The last time Larry Jost, a sixth-generation Wisconsinite, even considered supporting a Republican was in primary school. “I had an ‘I like Ike’ pin just because I liked the rhyme,” he says. His town of Alma, with two main streets, is tucked along the Mississippi River between a dam and limestone bluffs. Every Wednesday morning he gathers in his wife’s art gallery with members of his book club, including a retired local judge, a carpenter and a farmer. Recently they discussed an anthology of short stories edited by Langston Hughes. “We’re the last Democrats in Buffalo County and that’s why we meet back here in Kevlar vests,” jokes one member.
Their species became endangered abruptly. In every presidential election between 1988 and 2012, Buffalo County voted for the Democratic candidate. But in 2016 Donald Trump won the county by 22 points and wrested Wisconsin from the Democrats while forging his electoral-college victory over Hillary Clinton. Mr Trump carried Buffalo easily again in 2020 as he lost Wisconsin to Joe Biden by a mere 20,000 votes out of more than 3m cast.
As Mr Trump opens formidable polling leads in Nevada, Arizona and Georgia—other swing states Mr Biden won in 2020—Wisconsin’s significance has grown. Mr Biden may need to win all of the demographically similar states formerly mislabelled as the Blue Wall: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Barring surprises elsewhere, if Mr Biden swept those three and won one of Nebraska’s split electoral votes, a likely prospect, he would be re-elected, barely.
The contest emerging in Wisconsin is striking in part because it complicates the story of Mr Trump’s success with rural white voters. They comprise a far greater share of Wisconsin’s electorate than of any other state rated by non-partisan analysts as a toss-up in 2024 (see chart). Yet Wisconsin’s rural white voters have remained decidedly less Republican than those in other swing states.
Rural white voters†, 2020
Share of total
votes cast, %
Republican margin,
percentage-points
Rural white voters†, 2020
Share of total votes cast, %
Republican margin, percentage-points
Rural white voters†, 2020
Share of total votes cast, %
Republican margin, percentage-points
In 2020 Mr Biden lost the segment in Wisconsin by 24 points, compared with 43 points nationally. In Pennsylvania and Michigan Mr Trump won the rural-white vote by 44 points and 31 points, respectively. A recent survey by Marquette Law School showed Mr Biden improving slightly with Wisconsin’s rural voters over 2020, although this was more than offset by a decline among suburbanites.
Mr Jost and his book-club members, then, are perhaps not so anomalous: the state’s Democratic coalition relies significantly on rural white voters. Why is Wisconsin’s liberal vote in the countryside relatively resilient? The most obvious reason is the state’s long history as a bastion of agrarian progressive politics, exemplified by the career of Robert La Follette, a three-term governor and three-term senator early in the 20th century who championed progressive taxation and government investment in rural areas. He and his successors in Wisconsin politics, who eventually migrated to the Democratic Party, won backing from “agrarian progressives who actually thought government was a good thing because it brought them things like rural electrification and utilities and highways”, says Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That outlook has not vanished.
A step to the right
Presidential vote margin by county, percentage points, sized by population
The recent turn to anti-government populism dates to 2010, as the Tea Party wave crested. That year, Republicans flipped all three branches of the state’s government and Scott Walker became governor on a message demonising public employees and their pensions. Dozens of rural counties that had voted consistently for Democrats backed him. What Mr Walker planted, Mr Trump has reaped.
In addition to Wisconsin’s progressive traditions, other factors may limit Mr Trump’s vote, however. Wisconsin has small- to medium-sized state university campuses spread throughout its territory. (Mr Biden does best among younger and college-educated rural voters.) And because the state has a relatively balanced mix of suburban and rural populations, and of university graduates and non-college-educated voters, polarisation in recent years has been symmetrical. In four of the past six presidential elections, the winning candidate’s margin of victory has been less than one percentage point.
Top: Gary Herritz, of Hill Point, WI, is an ardent Donald Trump supporter whose main concern in the election is to see Mr Trump returned to the White House. Bottom: Jennifer Paul, of Hill Point, WI, cited the rise in the cost of living as her top political concern. She said she intended to vote for Mr Trump. Image: Matthew Ludak
Infamously to Democrats, Mrs Clinton did not visit Wisconsin once during her 2016 general-election campaign. Mr Biden and Kamala Harris have already visited it a combined eight times this year. They don’t often rally in rural areas but of the 46 offices the Biden campaign has opened in Wisconsin—more than in any other swing state—nearly half are in rural counties.
