OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ) — Former Vice President Joe Biden won’t be coming to Wisconsin next week, but President Donald Trump apparently will.
It’s the latest chapter in what is shaping up to be a very unusual election year in Wisconsin, a state that some analysis say is going to be the most important in the entire country come November.
“If you believe these reports, Wisconsin is more critical than North Carolina, or Florida, or Michigan,” said UW Oshkosh Political Science Professor David Siemers.
It’s no surprise, then, that President Trump made the surprise announcement on Wednesday that he was making a trip to Oshkosh next week.
“There will be an active campaign here by both parties,” Siemers told WTAQ. “Whether or not we actually see…Joe Biden, I guess that’s an open question.”
Biden has spent the past six months of the campaign largely in isolation at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, making only rare appearances in public.
The Democratic National Convention, scheduled for next week in Milwaukee, has significantly downsized from it’s original plans. It’s now being held mostly online, with very little in the way of physical events happening in the City of Milwaukee. Biden was originally scheduled to make the trip anyway, but those plans were scrapped last week.
“It’s a missed opportunity,” said Siemers. “[The convention] is usually a time where you can showcase the candidate in a way that much of the nation is paying attention to.”
It’s bad for the Republicans, too. Siemers says they’ll be hurt, as well, by holding a scaled down convention of their own in Charlotte, North Carolina.
President Trump told supporters Wednesday that he plans to visit the Badger state several times before the election is held in November.
