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The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production. You’re watching “Here & Now” 2024 election coverage.

Frederica Freyberg:
Unremitting presidential campaign visits underscore the narrowing focus to win over Wisconsin voters no matter what county they live in.
I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” a look at where the presidential candidates visited and why. And how candidates intensified rhetoric on immigration falls short of the facts. And finally, Marquette Law School poll director Charles Franklin has the latest voter opinions. It’s “Here & Now” for October 4.

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Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
The number of visits to Wisconsin by the presidential candidates is dizzying. Kamala Harris was back in the state last night, and Donald Trump was in Wisconsin multiple times in the past week, with plans for another visit Sunday. “Here & Now” reporter Steven Potter ran to keep up.

Donald Trump:
Hello, Wisconsin! It’s great to be back in this beautiful state.

Steven Potter:
With three campaign stops in four days, Wisconsin has seen a lot of Donald Trump this week. On Saturday, the Republican presidential candidate was in Prairie du Chien, explaining his latest plan to address immigration.

Donald Trump:
We will seal the border. We will stop the invasion immediately. We will begin the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.

Steven Potter:
Then he was back in the state on Tuesday for two stops: one in the village of Waunakee in Dane County, the other in the city of Milwaukee. At these events, he laid out plans to address economic issues, including reducing taxes for American manufacturing companies from 21% to 15% and bringing down the cost of energy.

Donald Trump:
My plan will cut energy prices in half.

Steven Potter:
Another notable part of Trump’s visits this week was their location. Former Republican Governor Tommy Thompson encouraged Trump to visit the Madison and Milwaukee areas very intentionally.

Tommy Thompson:
But Dane County has the third most Republican votes in the state of Wisconsin, and all we have to do is increase them. And that’s up to us, ladies and gentlemen, to carry Dane County up to 30%, not 26%, but 30%.

Steven Potter:
The importance that Wisconsin voters will have on this presidential race resonated.

Donald Trump:
If we win Wisconsin, we win.

Steven Potter:
Not to be outdone by Trump’s visits to the lion’s den of Democrats, Vice President Kamala Harris took her presidential campaign to the city of Ripon on Thursday.

Kamala Harris:
So we are gathered here today in Ripon not far, as the congresswoman mentioned, from a small building where the Republican Party was born in 1854.

Steven Potter:
If elected, Harris says she would address international conflicts like the war in Ukraine.

Kamala Harris:
Democracy and freedom are not only at stake here at home. They are also at stake around the world. As president of the United States, I will strengthen, not abdicate America’s global leadership.

Steven Potter:
And it was here that Harris was joined by former Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, daughter of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney. Both Cheney and her father have endorsed Harris.

Liz Cheney:
I tell you I have never voted for a Democrat, but this year I am proudly casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Steven Potter:
Whether this tactic of appealing to their outnumbered supporters in the Republican and Democratic strongholds of Wisconsin will work for either candidate, for now, is an untested strategy. Reporting from Waunakee for “Here & Now,” I’m Steven Potter.

Frederica Freyberg:
It’s clear immigration is the hot button issue for Republicans, as Donald Trump has proposed increasingly drastic plans to deport undocumented migrants. Kamala Harris has proposed reviving a bipartisan border bill, which would add more immigration officers and judges. The question is which plan are voters drawn to? “Here & Now” reporter Nathan Denzin has more.

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Nathan Denzin:
Republicans are ramping up attacks on Democratic immigration policies as Election Day draws closer.

Donald Trump:
If you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country. Anybody would know this.

Nathan Denzin:
Over 8.5 million people have been encountered at the southern border since 2021, about 6 million more than during the Trump administration. Republicans say those immigrants are taking jobs, committing crime and bringing illicit drugs into the country. A point Trump underscored at a campaign stop in Prairie du Chien.

Donald Trump:
They make our criminals look like babies. These are stone cold killers. They’ll walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat. These people are animals. Now they’ll say, “Oh, that’s a terrible thing for him to say.” No, no, these people are animals.

Christine Sinicki:
That rhetoric is dangerous not only to people at the border, but to immigrants that are already here.

