The key battleground of Wisconsin, which President Donald Trump carried in 2016 by talking about trade, the economy and doubts about Hillary Clinton, is awash in deep concern about violent crime, riots and protests Voters aren’t favoring Trump on those issues even though he is pushing them hard, according to new polling from the New York Times and Siena College, the Times reports. Worries about law and order have become so prevalent in the state that likely voters in the poll said the issue was as important as solving the coronavirus pandemic. So far, Trump has failed in his attempt to capitalize politically on his inflammatory remarks about the unrest in Kenosha, Wi., where last month demonstrators burned buildings after the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
Nearly one in five Wisconsinites who said that riots in cities were a bigger problem than racism in the criminal justice system planned to vote for Joe Biden, even though it is Trump who is vowing a severe federal crackdown on violent outbursts. Scott Lacko, 55, from the northern Wisconsin community of Eagle River, backed Trump in 2016 but will vote for Biden this fall. The riots concern him deeply, but he said that Trump’s law-and-order push had not won him over. Lacko said Trump cannot be trusted to act in anyone’s interest but his own. Lacko reflected a majority of Wisconsin voters in seeing Biden as a unifier of the country: 52 percent said they trusted him more to bring people together, compared with 39 percent for Trump. The poll found Biden leading Trump, 48 percent to 43 percent, among likely Wisconsin voters.