Karen Tumulty: Why should Democrats show up in rural America? Ask Tammy Baldwin.
When Sen. Tammy Baldwin kicked her re-election campaign into high gear last November with a “One Year to Win” tour of her state, the first place she headed was Richland Center, an agricultural town in south-central Wisconsin, where she cut the ribbon to open a new local Democratic headquarters.
Baldwin – whose seat is crucial to the Democrats’ narrow hopes of hanging on to control of the Senate – was back in that same spot on Saturday, this time with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in tow to lend some national political star power.
But as the two of them spoke to a friendly crowd of several dozen people in front of the party headquarters, it was hard not to notice what dominated the front porch of the house across the street: an enormous sign for the Trump-Vance ticket.
“Elections in my state and here in Wisconsin often come down to a percentage point or less,” Shapiro told me. “You got to show up everywhere. You got to make sure that you’re meeting people where they are in communities like this that maybe historically haven’t voted your way.”
Conservative Richland County makes an excellent case for that strategy. Geologically, it is part of what is known as the Driftless Area, because it was not sculpted by the moving glaciers of the Ice Age.
Politically, however, it has drifted substantially, and generally to the right. After supporting Barack Obama in both his presidential campaigns, the county voted for Donald Trump by 5.5 percentage points in 2016 and expanded his margin to 9.7 points in 2020. But in 2018, the liberal Baldwin won there even bigger – by 14.6 points.
Richland was one of 17 such Trump-to-Baldwin counties in the state, which suggests there are still some parts of the country where ticket-splitting has not gone entirely extinct.
While it’s not all that often that you hear a political candidate reciting the accolades her opponent has received, Baldwin rarely misses an opportunity to remind voters that a magazine honored her Republican challenger, Eric Hovde, as one of Orange County’s “most influential people” for three years in a row.
“Well, Wisconsin, we have a Green County. We have a Brown County. There’s no Orange County in Wisconsin,” Baldwin said.
Though Hovde was raised, educated and owns a home in the Badger State, he runs a $2.7 billion privately held bank based in Utah and has a mansion with an ocean view in Orange County, Calif. Democratic ads refer to him as “Eric Hovde (R-Laguna Beach).”
Hovde’s campaign contends that Baldwin is a radical liberal whose values are out of line with the state. To validate his own Wisconsin bona fides, Hovde in February posted a video of himself on social media taking a shirtless plunge into Madison’s Lake Mendota. “All right, Senator Baldwin, why don’t you get out here in this frozen lake and let’s really see who’s from Wisconsin,” he said.
Stunts like that, however, haven’t gotten him very far. Nor has the $13 million of his own money that Hovde has poured into his campaign. Baldwin has maintained a narrow but consistent lead over Hovde in the polls and outraised him by better than 2 to 1.
Another sign of trouble: The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported last week that as Hovde’s campaign is entering the home stretch, it has been quietly replacing key parts of its operation, including fundraising and media consultants and the communications director.
In rural settings, as in urban ones, Baldwin touts her role in ensuring that the Affordable Care Act allowed young people to stay on their parents’ health-care plans until they turn 26, and her continuing battles to lower the cost of drugs. She portrays herself as a “buy America champion” who has fought to ensure that blue-collar jobs stay in this country.
She also cites as accomplishments bringing home $1.1 billion in federal funds to expand high-speed internet across Wisconsin and millions more to address the shortage of available child care that is particularly acute in rural areas.
This year, Democrats up and down the ticket are waking up to something Baldwin recognized long ago: That Democrats cannot afford to ignore rural America, even as it has swung harder to the right.
For starters, they have to show up.
Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have made a point of campaigning in places like southern Georgia and western Pennsylvania, where they have little chance of winning outright but hope to cut into Trump’s margins.
Yes, it is the rare Democratic politician like Baldwin who can still win in rural areas. But in battleground states where polls show the race as tight as it is, even losing by less could make all the difference.