Former President Donald Trump plans to campaign in Wisconsin in the hours leading up to Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, stopping in a critical Democratic district crucial to Democrat Kamala Harris’ hopes for victory. the main state of the battlefield.
Trump will appear at a production facility in Waunakee, a suburb of Wisconsin’s capital, Madison, in the Democratic stronghold of Dane County. Trump has never campaigned in Dane County before nor been there as president.
Later on Tuesday, Trump is expected to hold an event at a museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s largest city and home to the largest number of Democratic voters and the second largest number of Republicans. His performance there will also give him access to the city’s conservative suburbs, a part of Wisconsin where his support has waned but where he should do well to win.
Trump is expected to focus his comments on the economy. On Saturday, he held a rally in western Wisconsin where he blamed Harris for crimes committed by people in the country illegally.
Both stops occur Tuesday’s debate between Trump’s running mate JD Vance, a senator from Ohio, and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota.
Dane County, the site of Trump’s first stop, is Wisconsin’s fastest-growing county and an economic engine for the state, powered by jobs in the health care and technology industries. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin.
Dane County’s population grew by about 30,000 people between 2016 and 2020. Since then, the number has increased by another 13,000, based on the most recent U.S. Census Bureau estimate.
That poses a challenge for Republicans, especially considering that nearly 90% of the county’s registered voters cast ballots in 2020. President Joe Biden won 75% of the vote in Dane County that year, beating Trump by 181,000 votes in the county while carrying the state by fewer than 21,000. Hillary Clinton defeated Trump in Dane County in 2016 by 47 points, and Trump won the state by less than a point.
Yet Dane County is home to the third-largest number of Republican voters of any county statewide.
“President Trump’s actions will be a big step in the right direction for the demoralized conservatives here,” Brandon Maly, chairman of the Dane County Republican Party, posted on X, the social media platform, when the visit was announced. He has said Trump needs to get at least 23% of the vote in Dane County to have a chance of winning statewide.
Democratic presidential candidates have long come to Dane County to hold massive rallies to fire up the base. Harris campaigned there on September 20, holding a rally in Madison that drew more than 10,000 people.
Waunakee, which bills itself as the “only Waunakee in the world,” is slightly more Republican than the county as a whole. In 2020, Trump received 36% of the vote there, compared to less than 23% nationwide.
Trump is expected to speak at Dane Manufacturing, a metal manufacturer that has a long history of hosting Republican candidates and officeholders. In Milwaukee, Trump will speak at Discovery World, a science and technology museum along the shores of Lake Michigan.
