By The New York Times (U.S.) | Created at 2024-09-24 15:58:27 | Updated at 2024-09-30 07:21:11
5 days ago
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The Democratic senator, who is seeking a third term in a politically competitive state, rallied with the Pennsylvania governor, who has a track record of appealing to voters in rural, conservative-leaning areas.
Catie Edmondson, who covers Congress, reported from campaign stops in Richland Center and Dodgeville, Wis.
Sept. 24, 2024, 11:48 a.m. ET
Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania was stumping for Senator Tammy Baldwin outside a refurbished gas station here in central Wisconsin on Saturday when a heckler drove by shouting, “Trump 2024!”
“I don’t think he’s for us,” Mr. Shapiro told the assembled crowd outside the building, which now serves as the Richland County Democrats’ office. “That’s OK.”
It was at least the third disruption during a short campaign stop that was punctuated by cars and pickup trucks driving by, revving their engines over the Democratic duo and shouting pro-Trump slogans.
The hostile territory was the point. Ms. Baldwin had brought Mr. Shapiro, a Democrat whose talent for appealing to Republicans and independents has become a central part of his brand, to help her as she faces a tough re-election bid in her own battleground state. The two made campaign stops over the weekend here in south-central Wisconsin, in a pair of rural counties that reliably voted for Donald J. Trump in 2016 and 2020.
Despite the deep well of support here for Mr. Trump, Ms. Baldwin won these counties by double digits in 2018, victories that helped her coast to a second term in the U.S. Senate. But this year, Mr. Trump is on the ballot, posing a steeper challenge. To win her re-election race in November against Eric Hovde, a Republican banking executive, Ms. Baldwin will have to replicate the same success — or at least limit a hemorrhaging of support from Trump voters — this time with the former president atop the ticket.
“In my last race, in 2018, about 10 percent of voters walked into the voting booth and voted for Scott Walker for governor and Tammy Baldwin for U.S. Senate,” Ms. Baldwin said, referring to the Republican who led the state but lost his re-election bid that year. “So, yes, there’s a lot of split-ticket voters. I do think that that has diminished. Obviously, there’s a difference between a midterm and a presidential, but I know some Trump-Tammy voters.”
