Most of the 75-minute drive from Madison to Richland Center follows a two-lane highway weaving through rolling hills speckled with cows, fruit stands that are closed for the winter and a few small towns. Fields sit ready for summer crops and broken-down farming equipment awaits repair.
In this part of Wisconsin, as elsewhere, families have been hit hard by inflation that’s affected everything from grocery bills to energy costs. Storefronts that used to be home to local businesses now sit empty.
Voters in Richland County lean predominantly conservative — having strongly supported former President Donald Trump in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. But in 2018, Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin pulled a victory from the rural county.
In many ways, Baldwin can be characterized as a typical Madison progressive, voting with President Joe Biden 95% of the time and just 22% with Trump when he was in office. But at the same time, Wisconsin’s Democratic senator has built relationships within small towns and rural communities by, in her words, “showing up” and then acting on what she hears from constituents.
Even Republican leaders in those communities have been impressed with her efforts.
Baldwin has campaigned hard in the past for farming subsidies, lower health care costs and working-class jobs. In this area of the state, voters remember.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, has managed to pull support from voters across party lines through connecting with rural Wisconsinites on issues that matter to them, she said.
“They’ve got that wisdom,” said Richland County Republican Party Chair Bruce Taylor, who was born and raised in the area and recently returned to buy his grandfather’s old farm and retire.
County residents vote with their wallets, Taylor said. Economic stability will be a big issue in the 2024 presidential election and it is sure to factor into Baldwin’s bid for re-election in November.
Campaigns sometimes lean heavily on social issues and sensationalized talking points that Taylor calls “red flag issues.” But in his county, he said, residents just want to be able to afford things like milk and butter and have access to health care.
Richland County voters “look at track records,” Taylor said, “not just rhetoric that’s coming down from either side.”
In March, Baldwin announced she had secured $2.5 million to extend water and sewer lines to Richland Hospital in Richland Center as part of the federal spending package for this fiscal year.
It’s moves like this that sway the community, said Richland County Republican Party Vice Chair Dan Gajdosik.
“And I think Tammy has done a fairly good job reaching across the aisle,” Gajdosik added, reflecting on Baldwin’s approach to federal legislation — including the bipartisan 2024 government spending package that passed the Senate in March and held the money for Richland Center’s hospital improvements.
The farmland of Lafayette County, along County Road F, is pictured in Darlington. Lafayette County is one of more than 10 rural counties which voted for former Republican President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 but swung left to support Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, in 2018.
‘She never forgot about her roots’
About 60 miles south in Darlington, Baldwin has gained the support and appreciation of other conservative voters through similar means.
Lafayette County — where Darlington serves as the county seat — joined Richland County and more than 10 other counties in voting for Trump in 2016 and 2020 but backing Baldwin in her 2018 race to maintain her Senate seat.
The basic issues that Baldwin has addressed for the area are what pull support from a wider swath of the voting public.
“She's got us money in the past for our only county-run hospital in the state,” said conservative Lafayette County Board Chair Jack Sauer.
Sauer pointed to Baldwin’s consistent attention to rural voters as a strong selling point for the cross-party allegiance. In addition to serving as head of the County Board, Sauer is a local farmer. He values Baldwin’s advocacy for farmers and her work securing subsidies for the industry.
“Tammy has never forgotten Wisconsin, where she came from, the small towns and rural towns,” Sauer told the Cap Times.
Sauer has lived in Lafayette County for 63 years and served as County Board chair for more than 20.
“I watch a lot of what's going on in Washington. She's one of the few there that are truly representing the people,” Sauer said. “If we had more people like her in Washington we'd have a lot less headaches.”
Baldwin’s crossover appeal has held even as political pundits, candidates and voters have pointed to a partisan division in the country that seems as bitter as ever.
“I remember back in my youth sitting in my home with my siblings and my father and his siblings when they would visit in the summer and they were evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans and they would have lively (political) discussions,” said lifelong Wisconsin resident Barb Meyer, an 89-year-old retired nurse who lives in the countryside near Woodford in Lafayette County. “It would get noisy but it was never vindictive.”
Baldwin has campaigned hard for farming subsidies and rural community infrastructure which, party officials say, has helped engender support among conservative voters in these areas.
She is a registered Democrat and said she has almost always voted for candidates in that party except in some local elections.
Meyer’s April 2 primary ballot sat on her table as she spoke.
“Witnessed and signed,” she boasted.
As a progressive voter, Meyer is inclined to support a candidate like Baldwin. That said, Meyer’s decades observing her fellow rural Wisconsinites have given her insight into why some of her more conservative neighbors also support the Senate Democrat.
“In Darlington, she's come to things she's been invited to. That makes a big difference to people if they have actually met someone,” Meyer told the Cap Times.
Like Taylor in Richland County, Meyer pointed to everyday costs and basic needs like clean water as ballot issues that bring voters across partisan lines.
“I don't get out much now, but I think that the economy and the prices of things always make a difference in people's lives — how much they pay when they go to the grocery store or gas station,” Meyer said. “Water quality is also very important for this area and I think most people understand that.”
