Harris and Trump to hold dueling rallies in Milwaukee in final days of campaign

If voters in Wisconsin had any doubt about the state’s importance in the road to the White House, the candidates’ nearly constant visits to the state should put those to rest.

Both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will hold rallies in Wisconsin on Friday with just four days to go until Election Day. It will be the candidates’ second swing through the state this week, following events for both campaigns on Wednesday.

Friday’s events will culminate in nearly back-to-back rallies in Milwaukee.

Trump will hold a rally at the Fiserv Forum that begins at 8 p.m. And Harris will hold a rally about 7 miles away at the Wisconsin State Fair Exposition Center. According to the state Democratic Party, the Harris event includes a concert and will run from 6 to 10 p.m.

Milwaukee Police said area residents should expect road closures in the area.

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said the nearly simultaneous campaign events in the city show how critical Wisconsin and its largest city are to winning the White House.

“It just goes to show the importance of this city and the importance of this state in presidential elections,” Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said.

Trump and Harris have been holding a marathon series of events in swing states in the final lead up to Election Day Nov. 5 as polls show the race essentially tied.

Harris makes stops in Janesville, Appleton before Milwaukee rally

Harris called for unity after arriving at the Dane County Regional Airport Friday afternoon.

The Democratic candidate condemned former President Donald Trump’s violent rhetoric against Republican former Congresswoman Liz Cheney and urged Americans to think of Inauguration Day.

“Just consider who’s going to be sitting in the Oval Office on Jan. 20th,” Harris said from the tarmac. “Either you’re going to have Donald Trump there, who will be stewing over his enemies list, or I will be there working hard on your behalf on my to-do list.”

Earlier this week, Trump called Cheney a “war hawk” and suggested she should have guns trained on her face. Both Cheney and her father, former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, have endorsed Harris. And Liz Cheney has campaigned alongside Harris in Wisconsin, urging conservatives to put “country over party.”

From Madison, Harris’ motorcade drove south to Janesville, where the vice president spoke at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 890 union hall.

Members of the crowd belonged to local unions, including those representing teachers and care workers. Harris urged them to get out the vote in the final four days before Tuesday’s election.

“I know who’s here, we like hard work,” she said to cheers. “Hard work is good work. Hard work is joyful work.”

Harris called Trump a “union buster,” and criticized him for the closure of auto factories during his presidency despite having told autoworkers in Michigan in 2016 that “you won’t lose one plant.”

“Janesville, you know what those closures mean for communities,” Harris said.

Fifteen years ago, General Motors closed its Janesville Assembly Plant amid the Great Recession. The plant was largely idled in late 2008, at the end of George W. Bush’s presidency and it stopped all production in 2009 after former President Barack Obama took office.

Part of Harris’ economic plan includes investing in manufacturing in Wisconsin and elsewhere by “retooling existing factories.”

“They’ve been built out, but we need to upgrade them,” Harris said. “They are where the people are and where those people are, they don’t want to have to leave. They want to stay home. They want their kids and their grandkids to be where they are.”

Harris also blasted Trump for being “all talk, no walk” after he promised thousands of jobs in the Racine area at Foxconn, an electronics manufacturing company. That project later fell apart.

In a statement, Wisconsin GOP Chair Brian Schimming said Harris was visiting Janesville with “the expectation that union households will simply forgive and forget the last four years of Bidenomics. Working families deserve better.”

Janesville is the largest city in politically purple Rock County.  Four years ago, President Joe Biden took close to 55 percent of the county’s vote.

Harris talks unity to Little Chute crowd

After her visit to Janesville, Harris traveled to the Fox Cities, where she held a rally in the Little Chute High School gymnasium. 

Hours before she took the stage, hundreds of people were lined up down the street waiting to get into the rally.

One of the people waiting in line was Lindsay Thorson of Appleton, who was accompanied by her young daughter.

