MADISON, Wis. — As the presidential campaign cycle intensifies in Wisconsin, the reason might have more to do with party problems among voters than just being a battleground state.
During a WisPolitics event this week, the state party chairs sat down for a conversation about their candidates. Among the topics discussed was why both sides don’t seem to be past the point of uniting their parties.
“Our people are overwhelmingly together behind Donald Trump. That part of it is working very, very well for us,” Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair Brian Schimming responded. “Number two: This isn’t your typical — I mean think about it historically too, but just out of common sense — this isn’t your typical incumbent-challenger race.”
However, during Wisconsin’s presidential primary earlier this month, nearly 13% of the Republican vote went to Nikki Haley, who had already suspended her campaign by that point, while another 12,000-plus ballots were cast for “uninstructed.”
“It would be more compelling if the division in the Republican primary were not markedly bigger than the division within the Democratic primary,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler responded. “There were 124,000 Wisconsinites who didn’t cast a protest vote about a Trump policy. They voted against Donald Trump in the primary.”
Meanwhile, Democrats have their own problem with 48,000 “uninstructed” votes cast in their primary, far surpassing President Biden’s 2020 margin of victory in the Badger State.
Yet, the party is confident he can earn those votes back if he can successfully address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which he has already tried to do.
“So, President Biden has a path to win uninstructed voters and nonvoters, and Nikki Haley voters, whereas Trump is talking about purging the Nikki Haley supporters,” Wikler added. “He’s pushing them out. It’s easy to unite a party if you purge everyone who disagrees with you from that party.”
Republicans disagree and insist the race is more about records, and voters already know what they will get with each candidate.
“The problem for Joe Biden is the things that they don’t like about Joe Biden aren’t going to change,” Schimming said. “He’s actually driving them in worse than he did before.”
“Donald Trump didn’t lose four years ago because of his record. There may have been other issues, discomfort with Donald Trump or whatever, Joe Biden is going to lose because of his record,” Schimming added.
The latest Marquette University Law School Poll still shows a tight race between Biden and Trump, who are just two points apart but well within the margin of error.