PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
(WTAQ-WLUK) — In two weeks, tens of thousands of Republicans will descend on Milwaukee for the party’s national convention, and while Democrats are also planning to be there to provide counter points of view – don’t expect campaigning leading up to the event to change.
Some of the biggest names in the Democratic Party have visited Wisconsin recently, including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders last week.
Sanders said his visit had nothing to do with the upcoming convention.
“What is by design is that I love going around the country, love going to rural areas, love talking to working class people, union halls, and also incase you didn’t know, this is a battleground state,” said Sanders.
“I’m not sure they can step it up much more than they have,” said Mark Graul, a political strategist who has advised and managed Republican campaigns.
Graul says the recent onslaught of high profile Democratic visitors is likely more battleground driven than countering the upcoming convention. In fact, he doesn’t see the convention being here having much impact on the way Wisconsin votes in November.
“I don’t want to downplay the value of the convention,” said Graul. “It really is a neat and cool opportunity. But I don’t think there’s a lot of evidence that the city that holds the convention is all of a sudden going to have some huge electoral advantage.”
“I think the issue is debates or no debates, conventions or no conventions, is what do the parties stand for,” said Sanders. “That’s what people have got to be looking at.”
Sanders also shared what he things President Biden has to do to win Wisconsin.
“I think he’s got to start talking more aggressively about not only what he has accomplished, which is much,” said Sanders. “I was just driving in here and a lot of work on your interstates. That’s not an accident. We put tens of tens of billions of dollars in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. But he’s got to be more aggressive in talking about what he’s going to accomplish the next four years.”
“They have sent out some of their more liberal surrogates, whether it’s Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, to try and go motivate liberal voters, some of whom are not very excited about President Biden and I think you’re going to see that with Donald Trump as well,” said Graul.
The four-day Republican National Convention starts July 15th.
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