Vital election races in Wisconsin are awfully close

IT was once It is common for states to divide their pair of senators between the two major parties. In 2010 there were 19 countries. Today only three have real defections. In all three of those states—Ohio, Montana and Wisconsin—seats held by Democrats are down in November. All three can be lost. Jon Tester faces an uphill bid for reelection in Montana. In Ohio, third-term incumbent Sherrod Brown must convince a significant share of Donald Trump’s voters to split their tickets (an increasingly rare phenomenon) if he is to remain in office. That leaves Tammy Baldwin, the two-time senator from Wisconsin, who is campaigning on the least square terrain of the three.

This doesn’t mean it will be easy. “I live in a battleground state. I run in a battleground state. There’s an old expression: ‘Run afraid or run unopposed.'” says Ms. Baldwin, sitting outside a café in Sheboygan (which informs the mayor that your reporter should be known as “Malibu in the Midwest.” Ms. Baldwin is a “Midwestern” politician who takes pride in showing up in rural areas of the state that other Democrats neglect — and push for policies that should solve them.

“I consider myself a Buy American Champion for the US Senate,” she declares. Ms. Baldwin says she was honored to receive the endorsement of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau—the first Democrat to do so in 20 years—among other things, picking fights with the Biden administration over “plant products pretending to be milk when they are milk when they are milk they are not.” (Wisconsin produces a quarter of the cheese made in America.)

In other words, Ms. Baldwin is the kind of Midwestern Democratic activist people dream of — the kind who stands the best chance of swimming against the wave of anti-party abuse in rural America. However, she faces her tightest Senate race ever. After publishing a poll that showed Ms. Baldwin leading by just two percentage points, the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, a prominent election handicapper, downgraded her race to its “Troam-Up” category. (Our prediction model gives it better odds.)

Her campaign says its internal polling showed an equally tight race (although that’s also a useful fundraising tactic). If Ms. Baldwin loses her race, it would not only guarantee that Democrats lose control of the Senate — it would certainly signal that Mr. Trump has swept the presidential election away from Ms. Harris. The reason for this, the same reason that split-ticket voting has declined along split pairs in the Senate, is the increasing nationalization of state and local politics.

It’s not just polarization that Ms. Baldwin has to reckon with. Part of her problem is the unexpected power of her opponent, Eric Hovde – a businessman from Mostachev, who has never held public office before. “When you’re out there and you talk to people every day, you know what the concerns are: the economy, number one, the border, number two,” says Hovde, speaking in a newly opened office. Apartment building in Racine on the shores of Lake Michigan.

He explains voters’ dissatisfaction with the economy – despite America’s aggregate performance of its peers – as a result of a “very hot economy” and national growth as driven by extreme deficit spending. “If you look at the history of societies that have gone through debt crises, we’re really hitting all the flashing red lights,” he says. Mr. Hovde is an old-school Republican in more than just his choice of facial hair: He is concerned about deficits, regulations, and growth. He is one of a shrinking minority of American politicians willing to go out as “largely a free trader.” His biggest political mistake, other than owning a bank and a mansion in Laguna Beach, California, was to advocate the sensible policy of raising the retirement age for the sake of Social Security for young Americans. “We are in a situation where the day of reckoning is coming,” he says.

It all lent the state Senate race a retro feel — with the same themes as the contest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in 2012. You’ll see a lot of cows in Ms. Baldwin’s campaign ads; You will see relatively few calls for an attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Polls showed Ms. Baldwin running roughly three points ahead of Kamala Harris in the state. This provides a “good cushion,” says Charles Franklin, who runs the Marquette Law School poll, even in the face of another polling error in the state. (In 2020 and 2016, Democratic margins were overestimated by a stunning seven points.) If it were Harris’ campaign, Franklin says he would be “very concerned.” It is easy to underestimate support for Mr. Trump among voters who are politically disconnected and hard to reach. “They certainly don’t trust the polls. They’re not fans of politics in general. But they were mobilized by Trump.”

This statement will cause memories of Democrats in Wisconsin. Talk to any of them long enough, and you’ll eventually get to the subject of Hillary Clinton’s decision not to campaign here — and the exposure she received when Mr. Trump won by 0.8 percentage points. When they don’t neglect the state, Democrats can win, but just barely. In 2020, Joe Biden won by 0.6 points. In 2024, a squeaky victory for Ms. Baldwin might mean a loss for Ms. Harris. For her part, Ms. Harris is determined not to repeat Ms. Clinton’s mistake: She has visited the state five times since July. ■

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