Election Watch

The Daily Beast featured the stories of former Trump voters in Wisconsin who will now be voting for Joe Biden as anger and frustration grows over President Trump’s inability and unwillingness to get the pandemic under control. One former Trump voter told The Daily Beast: “Trump I feel has lied to us all. He said he cares about the smaller family farmers, but we have not seen any help nor caring.”

The piece comes as a stunning new study from Stanford University estimates that 18 of President Trump’s rallies between June and September — a fraction of the total number of rallies his campaign has held — resulted in 30,000 additional COVID-19 cases, and 700 deaths.

The Daily Beast: Pandemic Rage Is Flipping Trump Voters in Wisconsin

Swing-state voters have to put up with a lot during even the most lopsided presidential campaigns. Airwaves flooded with campaign ads. Diners overrun with national reporters looking for the perfect undecided white man. And a deluge of phone calls from pollsters and pranksters.

But it’s 2020, so voters in Wisconsin also have to contend with uncontrolled outbreaks of the coronavirus after months of bitter fights between state GOP leaders and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers over even the most trivial of mandates to protect public health.

With just a few days left before the presidential election, former Vice President Joe Biden holds a small lead over President Donald Trump in a state the president won by just over 20,000 votes in 2016. And conversations with voters and local political observers suggest anger at Trump’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic is powering that slim advantage.

“COVID has had a huge impact here in Wisconsin and the county I live in. I just bought a farm and am struggling to keep my animals fed and keep the farm going well,” Teri Leschner, 50, of Sharon, told The Daily Beast.

Leschner was one of several voters who told The Daily Beast they voted for Trump in 2016 but could not support him this time—in no small part because of the pandemic and the attendant economic collapse. “Trump I feel has lied to us all,” she said. “He said he cares about the smaller family farmers, but we have not seen any help nor caring.”

Dusty Hartl of West Allis, 24, told the Daily Beast that despite supporting Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary, he voted for Trump in 2016 because he felt Trump was the “only candidate not preaching business as usual.” He also said that his parents and extended family voted for Trump. “It felt like a safer option,” he said.

Residents have had much more than four years to experience the consequences of what besieged Democrats in the state have long described as iron-fisted minority rule and spite-based government. After Scott Walker was elected governor in 2010, he and his allies in the state Senate and Assembly fine-tuned tactics that Trump and national Republican leaders apparently hope will carry them to another squeaker of a win in the state. Walker and the GOP cut early voting times, lengthened residency requirements, and added voter identification requirements, a strategy echoed by Trump rhetoric and legal challenges this year.

But Wisconsin Republicans also passed a slew of laws during a 2018 lame duck session that stripped Evers of many of his executive powers, which—along with dissatisfaction with the president’s response at the national level—seems to be driving backlash in a state in crisis. Just this week, the Wisconsin Badgers had to cancel their football game against Nebraska thanks to a COVID-19 outbreak that reached the team quarterback and head coach. And based on current case numbers, the state will run out of ICU beds and the nurses needed to staff them in as little as two weeks.

[…]

Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by only 22,748 votes, less than one percentage point.
It’s not an overstatement to say that a Wisconsin winter without family gatherings, school, normal hunting and ice-fishing, and stereotypical fare like tailgating parties at Lambeau Field will suck much of what makes long months of freezing temperatures and darkness bearable. Evers announced $47 million in CARES act funding to assistance programs on Oct. 5, but this will not be enough to meet existing needs. Without additional stimulus funding from the federal government, low-income residents will struggle to afford heat, food, and healthcare, and small businesses are unlikely to survive the winter.

Leschner, who has been farming for the last 20 years, worries about how she’ll survive. “I won’t lose my farm, but it is going to put me in serious debt borrowing money from friends. They keep playing with this stimulus, and it is playing on our minds,” she said.

Among the many other reasons voters have to distrust Trump this year: the debacle of Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn receiving billions of dollars in tax subsidies to build a factory in Mount Pleasant, in exchange for an alleged 13,000 jobs and an economic windfall for the state. Trump attended the factory’s groundbreaking in 2018, where he called it the “eighth wonder of the world.” Foxconn founder Terry Gou has said he remains committed to the plan to set up in Wisconsin, but dozens of homes were destroyed, millions of dollars were spent to acquire land and build roads and infrastructure, and no one can say with any clarity what the company’s investment might ultimately look like.

