Extra: Why Everyone's Watching Wisconsin This Election
22:43 Share

This is the Fox News Rundown Extra. I'm Dave Anthony. Today, we take you to Wisconsin in the last of our series of in-depth looks at the battleground toss-up states key to deciding who our next president will be. Twice this past week, Wednesday and Friday, former President Trump and Vice President Harris held dueling nighttime rallies in Wisconsin, which has 10 electoral votes up for grabs.

The other day we talked to Jason Calvey, a political reporter covering the campaign there for Fox 6 TV in Milwaukee. And since our discussion was too long to fit into the Rundown podcast, on Thursday we have it for you here in this weekend extra now. Keep in mind, we talked just as that Biden garbage controversy was starting to brew.

Hours after Jason and I spoke, former President Trump got inside a garbage truck before his rally in Green Bay where he wore a bright orange workers' protective vest and spoke out against President Biden calling Trump supporters garbage.

A comment the president tried to clarify, claiming he was only talking about one Trump supporter. The comedian at Trump's New York rally who called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage, a denial that caused its own controversy when White House officials edited the transcript of the Biden Zoom call where the president made the comment. And that upset the White House stenographer's office, which did not approve the change. So,

Jason and I talk about the potential ramifications of the comedian's comment about Puerto Rico. We did not get into the Trump supporter reaction to the Biden comment about garbage and Trump supporters. All right. OK.

All that aside, the overall focus here is Wisconsin ahead of Tuesday's Election Day coverage. And we're glad you're here to listen. And we urge you to keep coming back for more. You know, we post something new every day on The Rundown. And now Jason Calvey on the Fox News Rundown Extra.

Joining us on the Fox News Rundown is Jason Calvey. He is Fox 6 Milwaukee political reporter following the campaign as we get to the closing days in the state of Wisconsin, which is a battleground that we have yet to focus on as we do our

series of these toss-up states leading up to the election. We only have five days to go, but of course with early voting, tens of millions of Americans have already voted, but Wisconsin in the Fox News Power Rankings is one of six states' battlegrounds considered too close to call in the Trump versus Harris race. Jason, very good to talk to you. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. So you've been dealing with this race for months and months and months.

How does Wisconsin look going into this election? Is it very similar to the last two elections?

I think so. I mean, it's really so hard to tell where this state is going to fall, because when you look at our most recent elections, four of the six presidential elections in Wisconsin were decided by less than one percentage point. The only two that really topped more than one percent was Barack Obama in 2012 and in 2008. So we're seeing that again in the polls. I mean, poll after poll is showing pretty much a tie. The RealClearPolitics average of polls has pretty

pretty much a tie in battleground wisconsin so that's kind of the what we're seeing on the ground level is a community communities the state that is really torn between harris and trump yeah and on wednesday night they had dueling rallies there you have a vice president harris in the madison area you have former president trump in green bay

So tell us about those areas and what the demographics are. So when you look at Madison, this is really, Madison is the capital of the state of Wisconsin. It is Dane County, is a Democratic stronghold, and it's a county that is growing very quickly. So when you look at the total number of votes in 2020, there were 344,000 people cast a vote in Dane County. Now compare that with

with 2016 when 309,000 people voted in Dane County. So you see that population's growing and it is a Democratic stronghold. So you're looking at huge margins for the Democrats. They really want to run up the score in places like Dane County and Milwaukee County, the two Democratic strongholds in this battleground state. It's also the home of the University of Wisconsin. So you've got a

a lot of young voters there. So there's really a target on trying to drive voter turnout in Madison. You saw the former president, Barack Obama, rally in Madison. You've seen some of these high-level surrogates

go to Madison to try to drive voter turnout. And now you're seeing the vice president, Vice President Kamala Harris, go to Dane County, really trying to focus on that place where there's just so many Democratic votes. When you look at where the former president Trump is at, he was in Green Bay. That is a place where the surrounding areas there, Brown County, is a place that he won. He won by 10,000 votes in 2020.

in 2020. He won it as well in 2016. So this is a Republican area where you've got a lot of the rural communities surrounding

