Seated at the bar at Frazier’s Old Faithful Inn with one hand gripped on his beer and one eye on the Packers game, Lonnie Kapinus explained in four words why he voted for Republican Donald Trump in 2016 after twice backing Democrat Barack Obama: “He wasn’t Hillary Clinton.”
“Her husband had already been president eight years, she had been senator and secretary of state, and I thought it was just too many Clintons in the situation,” said Kapinus, a 55-year-old farmer who tends to 1,200 acres in Prairie du Chien, a rural town of 5,665 people. “There needed to be a change, and damn it, Trump did change it.”
But not for the better, in his book. This time, Kapinus is voting for Democratic nominee Joe Biden, because he isn’t President Trump.
“He gets caught in all these lies and his over-abuse of power. Trump thinks he’s a king or something,” Kapinus said. “I don’t have enough fingers and toes to tell you how many times he’s disappointed me in what he’s done.”
Tucked amid the rocky bluffs and rolling farmland overlooking the Mississippi River, Prairie du Chien and western Wisconsin are filled with voters like Kapinus who backed Obama in 2012 only to flip in large numbers to Trump in 2016. Which direction this group of independent-minded voters chooses this year could prove critical in a number of Midwestern battleground states, including Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Iowa.
Nationwide, there are 206 of these counties that pivoted from Obama to Trump, and no region is home to more of them than the Midwest, with 120. Wisconsin has 23 of the pivot counties, with virtually all of them clustered in the western and northern regions of the state.
With higher Democratic turnout expected in big-city strongholds, hanging onto the working-class white voters in pivot counties becomes all the more paramount for Trump to win, said former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Plus, Walker said Biden is not disliked in those areas in the way that Clinton was, increasing the degree of difficulty for Trump.
“There’s no way the president can carry Wisconsin if he doesn’t do well in what we call out-state, which is all along the Mississippi, the northwest and the northern part of the state,” said Walker, a Republican who was governor for two terms and lost a 2018 bid for a third one. “He can’t have any slippage in those areas.”
The president’s party, however, did slip in the 120 pivot counties during the 2018 midterms, a Chicago Tribune analysis of election results found.
In that cycle, Democrat congressional candidates carried more of the counties than Republicans — 63 to 57. Factor in governor and U.S. Senate contests, and Democrats won more votes in at least one race in 82 of the 120 counties Trump flipped, or 68%.
Trump, however, was not on the ballot in 2018. To win again, he’ll need a return to GOP dominance in the pivots, especially since polls show him hemorrhaging support in the higher-income, traditionally GOP suburbs where some have been turned off by his impeachment, divisive rhetoric and handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
As a result, the president has scheduled a number of stops in pivot areas during the campaign’s final three days, including visits on Sunday to Macomb County outside of Detroit and Dubuque in northeastern Iowa along with a Monday night stop in Kenosha in southeastern Wisconsin.
It’s also why Trump found himself riding a “victory lap” in the presidential limousine Tuesday around a fairgrounds speedway in West Salem, a small town outside of LaCrosse. With thousands of mask-free spectators crammed into the aging grandstand and seated in the muddy infield, Trump sought to boost turnout in his base by warning, “I’m the only one standing between you and the left-wing mob.”
And on a day when Wisconsin set a new record for COVID-19 cases, the president said of the pandemic, “We’re turning the corner. We’re rounding, like this racetrack.”
In that region of the state, LaCrosse is surrounded by 13 Obama-Trump counties where Walker said the president’s rough-and-tumble rhetoric still plays. The former governor won 15 of the state’s 23 pivot counties in his one-point loss in 2018 to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, a defeat Walker mostly chalked up to sky-high Democratic turnout in deep blue Madison and a loss of some suburban support.
“We had people in the suburbs saying in exit interviews that they wanted to send a message to Trump, which of course, was ridiculous just on logic,” Walker said. “But in those out-state areas, the president’s personality is not necessarily a liability. Even if people there don’t act like that themselves, I think there is a fair amount of respect for authenticity.”
Biden’s travels in Wisconsin mostly have focused on winning over suburban voters and boosting turnout in Milwaukee, which factored heavily into a 19% statewide drop in Black voter turnout in 2016. The former vice president, however, held a rally last month in Manitowoc where he specifically addressed voters who had flipped from Obama to Trump.
“I know many of you were frustrated. You were angry. You believe we weren’t seen — you weren’t being seen, represented or heard,” Biden said in a speech at the Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry, located in a northeast Wisconsin county that backed Obama by 7 points in 2008 before supporting Trump by 21 points. “I get it. It has to change, and I promise you this: It will change with me.”
Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a fellow moderate who ran against Biden in the Democratic primary, predicted Trump’s talk of the “left-wing mob” won’t gain traction in pivot counties. Buttigieg’s opinion is an informed one: The Midwesterner carried 20 of 31 such counties in Iowa on his way to a stunning victory last year in the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses.