Trump isn’t the only one being blamed for the staggering numbers of new COVID-19 cases in the state. A review by WisPolitics.com, a news site dedicated to state politics, named Wisconsin’s legislature the least active full-time body in America at the beginning of October, and it has not passed a bill since April, essentially the entire length of the pandemic. But Republican legislative leaders Robin Vos and Scott Fitzgerald have had time to support legal challenges to Evers’ stay at home order, mask mandates, and limits to public gatherings. The most recent poll from Marquette Law School found that 50 percent of residents disapproved of how the state legislature was doing its job, while only 36 percent approved, a 10 percent shift since May.

“In Wisconsin, there may be a reverse coattail effect: people who are unhappy with the Republican-dominated state legislature’s refusal to support strict health measures may be moved to turn against Trump, as the legislature has brought his rhetoric home as actual policies on the ground,” Howard Schweber, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told The Daily Beast.

For her part, Leschner said “the state’s government was a huge factor” for her. Likewise, Hartl said that Trump’s attitude towards the pandemic—one echoed by the state GOP—frustrated him and left him frightened for his vulnerable Republican family members in the state.

“Why is my 70-year-old grandma not following the science?” he asked.

[…]

Hartl told the Daily Beast “it was a no-brainer” to switch his vote this election. He has only been able to convince one family member, his paternal grandmother, to switch from Trump to Biden, but he’s proud of his success.

“Now she just yells at him whenever she sees him on TV,” he said.

NNPA NEWSWIRE — Black Americans, millions of whom were already struggling before the pandemic struck, cannot afford to lose anything else and we absolutely cannot afford another four years of President Donald J. Trump. That is why it is more imperative than perhaps at any other period in many of our lifetimes that we vote at record numbers this year.

By Congresswoman Frederica S. Wilson (D-FL)

In 2016, then-candidate Donald J. Trump asked African Americans, “what the hell do you have to lose,” by supporting his campaign. Nearly four years later, the answer is painfully clear: a hell of a lot.

In the past eight months alone, a majority of Black businesses have closed, Black families are experiencing high unemployment and facing economic insecurity. Most tragic of all, Black people have died from the novel coronavirus at double the rate of whites.

It didn’t have to be that way, but thanks to President Trump’s desire to not cause Americans to panic, he and his administration withheld information about the damage that the COVID-19 pandemic would ultimately have on our nation’s physical and economic health. To this day, rather than taking this public health crisis seriously, Trump has chosen to not only spread lies about the virus, but also actually spread it at White House events and campaign rallies across the nation.

Black Americans, millions of whom were already struggling before the pandemic struck, cannot afford to lose anything else and we absolutely cannot afford another four years of President Donald J. Trump. That is why it is more imperative than perhaps at any other period in many of our lifetimes that we vote at record numbers this year.

It is an unfortunate truth that Black voters have long felt undervalued by both the Republican and the Democratic party, and as a result, it’s hard for them to believe that their vote matters. But believe me, it does. We will never know what kind of leader former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would have been, but if more Black voters had turned out in 2016, we might never have experienced the kind of president that Trump has been.

In addition to his egregious mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, he has demonstrated an unwillingness to condemn white nationalists and a propensity to encourage them. Rather than uplift low income and minority communities, he has sought to dismantle health, education and other programs that they depend on. He called people who’ve served in the military losers and suckers. For the past few months, he has worked overtime to stoke fears about us among white Americans in a callous, self-serving attempt to secure their votes.

As someone who has for decades fiercely fought for and advocated on behalf of Black men and boys, I am appalled by his refusal to acknowledge and address the police violence and racist attacks that have prematurely shortened the lives of too many. Black males in our nation have always been an endangered species, but the Trumps of this world threaten to make them nearly extinct, yet I am afraid that they will either not vote this year or may perhaps vote for Trump, who has never addressed the nation or expressed remorse for the killings of George Floyd, Ahmed Aubrey, and so many others. He not only doesn’t care, but frequently blows dog whistles to the kind of people who see no value in Black men.

More than 11.4 percent of African Americans under the age of 65 are uninsured. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s plan to create a public option for the Affordable Care Act will ensure that millions of African American men who have been left out will now be able to seek care for themselves and their families. Biden is keenly aware of the how costly college has become, making it almost unattainable for all but the wealthiest families. His plan would make HBCUs and public colleges and universities tuition free for families making less than $125,000 a year. That policy alone could help send millions of Black men and their children to college who previously thought it was beyond their reach.

