Trump heads to a deep-red part of swing-state Wisconsin to talk about the economy

MOSINEE, Wis. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump heads to Wisconsin on Saturday for a rally that’s intended to focus heavily on the economy, marking his first trip to the deep red, largely rural part of the key battleground state.

Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have been talking more about their plans for the economy in the days leading up to Tuesday’s presidential debate, where their dueling proposals are expected to take center stage.

Trump on Thursday promised to lead what he called a “national economic renaissance” by increasing tariffs, slashing regulations to boost energy production and drastically cutting government spending as well as corporate taxes for companies that produce in the U.S.

Harris this week called for increasing corporate tax rates, not taxing tips and Social Security income and expanding tax breaks for small businesses to promote more entrepreneurship.

Both Harris and Trump have been frequent visitors to Wisconsin this year, a state where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point. Several polls of Wisconsin voters conducted after President Joe Biden withdrew showed Harris and Trump in a close race.

Democrats consider Wisconsin to be one of the must-win “blue wall” states. Biden, who was in Wisconsin on Thursday, won the state in 2020 by just under 21,000 votes. Trump carried it by a slightly larger margin, nearly 23,000 votes, in 2016.

Trump was taking his economic message to the central Wisconsin city of Mosinee, with a population of about 4,500 people. It is within Wisconsin’s mostly rural 7th Congressional District, a reliably Republican area in a purple state. Trump carried the county where Mosinee is located by 18 percentage points in both 2016 and 2020.

Democrats have relied on massive turnout in the state’s two largest cities of Milwaukee and Madison to counter Republican strength in rural areas like Mosinee and the Milwaukee suburbs. Trump must run up the votes in places like Mosinee to have any chance at cutting into the Democrats’ advantage in urban areas.

Republicans held their national convention in Milwaukee in July and Trump has made four previous stops to the state, most recently just last week in the western Wisconsin city of La Crosse.

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, last month filled the same Milwaukee arena where Republicans held their national convention for a rally that coincided with the Democratic National Convention just 90 miles away in Chicago. Walz returned Monday to Milwaukee, where he spoke at a Labor Day rally organized by unions.

Biden was in rural western Wisconsin on Thursday, his first visit to the state since dropping out of the race. Biden used the visit to announce $7.3 billion in investments for 16 cooperatives that will provide electricity for rural areas across 23 states. The intent is to bring down the cost of badly needed internet connections in hard-to-reach areas.

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Bauer reported from Madison.