“There is a sense of familiarity, and that’s why I think their message about the so-called radical left is falling flat in a lot of these counties,” Buttigieg said. “The idea that you’re looking into the eyes of a radical when you look at Joe Biden doesn’t pass the smell test with these folks.”
Like Walker, Buttigieg also noted that Biden doesn’t face the type of opposition that Clinton did. The 38-year-old former mayor said he sees parallels in his campaign’s success in Obama-Trump regions and Biden’s message.
“When I think about what we had to say on belonging, the importance of bringing people together and the idea of a presidency as a moral office and not just a policy office, I think a lot of that tracks with his message from day one about restoring the soul of the nation,” Buttigieg said. “I think that’s a reason why the same kinds of voters who were questioning their old political habits to come across and support me in a place like Iowa are an important part of the coalition that can deliver a win for Joe.”
‘An independent lot’
There are 94 pivot counties in the five Midwestern battleground states — 31 in Iowa, 23 in Wisconsin, 19 in Minnesota, 12 in Michigan and nine in Ohio. Real Clear Politics polling averages show Biden ahead or tied in all five states, but within margins of error in many of them.
Biden leads by roughly 6 points in Wisconsin and Michigan, two decisive states Trump won by less than 1 point in 2016. Biden holds a 4-point lead in Minnesota, a state Trump narrowly lost. He leads the president by 1 point in Iowa and is tied in Ohio — two solid GOP states once thought to be out of reach.
The closer the margin, the more importance some of the Obama-Trump areas could carry. The greatest concentration of pivot counties is located along the Mississippi River valley, including western Wisconsin.
Democrat Ron Kind has represented that region for 24 years in Congress, and it had been years since he faced a serious challenge. In fact, Trump’s success there was so unexpected that he carried Kind’s district by 4 points in a year when the GOP didn’t bother to run a candidate for the seat. In 2018, Kind easily dispatched an opponent, winning 10 of the district’s 13 pivot counties.
The congressman has a prominent moderate presence in Washington. He helped lead party opposition to Nancy Pelosi’s bids for speaker and was among the last Democrats to announce he would vote to impeach Trump.
That vote prompted a challenge from retired Navy SEAL Derrick Van Orden. The Republican newcomer has corralled enough money to compete with the well-funded Kind, thanks in part to a $2 million ad buy from the House GOP Super PAC that dubbed Van Orden “a patriot, not a politician.”
At Trump’s West Salem rally, a fiery Van Orden decried that the left did not want the nation to know the American Dream is open to all. He recalled his own version of the dream realized, noting how he was raised in “abject rural poverty by a single mother” and dropped out of high school before enlisting in the Navy. He declared Trump “the only man I trust to continue the American Dream.”
In an interview at the rally, Van Orden said the “Make America Great Again” signs and flags dotting the western Wisconsin countryside reflected an enthusiasm gap that would deliver Trump another win.
“I don’t think the president is going to just hold on, I think that he is going to do better,” Van Orden predicted, pointing to the crowded fairgrounds. “Look around. You see what’s going on. You see the enthusiasm. These are responsible American citizens expressing their political views, and I think that’s super important.”
Few of them wore masks. None of them practiced social distancing. Kind called it irresponsible.
“People here feel that is incredibly disrespectful to the hard work our front-line health care workers are putting in,” said Kind, a former Harvard quarterback and onetime local prosecutor. “We have one of the highest positivity rates of any state, hospitalization and death rates skyrocketing in Wisconsin, and the president comes in with a large group gathering with none of the public health precautions being taken. That’s wearing thin here.”
To draw a contrast, Kind emphasized his bipartisanship by holding a Zoom call before the rally with former Republican Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who has endorsed Biden. Kind said the nation’s politics have become “too vicious, too mean-spirited, too nasty.”
“The people back home here in Wisconsin are tired of this reality TV presidency, the constant chaos, the instability,” Kind said. “It doesn’t match ‘Wisconsin nice’ that well.”
Buttigieg and Walker both observed that voters in pivot counties tend to split their tickets and vote for the candidate over party. Democrat Brad Pfaff is running his state Senate campaign in western Wisconsin accordingly.
In a 30-minute interview, Pfaff didn’t mention Trump’s name once. The former Obama administration agriculture administrator said he only talks about the president when asked. And even then, he said he tries to stay focused on policy.
“The people of western Wisconsin are an independent lot. They want to hold their elected officials accountable,” Pfaff said. “But we’re also an optimistic people. We work together. We can disagree with one another, but we don’t have to be so disagreeable.”
Pfaff’s opponent, Dan Kapanke, held the seat before losing a recall election in 2011 amid the public uproar over Gov. Walker’s efforts to weaken public employee unions. Kapanke lost a bid for the seat in 2016 by just 61 votes, outperforming Trump, who lost that district by 4 points.
“Some of my friends have told me they aren’t going to vote for any Republican that supports Donald Trump. They’re Republicans who voted for me in the past, and I don’t expect I’ll get their vote this time. So there is some of that,” Kapanke said. “But if a person isn’t sure about Trump, I always say separate his policies from his personality. Look at what he’s done for the economy, for jobs, look at what he stands for.”