Green Bay. And so they really see that this is a place to go right now before election day. It's obviously the home of the Green Bay Packers. So the whole state of Wisconsin, we have the one football team that everybody in the whole state cheers. So on Sunday, after people go to church, et cetera, they focus on the Packers. And so going to Green Bay, really speaking to a statewide audience, even though it's one community in the

state people are focusing on that because it's Green Bay. And then what's next is on Friday. So just in two days, you're going to have both of those candidates, both of those presidential nominees come back to battleground Wisconsin. It really just shows how high the stakes are. Both of them are going to be visiting Milwaukee. It's definitely also a Democratic stronghold, but you also have those color counties, the counties surrounding Milwaukee that are

have traditionally been Republican-leaning and Republican strongholds even, and so they're really trying to focus on those voters. So with Milwaukee, is Milwaukee part of— I've seen these in looking through Wisconsin, and you deal with this, these areas, Bow Wow counties, it sounds like a dog, but it's like six counties, these are regions—

Is this where the election will be decided? I mean, when the margins are so close in Wisconsin, when you're talking about 20,000 votes that separated winners from losers in 2016 and 2020, every single community really is a battleground community. When you're looking at those wow counties, those are the counties that surround Milwaukee. So you're dealing with Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington counties. They typically were GOP strongholds. So for example, you may remember Governor Scott Walker

governor of Wisconsin. And when he ran in 2014, he won 72 percent of Waukesha County. That margin shrunk a little bit, shrunk some in when he ran again in 2018. He won about 66 percent of Waukesha County when former President Donald Trump was on the ballot both in 2016 and in 2020. He won 60 percent of Waukesha County. So you can see this is the county that has the

The largest number of Republican voters in the entire state of Wisconsin is rich with Republican voters. Republicans have seen those margins shrink in recent years, as I just pointed out, from Walker to Trump.

but it's still rich with Republican voters. So you're going to see those campaigns really targeting the voters in that suburban county of Waukesha. It's right next to Milwaukee. So when the campaigns come to Milwaukee, they're also in the media market that covers the entire region, which also includes Waukesha County as well. All right, Bao, is that the Green Bay area?

That's the area around Green Bay. So you're looking at an area, again, where there are Brown County. You've got more Republican voters there than Democratic voters.

Former President Trump won Brown County. That's the county around Green Bay. He won it both in 2020, 2016. You're looking at those other counties there as well. Bow wow. These are the two, the six counties that we're talking about here that are really crucial. You have to run the score up in those counties, both sides. But you can't forget Madison, as we mentioned earlier. Madison, Democratic stronghold, growth.

growing population, rich, huge numbers of Democratic voters there. But again, 20,000 voters are separated, winners and losers. Every county, every community does matter. And that's why you're seeing the campaigns come here again and again, both presidential nominees in Wisconsin on Wednesday, both presidential nominees in the state on

On Friday, it just shows how crucial the state is. Pull up a chair and join me, Rachel Campos Duffy. And me, former U.S. Congressman Sean Duffy, as we share our perspective on the discussions happening at kitchen tables across America. Download From the Kitchen Table, The Duffys, at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you download podcasts. Yeah, CBS in 60 Minutes has done a feature on a small county that apparently almost always gets it right as far as how the state ends up.

Yeah, Door County. So if anybody's listening, that's a great place to vacation. They have a beautiful bluffs, just beautiful views of our beautiful water out here. So definitely a place you're going to want to vacation to. But Door County also, if you look at the trends, who did they vote for in 2020? They picked Joe Biden. Who did they vote for in 2016? They went with Trump. I

in a swing state. They swung for the winner of the state both times and by close margins. I mean, we're talking about

hundreds of votes that are gonna, for example, when Trump won the county in 2016, he won 8,500 votes. Hillary Clinton, sorry, Hillary Clinton in 2016, she got 8,000 votes. So you're talking about 500 votes separating winning and losing that county. So yeah, Door County, important, also a beautiful place. Everybody in Wisconsin will appreciate Door County as a place where they like to vacation if they can. Okay, so-

There are so ever almost everywhere in the country, there's a gender gap. Men seem to be supporting former President Trump a lot more than women. Vice versa. Vice President Harris does very well with women. Wisconsin, I'm assuming, is the same.

