Trump and Harris will both visit Milwaukee

It was absentee votes from Milwaukeewhich are typically reported early in the morning after Election Day, making Wisconsin a presidential contender Joe Biden in 2020.

Democrats know they must turn out voters in Milwaukee, which also has the state’s largest black population, to counter Trump’s support in the suburbs and rural areas. Harris hopes to match and surpass the 2020 turnout in the city, which saw 79% vote for Biden that year.

Trump is trying to reduce the Democrats’ margin. Deleon called it a “lose for less” mentality.

Before heading to Milwaukee, Harris campaigned in the southern Wisconsin city of Janesville, where she voiced her support for organized labor in a speech to a local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

“No one understands better than a union member that as Americans we all rise or fall together,” Harris said. She pledged to eliminate “unnecessary” degree requirements for federal jobs and push private sector employers to do the same.

She called Trump an “existential threat to the American labor movement.”

Harris said Trump is “one of the biggest losers of manufacturing jobs in American history,” sticking to the word “loser” as she was flanked by union workers in bright yellow T-shirts.

Trump, whose base includes working-class voters, has made sporadic efforts to reach rank-and-file union members who have traditionally formed the core of the Democratic coalition.

Trump was in the Detroit area, where he stopped at a restaurant in Dearborn, the country’s largest city with an Arab majority, to meet with supporters. Many in the community remain suspicious after his first act in office in 2017 was to sign an executive order that effectively bans travelers from predominantly Muslim countries.

“We are winding down. For nine years we’ve done this, and now we’re winding down,” Trump said later at the start of a rally in Warren, Michigan. “And hopefully we will move to the next phase, which will change our country.”

In Milwaukee, many Democrats are “anxious and cautiously optimistic,” said Angela Lang, founder and executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities in Milwaukee.

“Especially given the year 2016, when there wasn’t the same amount of energy, I think it’s clear that the Dems have learned lessons about the importance of Milwaukee and Wisconsin as a whole,” she said.

In another late outreach effort aimed at black voters, former President Bill Clinton campaigned with local faith leaders Thursday evening at a center for celebrating African American music and arts in Milwaukee.