Biden also is committed to reducing student loan debt for millions of Americans. His plan would cancel your student debt if you attended a public college or university or an HBCU and met other criteria. That would free millions of Black men who currently are saddled with student loans to make choices about starting a business or changing careers without the financial pressures of debt repayment. Finally, Biden understands that Black-owned small businesses need capital and access to markets on an equal basis to be competitive and grow. That’s why he plans to increase funding for lending and investing in Black-owned small businesses and increase access to federal contracts for Black-owned businesses.

In a recent interview, presidential advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner suggested that Blacks are only as successful as we want to be and dismissed the Black Lives Matter movement as “virtue signaling.” This is the kind of person Trump surrounds himself with. An attorney general who thinks he’s the president’s personal attorney and has failed to protect the voting rights of minority groups and abdicated its oversight of police misconduct. An education secretary who consistently undermines or rolls back key civil rights protections and Obama-era guidance that promoted racial equity in the classroom. A postmaster general who actively sought to suppress mail-in voting.

Joe Biden is an imperfect man and has in the past made his own missteps on race, but he is a caring man who has personally experienced first-hand what it’s like when a family faces illness, loss and financial insecurity. He will serve as president to everyone in America, including those of us who are not wealthy or white. And if his historic choice of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate tells us anything, it’s that Black lives do indeed matter to him.

Every Black voter in America who has not yet cast their ballot needs to head to the polls or ballot drop-off sites and make sure their voices are heard. We cannot afford another four years of Trump.

(MILWAUKEE, Wis). – As we enter the final days of early voting in the crucial state of Wisconsin, the nonpartisan Vote Wisconsin app and website introduced this year have proven to be instrumental in reaching new and unregistered voters. These digital tools, developed by non-partisan organization Wisconsin Voices, secured over 26,000 new voter registrations, and is responsible for additional tens of thousands of referrals to the state online registration site. The VoteWisconsin.com website alone engaged over 160,000 new users with voter registration services and information.

With ease, Wisconsin residents were able to check voter registration status, fill out a simple form, and upload proof of residence allowing Vote Wisconsin to send their data to the appropriate clerk–bypassing the need for the registrant to print and mail in their paperwork. Individuals and nonpartisan organizations all over the state have been leveraging these convenient tools. The Vote Wisconsin resources have been an effective asset in the effort to increase voter registrations, and will continue to be used beyond the 2020 election cycle.

”In the climate of COVID, Vote Wisconsin supported residents in safely and efficiently registering to vote–from the comfort of their homes, computers or phones,” said Lisa Lucas, Communications Director of Wisconsin Voices. “We’ve registered nearly 30,000 new voters across all demographics and ages. Most notably, 20% of the users of our registration website are 18-24 year olds and nearly 25% of users were ages 24-34. Knowing the power of the youth vote, we’re happy this technology may have played a major role in them participating in this election.“

In addition to handling the registration process from A to Z, VoteWisconsin.com has served as a resource for registered Wisconsin voters—providing guidance for returning ballots, finding early voting locations, and even recruiting poll workers. For more info, watch the video about the Vote Wisconsin initiative here.

About Wisconsin Voices:

Wisconsin Voices is a coalition of over 60 nonpartisan organizations in Wisconsin. We envision a Wisconsin where every person has the means, motivation, and freedom to fully participate in a just democracy that provides opportunities for all people to thrive.

On Tuesday, October 27, Doug Emhoff, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Congressman Mark Pocan, State Senator Chris Larson, and State Representative David Bowen will host a virtual “Fired Up, Ready for Joe” event with in-person early voting underway across the state.

During the event, the leaders will discuss what’s at stake this election, Joe Biden’s plans to rebuild Wisconsin’s economy by investing in the middle class, expand access to health care, and protect coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. They will also encourage Wisconsinites to take advantage of all the ways they can vote early this election including by dropping off their ballots at official drop box locations and voting early in-person.

LOGISTICAL INFORMATION
Details are subject to change
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27

“Fired Up, Ready for Joe” Virtual Get Out the Vote Event with Doug Emhoff, Ayanna Pressley, Mark Pocan, and Wisconsin Leaders
Start Time: 5:00 PM CT

Press RSVP: Media interested in attending should RSVP HERE no later than 3:00 PM CT Tuesday, October 27.

Event RSVP: Members of the public who wish to attend can RSVP HERE.