WASHINGTON — Last month, President Joe Biden was in Wisconsin touting his administration’s investment in Black-owned businesses.
The White House said he will return on Thursday to talk up his administration’s record on rebuilding infrastructure, creating jobs, combating inflation, and supporting small businesses in Superior.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will reinforce that message with a visit 24 hours later.
“Repetition doesn’t hurt, in part, because only some fragment of the population is even paying attention now,” said Kathleen Dolan, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “The polling suggests that people aren’t giving President Biden and the administration the, sort of, you know, credit for the economic turnaround that he would like them to understand.”
Earlier this week, Vice President Kamala Harris made Wisconsin the first stop on a multi-state tour to highlight the differences between Democrats and Republicans on abortion rights.
“Clearly this–three visits in one week–signals that they are probably going to be buying second homes here and camping out between now and November,” Dolan said.
Political analysts say the travel highlights the role Wisconsin is again poised to play as one of the few battleground states up for grabs in November.
“We’ve had four of the last six presidential elections decided by less than one percentage point of the vote,” said Charles Franklin, a professor of law and public policy at Marquette Law School. “And we’ve been a really important swing state in the electoral college. So Biden is paying a lot of attention here, unlike Hillary Clinton, who did not campaign here in 2016. I think Democrats generally, and Biden specifically, has learned that lesson of Clinton’s big mistake in 2016.”
Wisconsin narrowly supported former president Donald Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Four years later, Wisconsin went for Biden over Trump.
“Trump won the state by just a little over 20,000 votes in 2016, and then he lost the state by just over 20,000 votes in 2020,” said Franklin. “So the state has tipped just so much one way or the other, and could certainly do so again in 2024.”
The Republican presidential candidates have given Wisconsin less attention in recent months since they’ve been focused on the caucuses in Iowa and primary in New Hampshire. But the GOP sees Wisconsin as crucial, too. In July, the Republican Party will hold its presidential nominating convention in Milwaukee.