MOSINEE, Wis. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is heading to Wisconsin on Saturday for a rally that is expected to focus heavily on the economy, marking his first trip to the dark red, largely rural part of the key battleground state.
Trump and the Vice President Kamala Harris have been talk more about their projects for the economy in the days leading up to Tuesday’s presidential debate, where their competing proposals are expected to take center stage.
Trump Thursday He has promised to lead what he called a “national economic renaissance” by raising tariffs, cutting regulations to boost energy production and slashing government spending and corporate taxes for companies that produce in the United States.
Harris called this week to raise corporate tax rates, not tax tips and Social Security income, and expand tax breaks for small businesses to further promote entrepreneurship.
Harris and Trump have traveled frequently to Wisconsin this year, a state where four of the last six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point. Several opinion polls taken after President Joe Biden withdrew showed Harris and Trump in a tight race.
Democrats see Wisconsin as one of the “blue wall” states that must be won. Biden, who was in Wisconsin on Thursdaywon the state in 2020 by just under 21,000 votes. Trump won it by a slightly larger margin, nearly 23,000 votes, in 2016.
Trump has taken his economic message to Mosinee, a central Wisconsin town of about 4,500 people. It’s in Wisconsin’s largely rural 7th Congressional District, a Republican-majority area in a purple state. Trump won Mosinee’s county by 18 percentage points in both 2016 and 2020.
Democrats are counting on massive turnout in the state’s two largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison, to counter Republican strength in rural areas like Mosinee and Milwaukee’s suburbs. Trump needs to turn out votes in places like Mosinee to have any chance of reducing Democrats’ advantage in urban areas.
Republicans held their national convention in Milwaukee in July, and Trump has already made four stops in the state, most recently last week in the western Wisconsin city of La Crosse.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, last month filled the same Milwaukee arena where Republicans held their national convention for a rally that coincided with the Democratic National Convention just 90 miles away in Chicago. Walz returned to Milwaukee on Monday.where he spoke at a Labor Day rally organized by unions.
Biden was in rural western Wisconsin on Thursday, his first visit to the state since dropping out of the race. Biden took advantage of the visit The U.S. government has announced a $7.3 billion investment in 16 cooperatives that will provide electricity to rural areas in 23 states. The goal is to reduce the cost of essential internet connections in hard-to-reach areas.
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Bauer reported from Madison.