Nathan Denzin:
Representative Chris Sinicki represents South Milwaukee in the state Assembly and is also the party chair for the Milwaukee County Democrats.

Christine Sinicki:
When I watch the news and I see these families, these mothers with their children walking hundreds of miles to get to the border, they’re doing it for a reason.

Benjamin Marquez:
The lives of people in many countries, like Venezuela, Nicaragua, their lives have become almost intolerable.

Nathan Denzin:
Benjamin Marquez is a political scientist at UW-Madison with a focus on immigration and Latino populations.

Benjamin Marquez:
The native-born population has always reacted very negatively to large numbers of immigrants coming to the United States.

Christine Sinicki:
I mean it’s gotten to the point now where you’re walking down the street and you see people say, “Oh, you know, he’s got brown skin. I don’t trust this man.”

Benjamin Marquez:
Well, they tend to be people of color. The threat is seen as more intense, as more consequential for the fate of the nation.

Nathan Denzin:
That became particularly clear when Donald Trump falsely claimed Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, during the presidential debate.

Donald Trump:
They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.

Benjamin Marquez:
Even though these accusations have no basis in fact, it flies politically.

Hilario Deleon:
I don’t think it’s racist to hear directly from American citizens about the concerns that they might have, not whether it’s true or not.

Nathan Denzin:
Hilario Deleon is the party chair for the Milwaukee County Republicans. He says concerns over immigration come up frequently when he is out in the community.

Hilario Deleon:
This isn’t something that people are just making up or they’re just, you know what? I’m just going to roll out of bed and I’m going to just go out there and just blast this entire group of people that are coming in.

Nathan Denzin:
Polls have shown that Republicans are likely to be much more concerned about immigration than Democrats. Deleon says he’s heard concerns in Milwaukee that undocumented people are receiving help before local neighborhoods.

Hilario Deleon:
These are people who live in these neighborhoods that feel like that they’re being forgotten. They feel like that their voices aren’t being heard and they’re being pushed aside.

Nathan Denzin:
He says concerns include illegal drugs like fentanyl coming in through the southern border and undocumented people committing crime. But data has shown that most smuggled drugs, including fentanyl, are brought by American citizens through official ports of entry in their vehicles versus by migrants crossing the border. Undocumented migrants are also much less likely to commit crime or end up in jail than natural U.S. citizens.

Christine Sinicki:
They are not going to go out and commit serious crimes because they are hoping to become legal citizens. If they commit these serious crimes, they cannot become a citizen of the United States.

Hilario Deleon:
We’re already dealing with enough crime as it is with the general population — general citizen population here. Why would we want to add more crime onto that problem already?

Nathan Denzin:
The Trump plan, if elected, hinges on a policy of mass deportation for the roughly 11 million undocumented migrants in America.

Donald Trump:
The largest deportation operation in the history of our country because we have no choice.

Benjamin Marquez:
I don’t think many people have given serious thought to what it would take to deport 11 million people.

Nathan Denzin:
And if they were all deported, Marquez says industries around the country would be hurt.

Benjamin Marquez:
I mean, who’s going to process meat in this country? Who’s going to work the dairy farms?

Nathan Denzin:
Studies have found that immigrants often make up more than three quarters of labor on dairy farms.

Christine Sinicki:
The jobs they are taking are the jobs that most people don’t want to do. They’re working in the fields. They’re working in the kitchen. They’re cleaning, you know, cleaning up manure.

Hilario Deleon:
There’s all these American citizens here that could use a job.

Davorin Odrcic:
I couldn’t work on a dairy farm. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t last a couple days.

Nathan Denzin:
Davorin Odrcic is an immigration attorney who works on asylum cases. He says Republican rhetoric has been an issue for some time.

Davorin Odrcic:
I’m seeing on one side this intense hate. I don’t know how else to put it.

Nathan Denzin:
But he also says he hasn’t seen much action taken by Democrats.

Davorin Odrcic:
They see things more through electoral lens of we need to get people excited.

Nathan Denzin:
Davorin Odrcic pointed to a new Biden administration rule that would allow noncitizen spouses and children to stay in America. That policy was implemented in late August.

Davorin Odrcic:
My question is to Democrats is, “Why did you enact this in the summer of an election year? Why wasn’t this enacted within the first week of your administration?”