Kapanke said he’s seen far more enthusiasm for Trump this election.
“In 2016, people would say, ‘Yeah, I’m voting for Trump, but I don’t want a yard sign,'” Kapanke said. “Now, they’re saying, ‘I’m a Trump supporter, and I’m putting a sign out here to make sure you know it.'”
Signs vs. votes
All the Trump signs and large rallies have Mike Lancaster worried. The 75-year-old retired stagehand, who helped rock bands tour the country, knows enthusiastic crowds when he sees them.
“I’m scared. I’m afraid Trump’s gonna do it again,” he said, seated at his dining room table in Black River Falls, a city of 3,600 northeast of LaCrosse. “There’s a hardcore Trump base here.”
Lancaster lives in Jackson County, which backed Obama by 15 points in 2012 before giving Trump a 12-point edge in 2016. In 2018, the county backed Kind by 19 points, Democrat U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin by 9 points and Walker, the Republican governor, by 5 points.
Lancaster, a onetime Republican who voted for Obama and Clinton, is so convinced Trump will win Wisconsin again that he bet his wife $100 on it.
Desiree Gearing-Lancaster isn’t sold that she’ll win her end of the wager — even though she is a Democrat who is president of the Black River Falls Common Council and a county board member.
“Jackson County and this part of Wisconsin is definitely a bellwether,” Gearing-Lancaster said. “I’m actually appalled at how many Trump signs are in the area. It’s absolutely devastating,”
The Lancasters had signs for Biden and Kind on their backyard fence, a prominent location that faces Main Street in the city’s historic downtown. Neighbors covered them up by placing giant ones for Trump, Kapanke and Van Orden on the property line, leading the Lancasters to mount their Biden sign on top of the fence so it’s still visible.
The episode, Gearing-Lancaster said, is emblematic of how public political discourse has taken a turn for the worse since Trump’s election.
“Who does that?” she asked. “It’s a very bullying approach.”
Barbara Engelhart grew up across the street from the West Salem fairgrounds where Trump held his rally. She took her disabled daughter to the event and arrived seven hours early to get a good spot for her wheelchair.
Engelhart, 57, a group homeowner who twice voted for Obama, said it was the first time she’d ever attended a political rally. She was thrilled with the turnout for Trump.
“I thought Obama had a lot of energy, first African American president, but boy oh boy if I knew then what I know now. He didn’t change a God-darn thing,” said Engelhart, who wore a red “Make America Great Again” hat and a Harley-Davidson jacket to the rally. “I’m tired of the corrupt swamp. Trump’s not a politician, and he’s doing what he said he’d do.”
In Prairie du Chien, a red Trump flag mounted on Randy Fortier’s minivan fluttered in the wind as he pulled into a convenience store to pick up some cigarettes. The Army veteran and truck driver said he voted twice for Obama, because he had grown weary of Republican President George W. Bush and hoped Obama would draw down troops overseas and create more blue-collar jobs at home.
“He said he was going to change all these things,” Fortier said. “And he really never did.”
Fortier said he voted for Trump because he’s not a politician and credits him with improving the local Veterans Affairs hospital and overseeing a strong economy before the pandemic.
“With COVID, there are a few things Trump could have done better, but nobody knew anything about it,” Fortier said. “I think it might be a little closer for Trump here this time, but with all the driving I do, I see a lot of Trump signs out there.”
While signs don’t vote, they remain a popular topic of conversation in town. Down the street at Frazier’s Old Faithful Inn, co-owner and bartender Keith Coburn remarked to Kapinus, the farmer voting for Biden, how so many Trump supporters have placed two flags and four or five “TRUMP” signs in their yards.
“They still only get one vote,” Kapinus said as he took a swig of his Miller Lite.
In sticking to his strict bartender code, Coburn wouldn’t disclose how he’d vote. He said he turns up the volume on the bar’s TVs to diffuse heated political discussions among patrons.
The barman did offer one hint: “I think we need a nonpolitician in the White House, but I’m not sure we got the right one.”
Both Coburn and Kapinus agreed that weary voters who aren’t looking for a confrontation with their Trump-loving neighbors will quietly head to the polls and vote for Biden. Kapinus said he believed many of them, like him, are motivated by Trump’s upending of democratic norms and the type of boorish behavior he has enabled.
Then as a freight train rumbled by the 115-year-old bar, Kapinus told a story from over the summer when he traveled to Sturgis, South Dakota. There, he saw Trump supporters demanding two Asian Americans remove their masks.
“I said, ‘You can’t tell them to do that.’ But to them, if you were wearing a mask, you were un-American. That’s how I could see society going,” Kapinus said, shaking his head. “These guys were nuts.”
With his beer empty and a Packers victory secure, Kapinus settled up with Coburn, got up from his bar stool and headed for the door.
As Kapinus drove his white Dodge pickup off into the cold afternoon, a relic of his voting past was still visible under the tailgate — a faded Trump bumper sticker.
Twitter @BillRuthhart
