SWING STATE SWEATING — It’s a fraught time for Democrats in Wisconsin — and not just because of President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance. The party had hoped to ride a revived industrial economy and persisting concern about abortion rights to victory in a state that’s crucial to Democratic hopes of retaining the presidency and the Senate this fall. But over and over again, local candidates report, their messaging was derailed in the past week by concerns about Biden’s debate performance and broader worries that he may not be up for the job. And even when they get around to selling their message, particularly on the economy, many voters aren’t buying in. It’s all a bad omen since robust Democratic turnout is essential to winning the state — particularly in the state’s largest city, Milwaukee, where Republicans will, in just a few days, renominate Donald Trump for the presidency at their national convention. Biden’s debate performance “definitely had an impact,” said Avery Renk, a Democratic candidate for a Wisconsin Assembly seat outside of Madison, during an interview at a Democratic picnic on Sunday. “Before the debate there was a lot of chat about me, about my opponents in the Democratic primary for the Assembly, and since the debate there’s been a lot of chat at [voters’] doorsteps about Biden, and everything I hear is he’s too old.” “It’s been really tough,” he added forlornly, “since I think my job is to remind people about the job that has been done” by Biden and Democrats writ-large. Renk’s experience was borne out over discussions with dozens of voters, Democratic Party candidates and volunteers in Wisconsin over the past week, where nearly every person expressed at least some concern with Biden’s age and his ability to beat Trump — even if most feel it’s too late to replace him on the ticket. “After the debate, everyone is saying ‘oh my gosh he’s [had a] cognitive decline, we didn’t see this,’” said Brandon, a real estate salesman outside of Milwaukee who declined to give his last name and said he remains undecided in the presidential election despite supporting policies like abortion rights and socialized health care. “And I’m like, ‘how can’t you see [the decline]? It’s obvious.’” Similar interactions were repeated a dozen times during a canvassing walk with Democratic Assembly candidate LuAnn Bird, who is running neck-and-neck with an incumbent Republican for a seat located in southeastern Milwaukee and the surrounding suburbs. Again and again, she tried to direct the conversation back to her own priorities, from local education issues to abortion rights and a revived industrial economy in the region. “We know Joe is old,” Bird said to skeptical voters she met while doorknocking, “but we have to think about what would happen if Trump gets in.” The trouble for Democrats, though, goes deeper than Biden’s mental acuity. The president and his allies in Congress — like Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who’s engaged in her own competitive reelection campaign — have tailored their economic policies to win states like Wisconsin, hoping to avoid the populist backlash that helped Trump break the Midwestern blue wall in 2016. As president, he expanded Trump-era tariffs on China, came out against the sale of iconic U.S. Steel to a Japanese rival, and abandoned the trade elements of his core economic proposal for Asia, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework — all at the urging of Baldwin and other at-risk Senate Democrats from the Rust Belt. But those policies aren’t registering with some manufacturing workers — even at a factory that Biden himself visited last year. “As a blue collar worker, I don’t feel that Biden has done enough,” said Jake Westray, a union wind turbine repair technician at Ingeteam, a renewable energy manufacturer in Milwaukee that Biden toured last April. Westray’s company is steadily adding new workers due to strong renewable energy demand from the president’s Inflation Reduction Act – Westray was training a new wind turbine technician when he paused for an interview – and domestic manufacturing rules for electric vehicle chargers in the bipartisan infrastructure law. Still, he said persistent inflation means that he’s “leaning red” for the presidential election. And that factor will persist even if Democrats switch Biden out for another candidate in the coming days. “I know that [Biden] poured money into jobs,” he said, “but a lot of people haven’t gotten that wage increase to be able to counteract inflation.” Along with Westray, even blue-no-matter-who voters in the manufacturing economy were down on Biden’s chances in November, and they weren’t confident that Vice President Kamala Harris or another Democrat would do any better than him. “I think a lot of people are going to vote for Trump, which I think is crazy, because Trump is crazy,” said Magnolia Taylor, a wind turbine finisher at Ingeteam who plans to vote for Biden. “This economy, it kind of sucks. Gas prices are up, meat is up … but the people’s pay is mostly the same. So the economy is tough for a lot of people.” The Biden campaign insists that any anxiety over Biden’s economic policies and his fitness for the job is being matched by an upswell in support and volunteering among Democrats. In the wake of the debate, the campaign saw a “surge” of volunteers, a campaign official said, “which allowed us to make 100,000 voter contact attempts across the state.” Still, local Democrats and union leaders say there’s much more work to do to connect the benefits of Biden’s economy with voters who will be crucial to winning his reelection. For more about the fallout from the debate, check out this dispatch from Milwaukee, and stay tuned for more coverage on the Wisconsin economy over the weekend. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at gbade@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @GavinBade.
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