Nathan Denzin:
He says there’s a fundamental misunderstanding about how our border and asylum process work, which leads to unproductive political debates.

Davorin Odrcic:
I don’t think that folks truly realize that that how difficult it is to be granted asylum.

Nathan Denzin:
In order to be granted asylum, you have to prove to a judge your situation fits a very narrow definition of why you can’t go back to your home country. In the interim, federal law allows asylum seekers a temporary status to remain in the U.S. But even scheduling an appointment with a judge takes years.

Davorin Odrcic:
Earlier this week, I was at the Chicago asylum office for an interview. That application was filed in April of 2016, so eight and a half years.

Nathan Denzin:
In January, a bipartisan border bill proposed adding 4,300 asylum officers and 100 immigration judges to ease waits. But Trump came out in opposition to the bill and it was never passed into law.

Donald Trump:
But I would have never voted for that bill. It was so bad.

Davorin Odrcic:
The problem is that you’re looking at the numbers versus the resources that aren’t keeping up with the demand.

Nathan Denzin:
On her campaign website, Vice President Kamala Harris says she would bring back this bill if elected. She also recently signaled support for keeping even tougher asylum laws enacted by President Biden in June. Since then, encounters have decreased by about 55%.

Benjamin Marquez:
Democrats cannot afford to be branded as advocating an open border. Just come on in and you’re and you’re and you’re home free.

Nathan Denzin:
Only time will tell which plan voters prefer and if the winner will actually improve conditions at the border. For “Here & Now,” I’m Nathan Denzin in Milwaukee.

Frederica Freyberg:
As the presidential campaign speeds toward the finish line, political rhetoric coming from Donald Trump around immigration and immigrants is more and more incendiary. What does that make them feel like? The president of the company where Trump appeared Tuesday in Waunakee responded to that question on behalf of his largely Hispanic workforce.

Mike Lisle:
They’re legal workers in this country. Some are citizens. Some are working on citizenship, but, but legal. They don’t like being painted in that same brush.

Frederica Freyberg:
For a look at the state as a whole and its Hispanic workforce, we turn to Jorge Franco, CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin, and thanks very much for being here.

Jorge Franco:
A pleasure to be with you, Frederica. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
So as to that question, what is it like for Hispanic people in Wisconsin to hear Donald Trump’s call for mass deportation and how he refers to immigrants?

Jorge Franco:
Well, you know, it’s an election season. And I think we’ve all grown accustomed, especially when you’ve been around the block the way I have. You’re all accustomed to the rhetoric that, that comes out at these times. You know, some take it over the top and, you know, when we think back on the first time he entered the race, of course, he entered with a bang if you remember the escalator visit and I think many were, were, you know, thoughtful about what was heard at the time. And, and border security is very important to all of us. You know, we Hispanics, our, our concerns are very similar to many others: economy. You know, who doesn’t want a, you know, a good economy. That’s a big focus for us. But we — it’s interesting. We’ve grown accustomed to what we hear and it comes from both sides really. But and in our case with the chamber, I should say, we’re a friend to everybody. We don’t pick one or the other or but we do, we do have our opinions and we and we’re smart about what’s going on in the economy. And we know how to navigate these things.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is your message to Wisconsin about the importance of our immigrant workforce, especially in dairy and agriculture?

Jorge Franco:
It’s vital to the state economy. If immigrants were to be gone tomorrow, just in those sectors and we’re not saying that’s the only sectors they work in. They’re in manufacturing. They’re in many aspects of the many, many sectors of the state economy. But just in those two alone, if they were gone tomorrow, our economy would tank. We’re so dependent on the workforce. And just look at the numbers in the last, you know, over the past year, I think we’ve been as high as 10 million vacancies in America. And of course, you know, we’re not the immigration cops at the Hispanic chamber. And that’s not of concern to us. We help anyone and everybody who walks through the door, even non-Hispanics. But the point is, if the Hispanic immigrants working in those two industries alone were to be gone tomorrow, our economy in Wisconsin would tank. We’re so dependent on dairy and agriculture.

Frederica Freyberg:
Are these workers in Wisconsin undocumented?

