen four of the last six presidential elections decided by less than one percentage point, and both Harris and Trump have been frequent trips there this year. Harris and Trump were in a tight tie in multiple Wisconsin voter surveys taken following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal.
Some Democrats see Wisconsin as a “blue wall” state that they absolutely must win. On Thursday, Biden visited Wisconsin, the state where he won by a margin of less than 21,000 votes in 2020. Even though Trump won it in 2016, his margin was slightly larger—nearly 23,000 votes.
Mosinee, a city in central Wisconsin, is home to around 4,500 people, and Trump went there to deliver his economic message. It is located in the solidly Republican 7th Congressional District of Wisconsin, which is largely rural and part of a purple state. Mosinee is in a county that Trump won by 18 points in both 2016 and 2020.
Against Republican advantages in rural areas like Mosinee and the Milwaukee suburbs, Democrats have depended on massive participation in the state’s two biggest cities, Madison and Milwaukee. If Trump wants to reduce the Democratic lead in metropolitan areas, he needs to win over voters in places like Mosinee.
In July, the Republican National Convention was held in Milwaukee, and Trump has visited the state four times before, the most recent being last week in La Crosse, in western Wisconsin.
Last month, for a rally that coincided with the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, just 90 miles away, Harris and her campaign mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, filled the same Milwaukee stadium where Republicans had their national convention. Walz gave a speech at a union-organized Labor Day rally in Milwaukee on Monday, his return to the city.
Visiting rural western Wisconsin for the first time since he withdrew from the campaign, Biden made history on Thursday. Rural communities in 23 states will have access to energy thanks to $7.3 billion in investments that Biden announced during his visit to 16 cooperatives. The goal is to make internet access, which is sorely needed in remote places, more affordable.