Yeah, when we look at the Marquette poll, that's sort of our gold standard poll in Wisconsin. Of course, it did get 2016 wrong. I think it was about six or seven points off in 2016. It showed Hillary Clinton winning and it was off for Joe Biden's win as well. They did have that off, I think, by about four points in in 2020. So.

Again, Marquette poll, though, it does show that gender gap between Republicans. Former President Donald Trump is is doing much better with with male voters than he is female voters. And Kamala Harris, Vice President Kamala Harris, is doing much better with female voters than male voters. So we're seeing that gender gap here in Wisconsin. And it's.

potentially why we're seeing like these polls are just split in half when you look at the most recent polls showing battleground Wisconsin pretty much 50-50 a tie and going into this just days before the election it's just really hard to

to judge how this state is going to land. I mean, you know, people want to talk about yard signs, yard signs don't vote, but we're seeing, you know, yard signs where we might not typically see them for both campaigns. We're seeing, I'm seeing Trump campaign signs in Milwaukee. I'm seeing a Harris campaign signs when I go to some of the rural areas and we're camping a few weekends and,

and definitely saw a lot of hear signs. Again, yard signs don't talk, but it is at least one barometer that we're looking at as we're talking to voters in Wisconsin. We're seeing record numbers of people voting in person early, and there's been a big drive from Republicans and conservative radio to really encourage people on the right to consider voting early. Maybe there was some skepticism or criticism of it in past elections, really urging them to do it this time around, and we're seeing them take up that call and vote early at this time.

Have you heard you can listen to your favorite news podcasts ad-free? Good news! With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad-free top podcasts, included with your Prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free. Or go to amazon.com slash ad-free news podcasts. That's amazon.com slash ad-free news podcasts. To catch up on the latest episodes without the ads.

Another issue that's been going for days now, there was the Trump rally in New York City on Sunday night where a comedian said,

There were a lot of people who were offended by some of the people who were on stage, but in particular, there's one comedian who called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage, and that has resonated for days and days and days. And then there came President Biden, who the other night said that he thought Trump supporters were garbage, and then he tried to clarify he only meant one, that he only meant the comedian. That issue, you've been following this. Has it resonated in Wisconsin?

It's definitely something that people were talking about on social media, on talk radio, on both sides, people talking about that. But when I talked with undecided voters, these sort of things, these controversies about Puerto Rico, other controversies in the past as well, where there was controversy about comments made eventually about the city of Milwaukee, whether it was a horrible city or not,

People told me that that wasn't really going to sway their votes. They were, you know, obviously they've been focused on a lot of social media posts in the last few days. But at the end of the day, is it going to sway these voters? About one percent in recent polls, about one percent of the state of Wisconsin said they were still undecided.

And that 1% could potentially decide who wins this election when you talk about those margins being less than 1% in four of the last six presidential elections in Wisconsin. So what exactly is the... How is these comments back and forth on Puerto Rico going to impact voters here? I'm not convinced that they are going to, but you've seen some polling suggesting that former President Donald Trump was overperforming with Hispanic males before this incident. Is it going to...

raise some question marks for those folks. I'm not sure that was one of the things I was hoping to do

Today was really get out in the field and talk to Hispanic voters on both of these comments from former president at the rally in Madison Square Garden, as well as what President Biden said in the White House. Yeah. As far as our Puerto Rican population in Wisconsin, we have about 61,000 Puerto Ricans who live in Wisconsin. I'm not sure how many of them are registered to vote, but so a small percentage.

part of our population. But again, 20,000 votes is all it took to win in 2020 and 2016. We go back in history as well. I look at some of those really close margins in the last decade or so. Yeah. There's also in Wisconsin, a Senate race that's very important for control for whichever party has the majority in the next Congress.

Senator Tammy Baldwin is the incumbent, the Democrat. That race in the last Fox News Power ranking, it says, shifted from lean Baldwin to a toss-up with Republican Eric Hovde. Is that as close as the Trump-Harris race?