Jorge Franco:
Many are what you call undocumented. We refer to them as unauthorized. But the answer to that question is yes. There are, there are many. And that’s not just in the United States. And then there are immigrants who are authorized. They’re refugees. And so it’s a complexity of issues that emerge and come up. But the big issue is whether or not, you know, someone’s taking somebody’s job away and that, you know, that — those kinds of things under most effective public policy can be addressed because we need the human capital. It’s just statistically what’s going on in, in the U.S. economy and certainly in the Wisconsin economy. And our GDP would take a big hit absent that human capital today that some call undocumented, what we call unauthorized immigrants. The big issue is workforce. It’s where are we going to find workers? And of course, the Hispanic population on average is youthful, 9 to 10 years younger on average than the white population in America. And many people don’t realize that the unauthorized population, immigrant population pays taxes.

Frederica Freyberg:
You say that it is the ultimate entrepreneurial act to leave your country in search of work. How so?

Jorge Franco:
Absolutely. If you think about it for a moment. You know, we — the Hispanic culture is highly entrepreneurial and we have employers coming to us every day asking us to send them Hispanic workers because of the Hispanic work ethic. And we remind them, wait a minute, you understand we can’t and you can’t decide on whether you hire somebody or not based on race, religion, creed, color, whatever it may be. And you have to be careful with that too. However, if you are interested in us helping solve your workforce development issues, we can and do do that. But it has to be done properly and in a regulatory compliant manner. Coming back to the issue, you know, we’re, we’re talking about it. There are just — the good news is that there are solutions that could be implemented today. And regardless of who wins the election, we hope to work with those parties to get something put in place that works for everybody.

Frederica Freyberg:
Jorge Franco, thank you very much.

Jorge Franco:
Frederica, thank you so much. Bye bye.

Frederica Freyberg:
Leading up to November, a number of bipartisan groups have been holding events across the state to preemptively quell concerns about potential voter fraud. One bipartisan group of Wisconsin’s former Republican and Democratic members of Congress held one such event in La Crosse this week to discuss and answer questions about election integrity and security.

Reid Ribble:
I will tell you, the last place on earth any illegal immigrant wants to be is at a government operation where they might be captured and deported. They are not voting. Now you talked about non-citizens, but there are legal immigrants that are non-citizens. And that’s where you typically have the disconnect where they have to track it. But the idea that someone who came through the border six months ago is going in to vote is to me, I look at it and think, that is like the most absurd idea and one out of just not understanding how these undocumented workers that are moving about this underground economy in the U.S. operate. They do not want to be caught. They’re not coming in to vote. They just aren’t.

Frederica Freyberg:
In the latest Marquette Law School poll, Democratic candidates Harris and Baldwin are up on their Republican challengers. We get the numbers now from poll director Charles Franklin. And Charles, thanks very much for being here.

Charles Franklin:
Good to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:
So as we headlined, Kamala Harris polls 52% to 48% for Donald Trump. Now these are the same numbers as last month. So nothing’s moving the needle.

Charles Franklin:
Not much in the near term. Back in July, after Harris first got in the race, it was Trump by one point with registered voters, Harris by one point with likely voters. That has moved to a four-point Harris lead, which is then repeated in this latest poll. You know, remember we were off by four points in 2020. So if you subtract that four points, we could be dead tied if we have as big an error as we did in 2020. Of course, I hope that our poll is more accurate this time.

Frederica Freyberg:
So in the U.S. Senate race, incumbent Tammy Baldwin is at 53% to Eric Hovde’s 46%. How does this compare to your last poll?

Charles Franklin:
This is an increase. It was a four-point Baldwin lead in early September, 7% now. Over the whole course of the campaign, we’ve seen earlier polls as close as four or as wide as seven. And we did have one result with likely voters that was 50-50, though that was early in the campaign, and we haven’t seen a similarly close race there.

Frederica Freyberg:
Do you have any idea what might explain her pulling ahead like this?

Charles Franklin:
Well, she’s been strong all year as Democrats quite unified behind her, but also doing well with independents. In the last two polls, though, she’s increased her advantage with independents. I think that’s helping explain how we’ve gotten to a four or now a seven-point lead. Hovde on the other hand, is unifying Republicans so there’s less of a crossover vote than there was way back in the early spring.