“I honestly just wanted the opportunity to bring my daughter along and get to see, potentially, our first female president alive and in-person,” Thorson said. 

She said reproductive rights are her most important issue this election because she experienced infertility issues and pregnancy loss.

“It’s really important to me that my daughters and all of my loved ones have their fundamental freedoms over their own body,” Thorson said.

LuAnn Butkiewicz drove to the Fox Cities from Omro. She called seeing Harris speak the “chance of a lifetime” and listed women’s rights and health care as her top issues.

Just days away from election day, Butkiewicz said she’s “scared” about the potential that Donald Trump returns to the White House.

“But I’m thrilled with the turnout today,” she said. “This is very, very encouraging.”

Menasha resident Laura Derocher described herself as someone who has voted for both political parties in the past. She says she’s supporting Harris because she believes Harris is honest.

“I’m concerned about women’s freedoms and their rights,” she said. “I’m concerned about the environment. I’m concerned about the safety of people. I’m concerned about our economy, because of the tariffs (Trump)’s planning.”

Inside the rally, supporters heard from Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin. 

During Harris’ speech, she focused on the threat she says another Trump term would pose and how she would work to support the middle class as president. She also pledged to work across the aisle to address the nation’s problems.

“Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy,” Harris told the crowd of roughly 2,000 inside the gymnasium. “He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table.”

People in Milwaukee weigh in on multiple campaign stops

Ashley Toomey of Kenosha and Derek Noack of Chicago were passing time downtown before Harris’ Milwaukee rally.

“I made her take off work so we could go together,” Noack said.

“I grew up in a union household, kind of escaping generational poverty also, so I think I was pretty set,” Toomey said about her political beliefs.

“I’ve never done any kind of rally or anything before this, but I did phone bank for Biden-Harris in 2020,” she said.

Noack, a six-year Navy veteran, said his VA health care has improved during the Biden-Harris administration. He was wearing a camo Harris-Walz cap.

“I hate how divided we are right now, it’s kind of scary,” Noack said, adding that he believes Harris will “try to reach out to people who didn’t vote for her.”

But Eli Ramsey of Milwaukee said Harris and Trump “are the crappiest choices we’ve been presented with in years,” adding that he’d like to see “some type of unity.”

“It’s one thing to be mad about Trump and Kamala, but then it’s like, who the heck is Eric Hovde?” Ramsey pivoted. He called the Republican Senate candidate an “irritant” with “no real reality of the real world.”

“I’m probably going to vote, yes. It’s my civic duty to vote for an idiot, but I’m going to get that done,” Ramsey concluded.

Polls show race tightening as Election Day nears

In the final Marquette University Law School Poll released Wednesday, Harris held a 1-point lead in the state, with 50 percent of likely voters saying they planned to vote for the vice president, and 49 percent for Trump.

Marquette Pollster Charles Franklin called the race a coin flip.

“It should not surprise anyone if Donald Trump wins and it should not surprise anyone if Kamala Harris wins, because the polling, ours and the polling average for the state, which is under a 1 percent average margin right now, are just so close that polling is not going to help us at all to have confidence in who is the likely winner,” Franklin said at an event releasing the poll results.

In that environment, the campaigns are doing all they can to inspire voters to get to the polls.

While the two rallies in the Milwaukee area Friday are likely to draw thousands of Trump and Harris supporters, Johnson said he is not concerned about the city’s ability to handle security for the crowds.

“They’ll (Milwaukee Police Department) continue working with all partners, including other law enforcement agencies, to make sure the city is safe,” Johnson said.

Joe Biesk, a spokesperson for the U.S. Secret Service’s Chicago Field Office, said residents in the area could expect “some intermittent traffic impacts and parking restrictions” over the next two days.

“We have really good working relationships with local law enforcement in Milwaukee and Milwaukee County,” Biesk said. “We work closely with them to maintain a secure environment, not just for the protectees, but for the local residents.”