MADISON – President Donald Trump is making his first trip to the Badger State since he won here nearly two years ago, visiting one of the nation’s few battleground congressional districts at a time when his approval among Wisconsin voters is at an all-time low.
The visit comes at a time when the president’s tariffs and recent attacks on Iran have produced gale-force headwinds for Republicans in their effort to preserve their power in Congress and in state government in Wisconsin, an effort made more complicated by the retirements of the Legislature’s two GOP leaders and key members of both houses.
“The Republicans are just in absolutely huge trouble in Wisconsin. I think that more so than any of the polls would say … the fact that all those Republicans are leaving the state Legislature, they’re sort of telling us with their actions what they expect,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political newsletter at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
On June 5, Trump plans to discuss agricultural issues during a roundtable event at a farm in Chippewa Falls, which lies in the 3rd Congressional District − a swing district held by Republican incumbent Rep. Derrick Van Orden.
Van Orden’s district is one of just 18 congressional districts considered a toss-up in the upcoming midterm election. Trump’s visit comes days after U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. held an event with Van Orden at a dairy farm outside of Eau Claire.
Holding onto the district is crucial for Republicans to keep control of the U.S. House. Van Orden will face the winner of an Aug. 11 primary between Democrats Rebecca Cooke and Emily Berge.
Van Orden has won the district twice, defeating Cooke by about 3 points two years ago. But the political environment this year favors Democrats, who have won governor races and special elections in other parts of the country since Trump took office. In Wisconsin, liberals won a seat on the state Supreme Court in April by a stunning 20-point margin.
“You would usually think in a midterm that the president’s party hugging the president wouldn’t make any sense because they’d want to create some distance, but … there’s a widespread belief amongst Republicans that they’re better off hugging the president because they’re basically trying to generate as much Republican turnout as they can,” Kondik said in an interview.
“They think that hugging the president is a better way of doing that than running away from the president,” he said. “I don’t know whether that’s good strategy or bad strategy. … In some ways, Republicans are kind of between a rock and a hard place, but that’s not uncommon for the president’s party in a midterm.”
Visit comes after a new Marquette poll shows Trump’s approval rating dropping
A nationwide Marquette University Law School poll released two days before Trump’s visit to western Wisconsin found his approval rating dropped to 38%, the lowest point so far in his second term.
At the same time, Trump’s influence remains strong among Republican voters – 71% said they would vote for a 2026 primary candidate endorsed by Trump, the poll found.
Marquette’s national surveys have found a gradual decline in Trump’s approval since his second term began.
“Dropping, collapsing, cratering: I don’t use any of those adjectives,” poll director Charles Franklin said. “What we’ve seen is a regular but steady drop of a point or two, from poll to poll, in the second term.”
Anika Rickard, a spokeswoman for the state GOP, rejected the idea that Republicans will have a hard time this cycle and attacked Kondik for his analysis. She said he missed “the grassroots energy and enthusiasm fueling our candidates and volunteers.”
Kondik said Trump isn’t staying away from swing districts, noting he recently stopped in a New York district that is represented by a Republican but broke for former Vice President Kamala Harris by a one-point margin in 2024. Trump won Van Orden’s district by 7 points.
He said that 2024 advantage “evaporates pretty quickly” if the environment has Democrats leading by a similar margin on a generic ballot, “which is what we’re in.”
“But part of that is that the turnout mix is going to be better for Democrats than it was for ’24, so figuring out ways to counteract that is the Republican challenge, and it seems like a lot of them are highlighting the president as opposed to moving away from him,” Kondik said.
White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told the Journal Sentinel, “Wisconsin families put their faith in President Trump in 2024, and he has spent every single day since taking office fighting and delivering for them.”
William Garcia, chairman of the 3rd Congressional District Democratic Party, called the president’s visit “galling.”
“Expenses for farming have increased drastically, with diesel fuel for tractors and fertilizer prices at record highs, while the GOP’s trade wars have cut out global markets for farmers, forcing them to sell their product for significantly less money,” Garcia said. “President Trump has no business holding a rally among the farmers he has hurt so badly.”
Molly Beck and Jessie Opoien can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com and jessie.opoien@jrn.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Trump visits Wisconsin swing district in face of political headwinds
Reporting by Molly Beck and Jessie Opoien, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Molly Beck and Jessie Opoien, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