Frederica Freyberg:
Interesting. So you had an interesting question about people who have stopped talking to each other about politics and 46% said they had. Now, you note that this is higher than in the past two election cycles. Does this surprise you, though, given the rhetoric out there?

Charles Franklin:
Not given the rhetoric. You would expect we’re more polarized by a whole lot of measures, but we’ve asked this — we originally asked it just before the gubernatorial recall in 2012 and then in ’16 and in ’20. And those three times we’ve asked have been 34, 35 and 36% stop talking. So a ten point increase this year, I think, does tell us a little bit about a more polarized, more personalized politics.

Frederica Freyberg:
So on enthusiasm to vote, which is a super important measure, the overall enthusiasm to vote is very high at 67%, with Democrats even more so at 71%. And it has jumped the most for independents, 50% of whom in this latest poll say they are enthusiastic to vote.

Charles Franklin:
Yeah, independents had been lagging in the 30s all year. This is the first time we’ve seen a big bump up with them. I think that means, in part, that they’re beginning to tune into the race. Unlike partisans, they’re not sitting rooting for a candidate since January and are now getting more engaged. But early in the year, Republican enthusiasm was well higher than Democratic enthusiasm. With the change of candidates, Democrats moved up almost catching Republicans in July and moved ahead in early September. Now, Republicans have moved up as well and closed that gap. A very small Democratic advantage. But now both parties look as mobilized as they were in 2020. That suggests we’ll see a similarly high turnout in November, as we did in 2020.

Frederica Freyberg:
Talking about the independent vote, when you consider that 61% of independents say they support Harris, compared to 39% for Trump, is that an important measure?

Charles Franklin:
It’s a very important measure. There are only about 12% of voters that call themselves independents that aren’t closer to either party. Independents had favored Trump through the spring, and still favored Trump by a little bit in July, when Harris was first in the race. But we now have two polls in a row with independent support around 60% for Harris. You always worry with independents because they can change their mind. They’re a fickle group that because they don’t have party loyalties, they may shift and now could shift again. But seeing two polls in a row with that significant uptick and strong Harris support I think is important and it helps account for why Harris is up by four points instead of two points or one point.

Frederica Freyberg:
So on the issues, Trump wins again on immigration, the Israel-Hamas war and the economy, while Harris wins on fair and accurate elections, Medicare and Social Security, abortion policy and health care. And yet the economy, of course, remains the singular most important issue to voters. But is the economy as ruinous as the GOP is telling us it is right now?

Charles Franklin:
The economy is pretty good. We’ve seen good job reports and the dockworkers strike just settled. So there are positive economic indicators. But the negativity about the economy is still pretty high. We’re getting I think it’s about 30% in this poll say the economy is doing poorly. Only 38% say it’s excellent or good. So that’s a pretty poor picture of the economy. The fact that people still say the economy is the most important issue, and that Trump has about an eight point advantage on that issue, is why this race is still close and why Donald Trump could still win this race on the most important issue, even though Harris has advantages on abortion. And on personal traits, she’s seen as having the right temperament to be president and Trump is not. So it’s — we’ve got conflicting forces here. The economy being a real strength for Trump.

Frederica Freyberg:
Lastly, with less than a minute left, you did another question about property taxes versus school spending. 56% of respondents say reducing property taxes is more important than increasing funding for schools, which sits at 44%. Big shift.

Charles Franklin:
It’s a big shift over a longer period of time. In 2018, those numbers were almost exactly the opposite. High 50s favoring schools, low 40s or even 39% saying property taxes was more important. And those numbers have moved steadily over these last six years until they’ve completely reversed. So this — and I would say that was after support for schools built from 2012 through 2018. So we’ve really ridden this cycle up with support for schools. We’ve now ridden it down and concern for property taxes now higher levels than what we saw in 2012, 2013.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. We’ll leave it there. Charles Franklin, thanks very much.

Charles Franklin:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our web site at PBSWisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. To see all of our election coverage, visit WisconsinVote.org. That’s our program for tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.

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Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.