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Harris gives Democrats a jolt in a critical part of swing-state Wisconsin

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Harris gives Democrats a jolt in a critical part of swing-state Wisconsin


MADISON, Wis. — More than 40 people filed into a converted coffee shop on a recent Saturday morning in Madison, Wisconsin, to organize in a west-side neighborhood for Vice President Kamala Harris.

A month ago, fewer than 10 people showed up for a similar event for President Joe Biden. Some told organizers they were no longer willing to knock on doors in Wisconsin’s famously liberal state capital.

The excitement among loyal Democrats lit by Harris replacing Biden has enlivened the party’s base in Wisconsin, particularly in areas where the vice president must run up big margins to carry a swing state that Biden flipped from Republican Donald Trump.

“Kamala Harris is the defibrillator that the Democratic Party needed,” said John Anzalone, who was Biden’s chief campaign pollster in 2020.

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Dane County, which includes Madison, is the fastest-growing county in the state, fueled by the combination of the University of Wisconsin and the state capital’s workforce.

In addition to Dane County’s growth, Democratic turnout here and Democratic candidates’ percentage of the vote have also increased. Biden won 75% of the vote in 2020, beating Trump by 181,000 votes in the county while carrying the state by fewer than 21,000.

But in the last month of Biden’s campaign, voters answering their doors in Madison’s most robustly Democratic neighborhoods were talking more about whether the party would have a competitive presidential nominee than their desire to volunteer, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler said.

“That created a world where volunteers started to fall off. The conversations at the doors in the final weeks left people worried rather than energized,” Wikler said. “That engine felt like it was sputtering. And now the engine is roaring.”

Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming said in a press conference Tuesday that Harris was experiencing “a little honeymoon.”

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“But I don’t think it’s going to last,” he said.

Further, he said, Biden was suffering “clear across the state in every Democratic stronghold” to the point Democrats “had nowhere to go but up.”

According to interviews with more than a dozen Madison Democrats, Harris’ attention to specific party priorities, in addition to her younger age and livelier style, have helped restore their enthusiasm.

Daniel Zaydman, 24, pointed to Harris’ March public call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, a conflict that has divided the Democratic base. Biden has also pushed for a cease-fire while continuing to back weapons shipments to Israel as it conducts a war in Gaza that has resulted in at least 39,000 Palestinian deaths.

“She had come out against the genocide in Gaza, not just in recent days but months ago,” said the former state legislative aide, who noted that he is Jewish. “At the time, I was like, wow, the vice president is ahead of the president on this.”

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“She had been in Biden’s shadow, and no one my age group liked his position on Gaza. And that has been a huge sticking point with voters in my age group,” he said. “But no longer.”

For Sam Heesacker, Harris is noticeably more vocal and convincing in her advocacy of abortion rights, a top priority for the 28-year-old University of Wisconsin graduate student in education curriculum. Biden struggled during his debate with Trump to complete an answer about the Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a national right to abortion. Trump nominated three of the justices who voted to overturn Roe.

“She’s more progressive than Biden, calling it what it is: Reproductive freedom,” she said, taking a break from studying at a coffee shop on Madison’s bustling State Street.

Shea Head felt a new sense of optimism, noting Harris’ visibility supporting the priorities of the LGBTQ+ community.

The 59-year-old education researcher said from a corner seat in a west-side cafe that she had read last spring where Harris had spoken about the 20-year anniversary of same-sex marriages being performed in California. Head recalled Harris’ more public profile on the issues after seeing the candidate make a voter registration plug on “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” last week.

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“She was on talking about gay rights and trans rights. Obviously, she knows in that situation she’s speaking to a population that knows our rights are in danger,” Head said. “She’s speaking to me in a way that Biden wasn’t, or maybe couldn’t as convincingly.”

The observations reflect broader enthusiasm toward Harris among Democrats nationally.

