WAUNAKEE, Wis. — After a weekend rally in Wisconsin, former President Donald Trump has already planned to come back to the Badger State on Tuesday for a pair of stops in two traditionally Democratic strongholds: Dane and Milwaukee counties.
A Republican presidential nominee hasn’t visited Dane County since Bob Dole’s trip to Madison on September 4, 1996, per the local party.
28 years and 28 days later, Trump will end that drought with a stop in Waunakee.
“This is going to give a big shot in the arm to Republicans here in this county that get demoralized sometimes,” Republican Party of Dane County Chair Brandon Maly said. “What happens with the Republicans in Dane County is it’s almost a blue state syndrome, instead of a swing state syndrome.”
Though Dane County is one of Wisconsin’s liberal strongholds, Waunakee tends to be a more conservative part of the county. Trump won almost 36% of the vote there in 2020, compared to a little less than 23% across the entire county. That’s why Maly sees it as such a make-or-break place.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve been competitive here, and that 23%, 24%, 25% means we are competitive,” Maly explained. “Don’t be demoralized just because we don’t hit 50% plus 1% on the Republican side.”
Trump is scheduled to speak at Dane Manufacturing in Waunakee before returning to Milwaukee for the first time since the Republican National Convention to speak at Discovery World in the evening.
Just down Waunakee’s Main Street, Democrats opened a local office about three weeks ago.
“Trump coming once in a blue moon to the state, while having no footprint on the ground across the state, is not going to move the ball with those undecided voters that are really looking at a simple question: who is fighting for them,” Kevin Munoz, a senior spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign, said.
Munoz believes winning Wisconsin is going to come down to who puts in the work.
“We are on the ground, we are knocking doors, we are hosting phone banks,” Munoz added. “We are looking for every single eligible vote to make our case about the issues that matter most to them, but, ultimately, what this is really going to come down to is which candidate has a vision for the future of Wisconsin.”
Even though the “Only Waunakee in the World” has only about 15,000 residents, it’s no stranger to surrogates stopping by while on the campaign trail.
RFK visited in 1960 while campaigning for his brother John, and former first lady Barbara Bush swung through in 2000 to campaign for her son George W. Bush.