While Baldwin can’t wave a magic wand to cut the price of butter, she has prioritized issues like water quality and farming, and those affected have noticed.
“Farmers especially are maybe more independently minded than some people and don't think along party lines,” Meyer said.
Her home county is, after all, the most agriculturally dependent area of the state.
In the March federal spending package, Baldwin also secured $10 million for farmer-specific mental health resources.
Many of the original buildings from the 1880-1900s still stand on Main Street in Darlington.
‘The last bastion of ticket splitters in the state’
Baldwin’s success in these rural, red areas of Wisconsin is clear. But the other half of this bipartisan rural voting phenomenon involves which presidential candidate gets support from the same voters who send her to the U.S. Senate time after time. In the last two presidential elections, that candidate has been Trump.
The southwest region of Wisconsin holds its own as the “last bastion of ticket splitters in the state,” said Republican state Rep. Todd Novak, whose Assembly district includes all of Lafayette County and a portion of Richland County.
“He speaks to the rural people and they relate to that,” Novak said of Trump’s ability to pull support from some conservatives in his district.
Across the country, voting trends have shown that in the last two presidential elections, Trump managed to tap into a rural sentiment of disenfranchisement. Voters outside the urban centers have felt left out, that politicians don’t listen to them and that a sea change is necessary in Washington, D.C.
That’s according to Lafayette County Democratic Party Chair Nancy Fisker. A progressive voter herself, Fisker has lived in the county long enough to observe her neighbors and get a sense of what drives them at the polls.
Around 2016, Lafayette County’s demographics shifted to include a higher Latino population which, Fisker said, has been good for the county. Unfortunately, she added, the population change coincided with Trump’s inflammatory comments about immigrants from Latin America during his first campaign for president.
“For some folks, you know, they're a little confused about who pays taxes and who doesn't. And who gets money from the government and who doesn't. And so all of that plays into the 2016 Trump ‘We're taking our country back’ thing,” Fisker opined.
Baldwin and Richland Center Mayor Todd Coppernoll (middle) speak with a worker at Richland Locker Co., a local butcher shop in Richland Center, during her 19-county campaign road trip at the end of March.
Farming-dependent rural voters have been hit hard by industry changes, Fisker said, and issues with job loss contribute to a sense of discontent among them.
“There's all kinds of stories about people who just sort of felt like they were left behind,” she said. “The campaign messaging really hit home with folks who just sort of wanted someone to save them. His campaign, or him or whoever it is that put all that together, really knew what they were doing.”
Trump hit on many of those same issues, including immigration, on April 2 when he held a rally in Green Bay, his first campaign stop in Wisconsin in the 2024 election cycle. During the event, he gave his support and endorsement to Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde.
Although a number of candidates have launched competing campaigns against Baldwin, Hovde — a GOP businessman who announced his bid in February — is poised to be the only serious contender Baldwin will face in November.
Hovde attended Trump’s rally in Green Bay, where he called Baldwin a “rubber stamp for the progressive left.”
Leading into November’s general election, Baldwin said she plans to continue making sure rural Wisconsin feels heard. Meanwhile, Hovde told the Associated Press last week that he plans to maintain his focus on Wisconsin’s liberal hubs in Madison and Milwaukee.
Republican businessman Eric Hovde launches his bid for Baldwin's Senate seat at the end of February.
‘It’s about showing up’
Baldwin has served in some form of political office since her first election victory to the Dane County Board in 1986. She later served in the state Legislature before her election to the U.S. House in 1998 and then the U.S. Senate in 2012.
The experience she’s gained has provided her insight over the years into how best to connect with constituents, Baldwin said.
“I’ve learned over and over again, showing up matters, and meeting people where they're at,” Baldwin told the Cap Times. “Listening to concerns and challenges. And then taking what I learned, and really making sure that that informs my work in Washington, D.C.”
Baldwin spoke to the Cap Times via cell phone driving between stops on the last day of her weeklong state tour in which she visited voters and held roundtable discussions in 19 counties at the end of March.
Part way through her multi-county road trip, Baldwin visited Richland Center.
She stopped for coffee at Richland Family Restaurant to visit with community members and local leaders including Richland Center Mayor Todd Coppernoll.
Baldwin (right) and Richland Center Mayor Todd Coppernoll (middle) speak with a member of the staff at Richland Family Restaurant in Richland Center on March 28, during Baldwin's multi-county campaign road trip.
The senator then stopped at a number of other local businesses.
“It’s about meeting people where they are at and hearing what’s on their mind,” Baldwin said while visiting Richland Locker Co., a local butcher shop off of Main Street that has been owned and operated by three generations of the same family since 1939.
The shop collaborates to process and sell meat and dairy from local farmers in the area.
Those are farmers, Baldwin noted, who have been struggling and for whom she’s worked to bring additional resources via farm subsidies.
“I look at the map of parts of the state where I've had strong showings that maybe other Democrats have not. It just really is important to form strong bonds,” Baldwin said. “And I have to tell you, I often show up and there'll be people who say ‘It's a long time since we've seen a senator around here,’ and then maybe pause and say, ‘especially a Democratic one.’ And it matters.”
