At the beginning of the XXe century, Theodore Roosevelt campaigned in stations, from his train that crisscrossed America. Donald Trump does it on the tarmacs, at the foot of his presidential plane, in front of the airfield hangars where his fans meet. Thursday, September 17, at 8 p.m. sharp, the president appeared on the catwalk at the small Mosinee airport, in the heart of the Wisconsin countryside, in front of some 1,500 supporters. They had been waiting for him since 2:30 p.m., after having undergone a temperature test, but having often dropped the mask. Motivated, combative, Republicans know that Donald Trump must not lose this Midwestern state, both agricultural and industrial, if he wants to win.
Known for its cheeses, Harley Davidsons, and 1950s anti-Communist “witch-hunt” Senator McCarthy, Wisconsin gave itself to Trump in 2016, less than 23,000 votes ahead. He made his victory, along with two other deindustrialised states, known as the “rust belt” (Pennsylvania, the former steel state, and Michigan, the birthplace of the automobile). It must be said that Hillary Clinton did not deign to campaign in this state that she believed to be acquired. Four years later, the Democrats have learned the lesson: they had planned to hold their convention in the first city of the state, Milwaukee, canceled due to Covid-19, but pacing it: Joe Biden surrendered, as Donald Trump, in Kenosha, after a police officer shot an African-American man, Jacob Blake, seven times in late August, while his running mate, Kamala Harris, traveled to Milwaukee to mobilize the African-American electorate for the Labor Day. But the Democrats limit the meetings, Covid-19 obliges.
Donald Trump, who is about 7 points behind in the polls, is mobilizing his troops in this rural part of Wisconsin. He must win, while Michigan seems won over to Joe Biden, who has the ear of the automobile unions, while the battle for Pennsylvania will be very hard. From the outset, in Mosinee, he attacked his opponent. “If Biden wins, China wins. If Biden wins, the anarchists, the arsonists win. “
“It will be civil war if Biden is elected”
Law and order: After the death of George Floyd, suffocated by a white policeman in Minneapolis, in neighboring Minnesota, and the riots in Kenosha, Trump bet on a counter-pendulum effect. Successfully, if we are to believe the activists interviewed, but which is not clearly reflected in the polls. Lenora Rebhborg, 38, didn’t like the tone of the Black Lives Matters protests in her small town of Madison at all: “I had been a Democrat for years. I rocked when it was explained to me that I must be ashamed to be white, the neotrumpist activist tells us. And yet, I am a union worker. “
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