It hadn't been. The polling had suggested in, you know, Tammy Baldwin has won reelection twice. She overperformed Democrats in past elections. So it was seen as a hard pickup for Republicans to flip that seat. But again, when when Tammy Baldwin was last on the ballot, 2018, it was sort of a really good year. Very, very good year for Democrats, especially here in Wisconsin. They won the governor's mansion. They won elections.

that Senate seat for Senator Baldwin as well.

really has tightened in recent days and we saw really a discrepancy on the ad wars. So you saw the Huvdy campaign, the last two weeks of the campaign, they were out fundraising and out spending money on TV and radio ads, really over performing on the campaign wars and so we're getting bombarded with campaign ads and Huvdy's been having more of them than Baldwin in the recent week or two here.

at the end of the campaign. Really, the polling's showing a very, very close race as the margin of error is, I mean, pretty much this is in the margin of error. And it's one that the Republicans really want to flip that we see in Washington, D.C., Republicans have been seen here,

mitch mcconnell and his groups are investing in wisconsin to really flip this seat because again when the margins are so close um they're really hoping they can pick it up a lot of the ads have been focused on um attacking attack baldwin and uh again when we're talking about

close elections in Wisconsin, are those things going to resonate with audience members? We did a panel with undecided voters, a focus group with undecided voters, and they told us that they didn't think that the campaign ads were really swaying their vote. When you go out and talk to people in the field, a lot of times when you ask them what they think about the candidates, they actually echo some of the talking points from the campaign ads. And what the undecided voters said was that they really weren't paying attention to the attack ads

They said it kind of tuned them out. But man, they are hot and they are heavy right now. A ton of campaign ads in Wisconsin, a lot of radio ads, a lot of mailers, door knocks, you name it. Both campaigns really trying to get the undecided voters, which the polling is showing a very small number of Wisconsin. But when the Senate races could potentially be so close, they're really running out the clock here trying to convince people to vote for them and the

The polling average showing pretty much a dead heat here between Huggie and we're going to see exactly where voters end up.

going on a Wednesday and that control of Senate, U.S. Senate column potentially to states like this are really focusing on watching those results. And they might, you know, might, there's so many people voting that we might not get those results right when polls close at 8 p.m. Central time. It's going to take a long time for them to open up all those absentee ballots. We can't actually process or count absentee ballots until the polls open at 7 in the morning Central time in Wisconsin. That's when the courts can start opening those up.

opening up those absentee ballots. And so have a little patience with Wisconsin because it might take a long time for them to count all these ballots. Yeah, we may not know until Wednesday, right after the election night. What happened there?

That's right. I mean, I was just talking with the former election director in Milwaukee, our largest city. And you may remember those vote totals came in for 2020 around three, three thirty in the morning on the day after the election back in 2020. She's no longer with the city, but she's estimating that they've actually sped up their processes.

And she thinks that we might actually have the results in Milwaukee and Milwaukee County by midnight. So, hey, stay with us. But it may be close, but it might not be all the way till 3.30 in the morning like it was the last time. Well, the 10 electoral votes up for grabs in Wisconsin could ultimately decide who the next president is. So it's certainly something that we're all watching. Jason Calvey, Fox 6 Milwaukee political reporter. Great to talk to you. Thanks so much for being with us.

Thanks for having me on. It was great to be with you. You've been listening to the Fox News Rundown. And now stay up to date by subscribing to this podcast at FoxNewsPodcasts.com. Listen ad-free on Fox News Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts. And Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on Amazon Music. And for up-to-the-minute news, go to FoxNews.com.

Jason in the House, the Jason Chaffetz podcast. Dive deeper than the headlines and the party lines as I take on American life, politics and entertainment. Subscribe now on Fox News Podcast dot com or wherever you download podcasts.

From the Fox News Podcasts Network, subscribe and listen to the Trey Gowdy Podcast. Former federal prosecutor and four-term U.S. Congressman from South Carolina brings you a one-of-a-kind podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to foxnewspodcasts.com.