The uphill battle of conservative organizing in overwhelmingly Democratic Dane County does not deter Republican Party of Dane County chair Brandon Maly. His organization’s goal for the November election?
“Lose by less,” Maly, 24, tells Isthmus. “When you get into the meat and potatoes of it, [if] we lose by less in Dane, we win Wisconsin. It’s as simple as that.”
Maly’s strategy could prove prescient. If the upcoming presidential election follows a recent pattern, the victory margin will be slim. In 2016, former President Donald Trump beat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by 22,748 votes; President Joseph Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by 20,600 votes in 2020. Maly hopes for a 24-25% vote share for Trump in Dane County this November, 1-2% higher than the 22.9% Trump received in 2020.
One way to drive Republican numbers up would be to make gains among student voters, who at UW-Madison have strongly supported Democratic nominees. Among select campus-area wards at UW-Madison, voting percentages went as high as 90% for Biden in 2020.
Liberal voting tendencies hold broadly throughout many UW System schools. Though UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee, where on-campus ward 176 went nearly 95% for Biden, provide the most extreme examples, they’re by no means the only one. In 2020, some student wards at UW-La Crosse and UW-Eau Claire went 75% and 78% for Biden, respectively.
College towns, which have shifted further Democratic since 2000, have long been a problem for the GOP. One Republican strategist that POLITICO interviewed in 2023 said Democratic efforts in Dane County, largely due to UW-Madison’s presence, are “truly making it impossible for Republicans to win a statewide race.” Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde said on July 10 that he wants ballot drop boxes monitored “literally 24 hours a day” in Madison over fears of fake ballots, though multiple reviews since 2020 have found no widespread voter fraud in the state.
In Dane County and Madison, conservative organizers say the goal is to make gains, not turn tides. “For those areas, it’s not about getting 50% plus one, right?,” Wisconsin College Republicans chair and College Republicans of America vice president William Blathras tells Isthmus. “That’s an impossible task. We’re looking at making the margin as close as possible.”
Blathras, age 21, who previously chaired the UW-Madison College Republicans branch, says focusing on voter registration efforts for in-state and out-of-state students in Madison will be one method of strengthening the Republican margin. The Wisconsin College Republicans, under Blathras, has called for a “mass mobilization” of students to volunteer across the state and deliver votes for Republicans in the fall.
“We’re gonna look at August: back to school events, working with [the Republican Party of Wisconsin], Trump Force 47,” Blathras says. “Going into September, once we start after Labor Day, [it will be] just heavy recruitment: registering as many students to vote as possible, finding conservatives on campus.”
A string of recent events provides a number of strategic benefits for Republican organizers, Blathras and Maly say. Take the energy around the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, the 48,000 uncommitted votes cast in Wisconsin protesting the war in Gaza, and Biden’s recent shaky debate performance, which has exposed internal and external party divisions over his very candidacy.
“As Americans, we’re disappointed that the president looks incapacitated,” Maly says. “But as raw political beings, we are very excited by the prospect of being very competitive in the areas that usually aren’t — we’re excited by the potential that we have here in Dane County.”
Maly thinks concerns over Biden’s age and debate performance could also hurt Democrats’ chances in state-level races, calling them “negative coattails.” Still, he’s unsure if age-related concerns around Biden will prove as much of a boost as Republicans might be hoping for with young voters.
Biden, whose campaign maintains he is committed to staying in the race, enjoys a comfortable, though increasingly strained lead with young voters. Among national voters ages 18-29, Biden leads Trump by eight percentage points, according to the Harvard Kennedy School’s Spring 2024 Youth Poll. That number spikes to 19 percentage points among likely voters. Their top issues are, in order: economic issues (27%), immigration (9%), foreign policy and national security (8%), environmental issues (6%), and reproductive rights (6%).
Those last two issues have proven to be mainstay Democratic talking points against Trump, many of whom see the former president’s stances on climate change and abortion as dangerous and destructive.
In how Republicans engage with student voters and young voters on abortion and climate change, Maly sees room for growth.
“All too often I see Republicans that approach young people and as soon as young people say something about climate change, or abortion, they say, ‘Oh, you can’t be a Republican, there’s no way for us to incorporate you into the tent,’” Maly says.
But Republicans, he says, should highlight what they see as policy strengths, like immigration and the economy, while allowing for disagreement on other issues: “We need a different approach. We agree on 80% of things. And those couple issues may be the 20% we disagree on.”
Both Maly and Blathras, additionally, say young conservative voters’ enthusiasm behind Trump is something Biden cannot capture.
“A lot of us in college now were in middle school when [Trump] declared his [2016] presidential run,” Blathras said. “I just remember how electric it was — even if you didn’t like him, people were fascinated by his candidacy.”
Trump continues to draw interest and fans along similar lines. His status as a “cultural figure” resonates in particular with young voters, says Maly: “You need to be a personality now to connect with younger voters.” He says Republicans can push back against the “narrative” that a second Trump presidency would threaten democracy by pointing to his first term. “People chanted ‘lock her up’ at rallies — did Trump once go after Hillary Clinton?” Maly says. “No, because he knew that would be incredibly divisive to the country.”
Reports from 2016, 2018 and 2020 indicate that Trump did call for investigations and the prosecution of Clinton and other political enemies, but he was unsuccessful in convincing judicial officials to follow suit.
Trump has repeatedly declined to unconditionally accept the 2024 election’s results, saying after being pressed three times during the June 2024 debate that he’d accept the results if they come from a “fair and legal and good election” and has continued to say he would “go after political opponents” if elected.
Do statements like these contribute to the narrative that Trump is a threat to democracy? “Trump is Trump,” says Maly, who notes that policy “restraints” are “a lot more significant” than what he sometimes says. “He runs his mouth.”