An AP-NORC poll conducted after Biden withdrew from the race found that about 8 in 10 Democrats would be somewhat or very satisfied if Harris became their party’s nominee. That’s a big change from another AP-NORC poll conducted before Biden dropped out, which found that only 37% of Democrats were very or somewhat satisfied that he was the Democratic Party’s likely nominee for president.

Strategists in both parties point to other college towns in swing states that they think Harris will invigorate younger adults and traditional liberals. In Michigan, there’s Ingraham County, home of Michigan State University and the Democratic-heavy capital city of Lansing, and Washtenaw County, home of the University of Michigan. Biden won them with 65% and 72% of the vote respectively enroute to carrying Michigan by fewer than 3 percentage points in 2020.

Though he lost North Carolina by fewer than 2 percentage points, Biden won 67% of the vote in Wake County, a booming hub around the capital Raleigh and the region’s Duke University, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina.

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Anzalone, Biden’s former pollster, said there had been fear within the party before Biden decided not to run that there was going to be a universe including younger voters who might not vote or consider going to third-party candidates.

“I was worried even loyal Democratic voters might feel apathetic about their choices,” 38-year-old Leah Kechele, a nursing instructor, said between Zoom meetings at a popular Madison cafe. “I think she can fire them up.”

___

Associated Press polling editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.



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Wisconsin

Wisconsin Weekend: Pride bar crawl, Father’s Day deals, and more

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Wisconsin Weekend: Pride bar crawl, Father’s Day deals, and more


MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee has no shortage of ways to celebrate this weekend, from a Pride bar crawl to Father’s Day deals around the city and Juneteenth celebrations.

Summerfest and Northcott Neighborhood House are hosting a Juneteenth celebration filled with music and culture at the Summerfest grounds.

Watch: Kidd O’Shea breaks down this weekend’s events:

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Wisconsin Weekend in a Minute: June 19-21

The event kicks off right after the traditional Juneteenth Day Festival wraps up.

Pride Bar Crawl

The 9th annual Pride Bar Crawl kicks off Saturday at 4 p.m. at Walker’s Pint.

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Tickets include drinks and access to exclusive specials at partner bars. Twenty percent of proceeds will benefit the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center.

The crawl wraps up with an after-party and drag show at La Cage Nightclub.

Father’s Day

On Sunday, The Motor Restaurant at the Harley-Davidson Museum is offering a free beer for dad when purchased with a meal, along with free admission to the museum. Reservations are highly encouraged.

Families can also take dad to the Milwaukee County Zoo, where all fathers receive free admission on Sunday.

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These Wisconsin swing voters say Trump’s war in Iran wasn’t worth it

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These Wisconsin swing voters say Trump’s war in Iran wasn’t worth it


Vessels are anchored along the Strait of Hormuz.

Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images


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Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images

The war in Iran was a costly blunder, according to swing voters in the battleground state of Wisconsin.

NPR observed two online focus groups on Tuesday featuring voters who supported Joe Biden in 2020 and then Donald Trump in 2024.

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President Trump had just announced a framework agreement to end the war, which he signed on Wednesday.

Yet among the focus groups’ 13 participants, no one said they thought the conflict with Iran was “worth it,” and nine said they felt that the U.S. is coming out of this conflict weaker than before.

Corey M., a 33-year-old independent voter, said he is concerned that the U.S. expended “so much financially and so much of our arsenal,” with little to show for it. (All participants agreed to be part of the focus groups on the condition that they be identified by their first name and last initial only.)

“We essentially got nothing out of it,” he said. “It’s hurt our economy and increased expenses for the everyday American, and it accomplished the square root of nothing.”

Focus groups are not scientifically significant like polling. But they provide insight into how Americans are thinking about what they see in the news.

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These focus groups — made up of 10 self-described independents, two Democrats and one Republican — were conducted by messaging and market research firms Engagious and Sago as part of the Swing Voter Project. NPR is a partner on the project.

Rich Thau, president of Engagious, moderated the focus groups. He has been asking voters in key states about this conflict since March. And he said voters have been consistent.

“They were never on board,” Thau said. “Not the beginning. Not in the middle. And as we just learned, not at the end either, judging from what we heard from Wisconsin swing voters.”

