🌊 Roca Visits America's Dairyland

Did someone forward you this? Subscribe here free!

We the 66 is our weekly premium newsletter featuring on-the-ground reporting, deep dives, and interviews. We’re running another giveaway this month: Sign up for a free trial and you will be automatically entered to win a free year of premium. We’ll announce the winner in four weeks!

Within 15 miles of entering Wisconsin, we found ourselves surrounded by cornfields. As far as the eye could see, rolling hills of green lined the highway. We pulled off an exit to drop by a special place.

We turned down some roads whose names – 330th Street, 550th Ave – could trick you into thinking you were in a metropolis. But this was the sticks, the real country.

Our destination was the farm where the mother of our videographer, Drew, grew up. And after a few miles, there it was: A silo, barn, and abandoned one-room schoolhouse overlooked the endless cornfields.

A sheet of dark clouds hung just overhead and the smell of manure was heavy in the air. There was no noise besides the wind. While the village’s students are no longer getting educated by one teacher in a single room, it was evident that the beauty, peace, and character of the Midwest remained.

Using this place as a launching pad, we set off into Wisconsin to understand what this quintessentially midwestern state was like in 2024. Was it still a place of farming, manners, cheese, and beer? Had it lost its culture and become just like anywhere else in the country? And given the answers to those questions, how would it vote in November?

Wisconsin is known for being both rural and progressive. With a million cows and the center of America’s cheese industry, it’s also where American progressivism was born. With that heritage, blue cities like Milwaukee and Madison, and a large population of unionized factory workers, Wisconsin was a blue state. Between 1988 and 2012, it went exclusively for Democratic presidential candidates.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton was so confident she would win Wisconsin that she didn’t campaign in the state. 538 polling had Clinton leading by 5.3% heading into the election and gave her an 83.5% chance of winning.

Then Trump won by 23,000 votes.

Four years later, it was poised for a landslide: 538 polling showed Biden leading by 8.4% on the eve of the election. It wasn’t even going to be close.

He ended up winning by 20,000 votes, .6%.

How did this happen? Right now, the polls show Harris leading by 2.9 points. What’s the reality on the ground?

To find out, we set off on a cross-state trip to learn how people were feeling in each part of America's Dairyland.

Subscribe to Premium to read the rest.