Prominent Republicans are moving swiftly to shore up support for President Trump in Wisconsin, anxious that a state critical to his path to a 2020 Electoral College victory could slip away under the weight of political and organizational challenges.
The Trump campaign continues to search for a state director to spearhead its effort, But an array of senior Wisconsin Republicans such as Sen. Ron Johnson, former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, Rep. Sean Duffy, and operatives connected to former Speaker Paul Ryan are laboring to overhaul the Wisconsin GOP and improve the president’s flagging image with the suburban women and establishment-minded Republicans, crucial 2020 voting blocs. Wisconsin has been a bruising battleground, with Trump barely capturing the state in 2016 and Republican Scott Walker losing by a small margin as he sought a third term as governor last year.
“Most people that you would talk to would say — it would be close again,” Mark Jefferson, executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party, said during an interview about 2020 with the Washington Examiner. “I think it’s shaping up that way.”
Trump continues to run strong with voters in the exurbs and rural communities, two regions that helped him become the first Republican nominee to win Wisconsin since 1984, and the economy in the state is booming. But the president’s job approval in the state was a weak 42% in a new poll from Morning Consult.
Suburban women and establishment-minded Republicans view Trump suspiciously, and unlike in 2016, the establishment-friendly Johnson will not be on the ballot to pick up the turnout slack.
A veteran Republican operative in Wisconsin, requesting anonymity in order to speak candidly, described the combination of Trump’s strength with blue-collar voters and Johnson’s appeal with affluent suburbanites as a “magic elixir” that carried both across the finish line three years ago. “It’s important for the Trump campaign to figure out how to repeat that,” this operative said, predicting a competitive fight with the eventual Democratic nominee for the state’s 10 electoral votes.
A senior Trump campaign official said the president’s team was prepared but declined to elaborate on strategy or the progress of its recruitment for a Wisconsin state director. “We will have an efficient and organized operation everywhere. In 2016, we really didn’t have an operation until after the convention, whereas this time, we’re doing it now,” this official said.
The Wisconsin Republican Party over the years has been among the top state GOP affiliates in the country. But Republicans suffered heavy losses in the state in the midterm elections, and the party emerged in debt and bloated with consultant contracts after spending heavily, in vain, to reelect Walker.
Along the way, the Wisconsin GOP developed a reputation for being an organization that ignored grassroots activists and lost sight of its core functions: raise money, turnout voters, win elections. Some blame Walker for monopolizing the state GOP and directing too much money to his third gubernatorial bid and claim that Republican donors in Wisconsin are now fatigued. Others note that Walker continues to raise money for the party to help pay off the debt left over from his last campaign.
To right the ship, something of an unofficial working group formed to tackle the state party’s challenges.
Johnson has assumed the responsibility, as Wisconsin’s senior elected Republican, for ensuring the state party is ready for 2020. He commissioned what turned out to be a scathing autopsy of the party’s performance in 2018. Republicans, who generally laud Johnson for being proactive, say it could be part of his plan to run for governor or a third Senate term in 2022. Duffy, a top Trump ally involved in 2016 when many Republicans kept the president at arm’s length, is expected to be similarly active.
Many engaged in this effort are leaning on Priebus, whose ally, Jefferson, agreed to leave the RNC and reprise his role as executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party.
