OPINION:
Winning Wisconsin is the key to the 2024 presidential election. Former President Donald Trump should come to the first debate in Milwaukee. Voters in Wisconsin do not take being ignored lightly. They take it personally. Just ask Hillary Clinton.
In 2016, the former secretary of state lost to Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Wisconsin Democratic primary and never came back to the state. She went on to lose to Mr. Trump in the general election. Ultimately, she failed to win the Electoral College. Four years later, Mr. Trump barely lost Wisconsin and we ended up with President Biden.
If Mr. Trump wants to win in 2024, he’ll need to carry the Badger State. The same goes for any Republican. Voters there have favored the winning candidate in 34 of 44 elections for president. It is the ultimate battleground state.
To carry Wisconsin and other swing states, Mr. Trump will need to attract votes from beyond his base. Eight years ago, 24 million people tuned in for the first debate. Republican primary and caucus voters will dominate the audience but plenty of swing voters will also tune in to Fox News that night. This will be one of the few opportunities before the general election to talk directly to undecided voters.
Neither positive ads nor attack ads are likely to change the minds of voters. The only thing that will alter opinions about Donald Trump — for better or worse — is Donald Trump. With that in mind, he should relish every opportunity to share his ideas for the future in front of such a massive audience of interested voters.
As I wrote in this column weeks ago, the guy who showed up in East Palestine, Ohio, after the train wreck was the candidate who won the election in 2016. He spoke to the people there one-on-one, addressing concerns and assuring them they were not forgotten — even as Mr. Biden was parading around Europe. Voters seeing more of that Mr. Trump are likely to vote for him in 2024.
Appearing on a debate stage gives him an audience of tens of millions who can see someone other than the image created by the biased media.
In addition to swing voters, Mr. Trump must make inroads with younger voters. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan carried their vote. During my last successful reelection in Wisconsin, we received 47% of the vote from 18-to-29-year-olds. It can be done.
Unfortunately, Mr. Biden carried the youth vote by substantial margin over Mr. Trump in 2020. According to NBC exit polls, 65% of the voters between the ages of 18 and 24 voted for the Biden-Harris ticket. That is 11 percentage points more than any other age group.
The youth vote is growing. The Tufts University Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement estimates that “50% of young people, ages 18-29, voted in the 2020 presidential election, a remarkable 11-point increase from 2016 (39%) and likely one of the highest rates of youth electoral participation since the voting age was lowered to 18.”
Last fall, the youth vote was the second highest in 30 years. The only year higher was 2018. Republican candidates for the Senate in November lost the 18-to-29-year-old vote by 40 points or more in several swing states like mine. Younger voters almost single-handedly stopped the “red wave” of 2022.
This is the result of years of liberal indoctrination. Countering that will take more than clever digital ads. It will require a real conversation with these voters about issues that are important to them, while at the same time separating fact from the Democratic talking points they’ve heard for years.
The first Republican presidential primary debate in August in Milwaukee will feature questions related to the interest of young people. I am proud that my organization, Young America’s Foundation, is a partner in this effort. The debate is a tremendous opportunity for Mr. Trump to talk directly to these voters.
He doesn’t need to win them all over, but he can’t lose this block by 35 to 40 points and still carry the states he needs to win.
Finally, Mr. Trump is good at debates. He controls the stage and commands the attention of the audience — in person and on television. Why would he not want to attend?
I know firsthand; I stood to his right on the stage in Cleveland for the first GOP debate eight years ago. The clock showed that he got much more time than I and the other candidates did.
After a couple of these debates, it was clear that he was dominating the discussion. He won the nomination and went on to defeat Mrs. Clinton in the general election.
Mr. Trump is a prizefighter. His place is in the arena, defending his title. When the first Republican debate occurs in August in Milwaukee, I hope he’ll be in attendance to do just that.
• Scott Walker is president of Young America’s Foundation and served as the 45th governor of Wisconsin from 2011 to 2019.
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