EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — In this rural part of the Upper Midwest, Democrats are trying to reclaim districts where their party’s image is still deeply toxic.
It won’t be easy, even in a midterm environment strongly favorable to their party. Local Democratic organizers in western Wisconsin, where Rebecca Cooke tries to oust GOP Rep. Derrick VanOrdenknow that elections here are decided by the smallest of margins. They have no room for error.
“Everything is on the razor’s edge” Clara Serranowho volunteers for the local Democratic Party, said as she drove through farms and cornfields outside Eau Claire.
But a decade after the president that of Donald Trump populism and culture wars have tilted the once Democratic-leaning region to the right, with many voters from western Wisconsin to southern Minnesota and eastern Iowa suffering — and blaming the president’s policies. Family farms are shaken by its prices. Diesel costs over $6 a gallon. The cost of fertilizer has soared more than 30 percent since the start of the war in Iran earlier this year.
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