Podcast: Wisconsin Voters Weigh Economy

What I found after traveling to Racine County, a key bellwether

It was easy to find people focused on the economy in the parking lots of a suburban shopping center in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin — about 25 miles south of Milwaukee and just outside Racine. The prices of everyday goods are higher than when former President Donald Trump left office, even though the unemployment rate is below the national average.

Several voters feeling the sting of those higher prices in this battleground state weren’t impressed with Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic platform, according to interviews I conducted for the latest episode of The Wall Street Journal’s “Chasing the Vote” podcast series.

Click here to listen to the episode online and see a full transcript. You can also click to get it on Apple podcastsor on Spotify. And for an additional dimension of the coverage, look at this photo essay that I made with Cam Pollack of some wonderful images taken by Caleb Alvarado.

It was clear from my time in and around Racine that people are concerned about the direction and strength of the economy, and that they're more worried about the price of everyday life than about finding a job.

“I think people are just so focused on just trying to survive right now that they don't even have the mental capacity to really do more than that,” said Tyler Townsend, 25. He supported Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and said he isn’t sure how he’s going to vote now that Bobby dropped out and endorsed Trump.

Claude Caldwell, a retired corrections officer, said he is worried about the economy and the elevated number of recent crossings at the southern border. He voted for Joe Biden in 2020 but said he wasn’t sure if he will back Harris, calling her economic plans “half-assed.”

Racine County is a political bellwether: It has voted for the winning presidential candidate in all but five elections since 1896. One of the exceptions was 2020, when Trump won the area while losing the presidency.

The overwhelming sentiment that I heard there about the economy was one of struggle. Younger people talked about how they felt like they would never reach the same level of comfort as their parents and grandparents. Older people told me they still had kids living at home.

Even though this was a top concern for people, it was hard to find someone who was mostly basing their decision off of one of the candidate's economic plans. For Trump, voters pointed to how they were doing financially when he was president rather than his current platform. I struggled to find voters who liked Harris's economic proposals or even knew what she was proposing. The people who planned to vote for her offered other reasons like promoting stability on the world stage or her support for abortion rights. 

Like Joan Roehre, who has worked for decades in Racine and now runs a homeless shelter there. She’s the kind of person who seems to know everybody in town, and she put together a group discussion with voices from across the spectrum. We met at the veteran’s center on Main Street, which is a combination of a bar, gathering place and museum.

“I am voting for the future,” Joan told me, explaining that she supports Harris. “I'm not voting based on how much I paid for a bag of potatoes at the grocery store. The reality of this is I need potatoes, and I'm going to buy them, if they're $8 a bag or $2 a bag.”

TRIP NOTES: The locals bullied — and yes, I use that word intentionally — us into eating at Wells Brothers, which some claimed had “the best pizza in the world.” As a New Yorker my eyebrows rise when people in the Midwest say stuff like that, but I will confess it was pretty good.

The crust was verrrry thin.

Also, if you aren’t diabetic or pre-diabetic, try a Danish Kringle pastry.

THE QUESTION: Which company is headquartered in Racine on a campus designed by Frank Lloyd Wright? (Which, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to tour …)

Know the answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.

THE LAST ANSWER: UNC’s sports teams are the Tar Heels.