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What Next | Daily News and Analysis

The Battle for Wisconsin's Dairy Farmers

What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Daily News

4.32.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 August 2020

⏱️ 16 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Having the Democratic National Convention in Wisconsin was supposed to be a way for the Democrats to atone for 2016. Hillary Clinton was the first presidential candidate from either party to not campaign in the state since Richard Nixon in 1972.

Wisconsin flipped from blue to red in the last presidential election as rural voters voiced their disaffection with the Democratic Party and supported Donald Trump for president. Now, four years later, the Democrats are hoping they can use Trump’s record in office to win them back.

Guest: Dan Kaufman is Contributing Writer at The New Yorker and author of The Fall of Wisconsin

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Transcript

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0:00.0

No balloon drops, no funny hats, no spontaneous conga lines snaking through a packed convention floor.

0:13.6

Instead, this week, a choreographed Zoom handoff will be how Democrats officially nominate Joe Biden

0:20.2

to be their presidential candidate.

0:23.0

Let it suffice to say this is a long way from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

0:28.0

A place Democrats thought they'd be celebrating the 2020 Democratic National Convention

0:32.9

just a few months ago.

0:34.6

A location journalist Dan Kaufman says was picked for a very specific

0:39.3

reason.

0:40.3

Obviously holding the convention there was a symbol that the Democratic Party was trying to

0:46.3

atone for its sin of ignoring Wisconsin in 2016.

0:51.3

Dan Kaufman is a native Wisconsinite and has written at length about Wisconsin politics

0:56.5

for the New Yorker and in his book, The Fall of Wisconsin. Hillary Clinton was the first

1:02.0

candidate of either party to not campaign in Wisconsin during the general election since Richard

1:07.8

Nixon in 1972. When you say didn't campaign, Dan, the Democratic nominee for president didn't set foot in the

1:17.2

state of Wisconsin?

1:18.3

Not during the general election. No. No, not once.

1:25.7

Dan traveled to Wisconsin over the last year to talk to the people who helped Donald Trump win the state that calls itself America's dairyland by a whisker in 2016.

1:37.3

Trump won Wisconsin by about 23,000 votes that year.

1:41.0

So I think there was a recognition that they needed to pay attention to,

1:45.4

not just Wisconsin, but the, the Rust Belt states in general.

1:50.8

You know, Wisconsin had not voted for a Republican for president since 1984, Ronald Reagan's

1:58.2

49 state triumph. During his travels, Dan spent a lot of time in what's called the Driftless Area, the rural,

...

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