Sam M., a 30-year-old independent, said from what he read about the deal, it wasn’t leaving the U.S. in a better position than before the war. In fact, he said he thought the Iran nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration — which Trump backed out of — was a better deal for the United States.



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President of Wisconsin’s largest mosque released from ICE custody

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President of Wisconsin’s largest mosque released from ICE custody


A federal judge has ordered the release of the president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, after finding that immigration officials probably detained him in retaliation against his public advocacy for Palestinian rights, suppressing his first amendment rights in the process.

The US district judge James Patrick Hanlon’s order on Thursday marked a sharp rebuke against Trump officials, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who had tried to paint Salah Sarsour as a national security threat.

“Salah Sarsour, who has lived in this country for more than three decades and served as a core pillar in his community without any issues, should never have been detained in the first place,” his legal team wrote in a statement. “While we continue to fight these baseless claims in court, today is about celebrating a family being reunited. It is also a sober reminder that, if the government can target Mr Sarsour, everyone’s free speech rights are at risk.”

Sarsour describes himself as a stateless Palestinian, according to the order. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says that he is a Jordanian citizen. He has lived in the United States for more than three decades, becoming a legal permanent resident in 1998. Immigration officials approved Sarsour’s citizenship application decades ago, though he did not naturalize.

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Sarsour has garnered public attention as a champion for Palestinian rights, and serves as a board member of an advocacy group called American Muslims for Palestine.

But Rubio personally signed off on a memo to the DHS last year describing Sarsour as deportable despite his green card, because “his actions undermine US foreign policy to combat antisemitism around the world”. The memo, cited in Hanlon’s order, accuses Sarsour’s group of being “found to have been involved in activities providing funds to Hamas”.

A group of plainclothes ICE officers from at least 10 unmarked vehicles swarmed Sarsour on 30 March of this year, arresting him and putting him in deportation proceedings. ICE ultimately detained him in Clay county jail in Indiana.

Sarsour lost 30lb while detained, the order says. His lawyers told the court that he was “at constant risk of developing serious complications from diabetes given that the medical staff only checks his blood-sugar levels once a month”. Tightly controlling diabetes typically requires multiple glucose checks daily.

Hanlon’s order says that homeland security officials and Rubio probably trampled on Sarsour’s first amendment right to free speech and appeared to have arrested him in retaliation for his Palestinian rights advocacy.

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The order cited a New York Times story and the website for the Heritage Foundation, the conservative thinktank that dreamed up Project 2025,

The Heritage Foundation presented the White House with the idea to present prominent foreign-born Muslims and Palestinian rights leaders as terrorists in order to sue them, deport them or pressure employers to fire them, the order says, citing reporting from the Times and Heritage’s own website. Sarsour was probably among the targets of that campaign, the order says.

The federal government, through its lawyers, contended that Sarsour should be deported based on two convictions from more than three decades ago in Israel – one for throwing a molotov cocktail and the other for attempting to store weapons and ammunition.

Sarsour denies having committed those crimes.

But Hanlon viewed those crimes as a non-issue for justifying his incarceration, noting that the federal government knew about them since the 1990s and approved his legal permanent residency and his citizenship application anyway.

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Sarsour’s speech on Palestinian rights “is core political speech and squarely within the scope of the First Amendment”, the order says. “Mr Sarsour has submitted evidence allowing a reasonable inference that his protected speech was ‘at least a motivating factor’ in Respondents’ decision to detain him.”

A spokesperson for homeland security described Sarsour as a “terrorist”, citing the convictions from his youth in Israel.

Government lawyers had argued that Sarsour did not have the same first amendment rights as US citizens. If he were released, they said, he should have to pay a $25,000 bond, wear an ankle monitor, check in routinely with ICE and remain confined to his house.

Instead, Hanlon ordered his release on personal recognizance, meaning that Sarsour does not have to pay a cash bond to compel him to show up in court again. The order, however, requires him to remain in the state of Wisconsin.



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