'Ball game over': Trump's rural support could make or break the Wisconsin Supreme Court race
Rural swaths of the country that helped power Donald Trump to victory are facing serious economic headwinds inflicted by his administration. The results of Wisconsin’s high-stakes Supreme Court race on Tuesday will reveal just how damaging they’re becoming for the president and the GOP.
Conservative-backed candidate Brad Schimel needs strong support in the same rural areas the president dominated in 2024 to land on the court. But many voters here are facing the effects of White House policies that threaten their bottom lines, like retaliatory tariffs on agricultural goods or the Agriculture Department’s funding freeze.
The GOP in Wisconsin is campaigning heavily in those communities, deploying an aggressive ground game in the turnout contest boosted by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
“If [Schimel] doesn’t have the kind of support that President Trump had in rural Wisconsin, ball game over,” said Brian Reisinger, a former GOP adviser in Wisconsin who specializes in rural policy. “The strength of the rural vote, and whether it is going to be there for the conservative candidate in the Supreme Court race like it was for conservative candidates in 2024, is going to be the biggest, most determinative factor in this race.”
And, Reisinger added, it’s “the biggest signal that we’re going to get headed in the midterms.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/31/trump-schimel-rural-voters-wisconsin-00258869