WATERTOWN, Wis. — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump aren’t leaving anything to chance in their final week of campaigning in Wisconsin, where historically close margins have decided four of the last six presidential elections.
As sky-high early-voter turnout continues throughout the state, the campaigns look to pad their margins in party strongholds and turn out undecided and low-propensity voters in key counties with targeted events and surrogates to win Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes.
A look ahead at the week’s events indicates both camps will attempt to play to their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses in the final push.
Historic turnout in Dane County for Joe Biden in 2020 earned him a solid 52.8% of the vote there, and 35,000 more votes than Hillary Clinton in 2016. The president’s precedent there has made this county the focal point Kamala Harris’ get-out-the-vote effort this week, as the VP heads to University of Wisconsin-Madison Wednesday to make her pitch to college students in the deep-blue stronghold.
Wisconsin’s same-day voter registration means universities are fertile ground for the Harris campaign to capitalize on the youth vote up until the very last minute on Nov. 5.
Despite the Democratic advantage in Dane County, Trump’s campaign is refusing to forfeit that territory. The ex-prez held a rally in a rural section of the county earlier this month after Wisconsin’s former Republican Governor Tommy Thompson advised him to shore up small margins there and in Milwaukee County.
This week he’s sending in surrogates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard — both former Democrats — to mitigate his losing margins in the liberal bastion of Madison.
On Monday Harris’ running mate Tim Walz visited counties where the Harris campaign would benefit from decreasing Trump’s margin of victory, like Manitwoc in Brown County and the City of Waukesha in Waukesha County.
Trump’s margin of victory in Waukesha County was 28.1 points in 2016, but shrunk to 20.8 in 2020 — a decline that the Harris campaign surely hopes to capitalize on.
The former president will make a play in the red zone of Brown County Wednesday, where he’ll be campaigning with former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre in the team’s eponymous city. He’ll look to shore up more support there after winning the county by 7.2 points in 2020.
Trump will then return to the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee Friday in the hopes of mitigating Biden’s 40-point margin of victory in Milwaukee County from the 2020 race.
First Lady Jill Biden and Gwen Walz rallied the teacher vote at an Educators for Harris event in La Crosse on Monday, while the Trump campaign is sent Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) to the whip votes in the western Wisconsin city of Eau Claire.
Biden won Eau Claire and La Crosse counties by 10.8 and 13.5 points in 2020, respectively.
On Monday, Trump running mate Sen. J.D. Vance will hold events in Racine County to boost his 4-point victory margin from 2020, and later head to mostly-red Marathon County to reinforce his 18-point edge from the last cycle.
All eyes will be on these final Wisconsin battleground areas as the returns come in on election night.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Team Trump’s Wisconsin Communications Director Jacob Fischer told The Post that Republicans will “leave no stone unturned” in the battleground state as they hurdle towards Nov. 5.
“Team Trump has shown up throughout the state from red counties like Waukesha to blue areas like Milwaukee and Eau Claire. Unlike Kamala Harris’ dangerously liberal agenda, President Trump is focused on the kitchen table issues — that are most important to Wisconsinites,” he said.
“Our message is clear: What Kamala Harris broke; President Trump will fix.”