Joe Biden’s potential for a knockout win in the Wisconsin primary should add another worry for President Trump’s reelection campaign.
Recent polls show the former vice president leading Bernie Sanders by nearly 30 points, a dramatic reversal from six weeks ago which had the Vermont senator up by double digits. Biden’s surge is so dramatic that his support in the state has quadrupled since February.
Barring any dramatic changes, Biden is well positioned to replicate his Michigan performance in the neighboring state. In March, Biden won the Michigan primary by 17 points, with 53% of the vote. And that was in a state where Sanders in 2016 beat the eventual Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.
In this year’s Michigan primary, Biden came far ahead in crucial demographics such as suburban women and working-class men — two groups of voters Democrats need to win in a general election to unseat Trump.
Biden also won union voters, and in Michigan districts that Trump won by 30 points in 2016, such as Livingston County, voter turnout was up by 56%.
Wisconsin looms large in the Democratic imagination. Along with Pennsylvania and Michigan, it helped tip the 2016 election to Trump. Both sides have had organizers on the ground for more than a year, and Wisconsin had looked to be the closest of the three.
Much of Wisconsin’s demographics mirror Michigan’s, with African Americans concentrated in urban centers such as Milwaukee. Polling shows that Biden’s African American support in the state remains strong and is currently winning a majority of union and union-aligned households.
Wisconsin is still set to hold its Tuesday primary despite outrage from public health officials and liberal groups that cite the spread of the coronavirus and the fact that 15 other states have delayed their elections.
“People should not be forced to put their lives on the line to vote, which is why 15 states are now following the advice of public health experts and delaying their elections,” Sanders wrote in a statement Wednesday. “We urge Wisconsin to join them. The state should delay Tuesday’s vote, extend early voting and work to move entirely to vote-by-mail.”
Biden, eager to get the primary wrapped up as soon as possible, fell short of calling for the primary to be moved.
“I think it could be done based on what I’m hearing from the news and what I understand the governor and others are saying. But that’s for them to decide,” he said.
Three different lawsuits were filed over the decision to maintain the voting date, but a federal judge ruled Thursday that the primary will proceed as originally scheduled.
Sanders’s fortunes have fallen dramatically since his victory there in 2016. That cycle, he beat the former secretary of state by over 13 percentage points and provided a crucial argument that he still had every reason to stay in the race. In retrospect, many Democrats saw the primary as a red flag for Clinton’s general election prospects.
In the general election, Clinton narrowly lost Wisconsin to Trump by less than a percentage point. Her loss was blamed on her lack of campaigning in the state, as well as her inability to connect with white working-class voters and lower-than-usual black turnout. Clinton was the first Democrat to lose the state since 1984.
General election surveys of the state should also give Biden confidence. A RealClearPolitics average of recent polls has Biden beating Trump by 2.7 points. That lead is higher than the one Sanders enjoys at 2 points.
A Marquette University poll released at the end of March had Biden beating Trump by 3 points, with Sanders losing to the president by 2 points.
