Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was campaigning for Sen. Tammy Baldwin outside a converted gas station in central Wisconsin on Saturday when a disruptive person drove by and yelled, “Trump 2024!”
“I don’t think he’s a good fit for us,” Shapiro told the crowd gathered outside what is now the Richland County Democratic Party office. “And that’s OK.”
It was at least the third instance of disruption during the brief campaign rally, with cars and pickup trucks driving by and yelling pro-Trump slogans while the two Democrats were cruising.
The problem was enemy territory. Mr. Baldwin had brought along Mr. Shapiro, a Democrat whose talent for appealing to Republicans and independents is central to his brand, as an ally for Mr. Baldwin, who faces a tough reelection bid in his own battleground state. The two campaigned here over the weekend in two rural counties in south-central Wisconsin that voted reliably for Donald J. Trump in 2016 and 2020.
Despite Trump’s support in the area, Baldwin won those counties by double digits in 2018, a victory that helped him handily secure a second term in the Senate. But this year, with Trump running, he faces a tougher fight. To win reelection in November against Republican bank executive Eric Hovde, Baldwin will need to repeat that success — or at least stem an exodus of support from Trump voters — with the former president now the front-runner.
“In the last election cycle, in 2018, about 10% of voters who showed up to the polls voted for Scott Walker for governor and Tammy Baldwin for Senate,” Baldwin said, referring to the Republicans who led the state but lost reelection that year. “So, certainly, there are a lot of voters who split their votes. I think that number has gone down, certainly. Of course, there’s a difference between midterm elections and presidential elections, but I know some people who voted for Trump and Tammy.”
Polls have shown Baldwin’s lead over Hovde narrowing in recent weeks, and Wisconsin, where the two parties are vying for control of the Senate, is one of the most competitive Senate races in the country. So it makes sense for Baldwin to tap Shapiro, the popular Pennsylvania governor who has gained national profile since being on Vice President Kamala Harris’ shortlist of running mates, to help him appeal to a key base of voters in the state’s quiet hill country.
Democrats, facing dwindling support from rural, working-class voters, have begun turning to messengers who have proven their ability to appeal to voters in more conservative areas, like Shapiro and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, now his running mate. A handout given to Democratic offices for volunteers to talk to voters highlighted Walz as a “lifelong hunter and gun owner” who “believes in Midwestern common sense, being a good neighbor, and loyalty to the United States of America.”
“There are a few states that could decide the outcome of this election,” Shapiro said when asked what he’s doing campaigning in Wisconsin. “The three so-called ‘blue wall’ states — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan — are key, and I want to do everything I can to get people to vote in those states, as well as Pennsylvania.”
The two events with Baldwin in central Wisconsin on Saturday were Shapiro’s first visits outside her home state as a surrogate, including one in a barn in Dodgeville, where attendees sipped cider and munched on cubes of cheddar cheese decorated with tiny American flags amid yellow cornfields.
This probably won’t be his last game.
He has already campaigned extensively in rural and working-class counties in Pennsylvania on behalf of the Harris campaign, outperforming President Biden in some parts of the state in his bid to win the 2022 gubernatorial election, in which he poured money into television ads featuring Trump supporters endorsing him.
“Finally, I’ve found a Democrat I can vote for!” one person excitedly told the camera.
“I think it was important that we campaign on their terms,” Shapiro said of the 2022 election during a lunch interview with Baldwin. He said he has campaigned in urban and rural areas, including meeting with voters at a local gun club in Butler County, Pennsylvania, which “really doesn’t look that different from some of the places in this country.”
“When you really dig in and ask, every community looks different, but fundamentally what people want is the same,” he continued. “They want good schools and safe communities. They want opportunity — economic opportunity, whether that’s running a small business or having the opportunity to buy a home. And they want their rights and freedoms to be protected. They don’t want the government interfering in their lives. And that’s what I hear in rural, suburban and urban areas.”
He was talking about voters like Marvin Ford that Baldwin needs to win the November election.
Ford, who is self-employed, came to Baldwin’s rally in Richland Center, where she lives, to hear her message on the economy and immigration. Before the rally, she said she hadn’t decided who she would vote for in November’s presidential or senate elections, but that she voted for Trump in 2020 because she wanted to support someone who would keep the southern border safe.
While he had never voted for Baldwin before, he said he thought he’d “done a great job so far” and was reconsidering his support because of concerns about “Trump’s ethics.”
“You know, all of his investigations and criminal trials,” Ford said.
Baldwin did not address immigration during his speech, but spoke about efforts to include a “Buy American” provision in the Biden administration’s bipartisan infrastructure bill.
“There’s a company in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that’s doubled its workforce from 200 to 400 people to manufacture the parts we need to build broadband,” she said. “Those jobs are coming back. When you stand up to powerful interests, you can win.”
Ford seemed particularly interested in Shapiro’s comments, nodding along as the governor praised Baldwin for running a campaign based on “common sense principles, the idea of getting things done, getting out in the communities and not ignoring certain people because of how they vote in national elections.”
Afterwards, before posing for photos with both senators, he said he hasn’t decided yet, but that Baldwin’s comments about supporting the Affordable Care Act have him leaning now toward supporting her.
During weeks of speeches around the state laying out his positions on protecting reproductive rights, revitalizing American jobs and Wisconsin’s dairy farms and supporting same-sex marriage, Baldwin drew the loudest applause when he talked about how he pushed for health insurance legislation that would allow young people to stay on their parents’ health insurance until they turn 26.
“I’m currently on Obamacare,” Ford said, “so I don’t want it to end.”
Still, Baldwin faces tough challenges in these counties where Trump is the leading candidate.
As they were leaving the Democratic Party office, one voter called out to Baldwin’s staff, “Where’s the guts to hold up a pro-Tammy sign when the person next to you has 16 pro-Trump signs?”
Bev Pestel, who heads the Richland Center chapter of the Patriotic Millionaires-funded Economic Equity Now, acknowledged at the Dodgeville rally that there are “a lot of very angry, passionate MAGA people” in the area.
“Our mission is to whittle away voters one by one,” she said.
