Biden to meet with Black voters during Wednesday trip to Wisconsin
MADISON — In his fourth visit to the state this year, President Joe Biden will meet with Black voters in southeastern Wisconsin for a campaign event following an announcement of an expansion of Microsoft's data center development in Mount Pleasant.
Biden will "discuss the stakes of this election and the important progress made under his leadership for the Black community," according to the campaign.
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"I think it's important that the president's here, talking on a local level about ways he's actually affecting people's lives, and I think what you've seen in past trips and what you'll see (on Wednesday) is we get a chance to have a president engaging with people and having a real conversation with them," Garren Randolph, Wisconsin Democratic coordinated campaign manager, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Randolph said Democrats are taking nothing for granted, and argued Republicans aren't courting Black voters in a "real way," noting that the Republican National Committee declined to renew its lease in its Hispanic outreach center in Milwaukee’s south side Lincoln Village, and the location is slated to become an ice cream shop.
"We're doing the work to earn people's votes. That's why Joe Biden is back here for the fourth time (this year). That's why the vice president is going to be here next week for the fourth time (this year)," Randolph said. "We're going to be everywhere in the state, making sure that we're actually talking to people and working to earn their votes."
The organizing event is the first of several planned for this month highlighting the campaign's engagement with "core constituencies that will be critical in this election," including a nationwide $14 million paid media campaign that focuses in part on Black, Hispanic and AAPI media.
Following Biden's visit, Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Milwaukee next Thursday, May 16 — also her fourth visit to Wisconsin this year. Harris will visit Wisconsin as part of her Economic Opportunity Tour, the White House said Tuesday, which highlights how the administration "has built economic opportunity, supported communities, and delivered historic investments for the American people."
The most recent Marquette University Law School poll, conducted in early April, showed Biden trailing Trump among white registered Wisconsin voters, 43%-48%, and among Hispanic registered voters, 36%-57%. Among Black registered voters, Biden led 69%-31%. With voters of other races or ethnicities, Biden led Trump 54%-28%.
Ahead of Biden's visit, attendees will be trained on the campaign's "relational organizing" app, REACH, which provides supporters with pro-Biden content they can share with their friends, family and social media feeds. The campaign included REACH in a pilot test of organizing efforts launched in Wisconsin and Arizona last fall.
The campaign will also run a full-page ad in the Wednesday and Thursday editions of the Racine Journal Times.
Included in the items the campaign plans to highlight are measures that capped insulin costs at $35 per month for seniors and will fund infrastructure projects in Black communities that were divided decades ago by highway construction.
Asked about the Biden campaign's focus on Black, Latino and Asian voters on a call with reporters, Republican Party of Wisconsin chairman Brian Schimming said, "President Trump and a Republican Congress would do better for all of those folks than President Biden and Vice President Harris have done."
"It is intriguing that the president would spend so much time on some of the groups mentioned because every poll out there shows that he's suffering in each one of those groups, because of his failures," Schimming said.
Biden's latest Wisconsin trip follows Republican former President Donald Trump's second stop in the battleground state this year.
With polls showing a tight presidential race in this battleground state, Trump rallied a crowd in Waukesha last week around immigration and economic issues. It was his first rally since his criminal trial began in New York last month; he's accused of falsifying business records during his 2016 campaign to conceal an affair.
"What you're seeing is a president, a party in general, that are desperate to try to keep hold of their base," state Sen. Julian Bradley, R-Franklin, said of Biden's visit. "Historically the minority population, at least in the last several decades, has sided with the Democrats. There's been a lot of empty promises. And what they're realizing is, uh-oh, we're not going to be able to continue making those promises if we don't deliver results. … Republicans are delivering all the results."
The Biden campaign has highlighted its commitment to Wisconsin, noting that this is the first time the Democratic presidential nominee has made Milwaukee a state campaign headquarters in at least two decades. That site is one of 46 general election offices across the state, according to the campaign, including one in Racine.
Wisconsin is one of just a handful of states that will decide the next presidential contest, and Biden and Trump are locked in a tight rematch of 2020. A Marquette University Law Poll released last month showed Trump leading Biden 51%-49% among both registered voters and likely voters.
Jessie Opoien can be reached at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Biden to meet with Black voters during Wednesday trip to Wisconsin