Wisconsin played a crucial role in the 2016 election, helping Donald Trump upset Hillary Clinton.
For this reason, the folks at Pod Save America teamed up with Change Research to offer some insight into how to win Wisconsin.
Without further ado, here are the highlights.
Wisconsin is close
If the election were held today, 38% of voters would vote for Trump and 39% would vote for the Democratic candidate.
Trump is more popular in Wisconsin than he is nationally. Nationally, his approval to disapproval ratio is 41.9% approve to 53.7% in the latest FiveThirtyEight poll.
Wisconsin is important
The path to a White House win gets very slim if we can’t win Wisconsin.
Also, Wisconsin is very similar to other Midwestern states. Most of what was in this poll rings true with what I’m seeing in Ohio.
Why is Trump popular in Wisconsin?
The research suggests two reasons. First, he’s getting credit for the economy .
Most of the messages that Change Research tested did very little to move the needle in Trump’s favor, but the following message made voters 18 points more likely to vote for Trump:
Since Trump became President, we’ve created millions of jobs and unemployment rates are the lowest they’ve been in decades.
Second, he’s turned immigration into a wedge issue.
In response to a question about the most pressing issue facing the state, 36 percent of Republicans and 19 percent of independents said immigration. On immigration, Republicans have an eight-point advantage over Democrats and a 22-point advantage with independents.
How to beat Trump in Wisconsin
What polling suggests in Wisconsin is that there are a lot of things about the economy and his policies that aren’t breaking through the media.
What has broken through in the media are negative stories about the Russia investigation, his tweets, and his plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act. These stories don’t move the needle much either way.
The way they suggest that Democrats can make gains is by:
- Eroding Trump’s strength on the economy
- Hitting him on Medicare cuts
- Hitting him on his failure to drain the swamp
The most effective argument against Trump is that he ran as a populist, but has governed as a plutocrat. Trump is particularly vulnerable to attacks on the ineffectiveness and hypocrisy of his trade policy.
Here are the four most effective messages they tested:
Net: More likely to support Trump
|
All respondents |
Donald Trump promised to repeal the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but now he is working with Wall Street, major corporations, and the big drug companies to pass a new NAFTA that hurts workers and helps corporations. |
-27% |
Donald Trump started a trade war with China that is hurting Wisconsin farmers, and he’s now borrowing more money from China to bail out huge corporate farms, including some based in foreign countries. |
-31% |
Thanks to Trump’s new tax law that gives a tax break to companies that ship jobs overseas, five General Motors plants will be closed in North America in 2019, eliminating thousands of good paying jobs, putting Americans out of work and devastating communities. |
-33% |
Trump promised to reduce the deficit, but he has dramatically increased government spending and cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy, and the deficit is expected to grow to a trillion dollars this year. |
-29% |
A couple of other stories from the media about the economy that are worth sharing:
The U.S. Department of Labor just revised the 2018 jobs numbers down by 500,000. This means 500,000 less jobs were created in 2018 than previously reported.
Tax cuts for the wealthy are not preventing companies from laying people off or shifting jobs overseas:
- In September 2017, Bloomberg reported Hewlett-Packard planned to cut 5,000 jobs, or 10% of its job force.
- Cisco Systems has laid off nearly 1,000 people in 2019 alone.
- GE outsourced 921 jobs after taking $1.2 billion from the Trump administration.
- IBM outsourced 527 jobs after receiving $1.55 billion in federal contracts.
- The Big Three automakers have eliminated 9,000 jobs since 2017.
- Federal contractors alone outsourced 10,269 jobs while taking more than $19 billion in government money.
It’s important to remember that sharing reasons why this is happening is often just as important as sharing the statistics. It gives people a framework for understanding what’s happening and why it’s not working.
I explain this to people by using simple principles that are easily understood. In this case: supply and demand. Businesses hire people when there’s more demand. When you cut taxes for the richest Americans, the impact is minimal because the wealthy already have everything they want or need.
Summary
Trump is weak on the economy, especially if we can connect him to establishment Republicans like Mitch McConnell and plutocratic policies.
To win in Wisconsin (and possibly other Midwestern states as well), talk about what he’s actually doing and connect the dots to what’s happening on the ground in America.
David Akadjian is the author of The Little Book of Revolution: A Distributive Strategy for Democracy (ebook now available).