Republicans are betting that this outreach, a strong Democratic state party and emotive issues such as abortion rights and the insurrection of January 6th cannot compete with Mr Trump’s personal appeal to rural voters. His win in Wisconsin in 2016 was the first by a Republican in 32 years, and he achieved it with little campaign infrastructure. The Wisconsin Republican Party remains well-organised and “has gotten very good at turning out votes”, notes Mark Graul, a Republican strategist who ran George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign in the state.
“Which candidate is better on these issues?”
Wisconsin, percentage-point margin*
*Poll of registered voters
Source: Marquette Law School Poll
“Which candidate is better on these issues?”
Wisconsin, percentage-point margin*
*Poll of registered voters
Source: Marquette Law School Poll
“Which candidate is better on these issues?”
Wisconsin, percentage-point margin*
*Poll of registered voters
Source: Marquette Law School Poll
Mr Biden’s biggest problem is that he is seen as performing abysmally on the economy and immigration, the issues rural voters—and others—cite as most important. In the Wisconsin countryside, as in much of rural America, the problems are entrenched: declining populations, blighted main streets, dwindling access to health care and shuttered family farms. Charlene, a farmer in western Wisconsin who works a second job as a cleaner to supplement her family’s income, says she’ll be voting for Mr Trump because of his strength on the economy and health care. Her son struggled to afford care when he fell ill recently. Because of Republican resistance, Wisconsin remains one of ten states yet to expand Medicaid to cover those whose incomes fall just above the poverty line.
Top: Mark Weihing, photographed in Sauk County, WI, is a lifelong Republican but has become disillusioned with his party. He said he would not vote for Mr Trump in November but declined to say who he favoured. Bottom: Greg Snell, of Sauk City, WI, is a small-business owner who views Donald Trump as a “loud mouth bully.” He said he will vote for Joe Biden in November. Image: Matthew Ludak
Democrats tout their commitment to rural investment. For example, the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Mr Biden signed pledges to invest some $1.4bn in Wisconsin to deliver high-speed internet service to underserved areas, partly to tackle rural isolation from the information economy. But the process will be slow. Mr Biden can complain that he does not get credit for his economic achievements, but his technocratic policies and messages about preserving democratic norms do not resonate with rural voters who have “a tangible feeling that the political system is broken”, says Bill Hogseth, a community organiser in western Wisconsin.
The familiar meme of rural white rage can be overdrawn. Still, when rural voters hear Mr Trump say that Washington is a mess and they have a right to be angry, his words strike a chord, Mr Hogseth reports. “There’s a lot of anger here, and so when you have a candidate who’s willing to name that, it’s going to get some traction.” ■
Guests and attendeess mingle and walk through the atrium during the IMF/World Bank Group Spring Meetings at the IMF headquarters in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2025.
Jim Watson | Afp | Getty Images
After years dominated by the pandemic, supply chains, energy and inflation, there was a new topic topping the agenda at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Spring Meetings this year: tariffs.
The IMF set the tone by kicking off the week with the release of its latest economic forecasts, which cut growth outlooks for the U.S., U.K. and many Asian countries. While economists, central bankers and politicians have been engaged in panels and behind-the-scenes talks, many are attempting to work out whether trade tensions between China and the U.S. are — or perhaps are not — cooling.
These were some of the main messages from ECB members this week.
Christine Lagarde, European Central Bank president
On inflation and monetary policy:
“We’re heading towards our [inflation] target in the course of 2025, so that disinflationary process is so much on track that we are nearing completion. But we have the shocks, you know, and the shocks will be a dampen on GDP. It’s a negative shock to demand.”
“The net impact on inflation will depend on what countermeasures are eventually taken by Europe. Then we have to take into account the [German] fiscal push by the defense investments, by the infrastructure fund.”
“We have seen successive movements, you know, announcement [of U.S. tariffs], and then a pause, and then some exemptions. So we have to be very attentive… Either we cut, either we pause, but we will be data dependent to the extreme.”
On market moves:
“When we had done our projections, we anticipated that… the dollar would appreciate, the euro would depreciate. It’s not what we saw. And there have been some counter-intuitive movements in various categories.”
“The German market has obviously been shocked in a positive way by the program soon to be put in place by the German government, with a commitment to defense, with a commitment to a big fund for infrastructure development.”
Klaas Knot, The Netherlands Bank president
On tariff uncertainty:
“If I look back over the last 14 years, in the initial days of the pandemic I think that was comparable uncertainty to what we have now.”
“In the short run, it’s crystal clear that the uncertainty that is created by the unpredictability of the tariff actions by the U.S. government works as a strong negative factor for growth. Basically, uncertainty is like a tax without revenue.”
On the inflation impact:
“In the short run, we will have lower growth. We will probably also have lower inflation. As we also see, the euro is appreciating as energy prices have also come down. So together with the sort of negative factor uncertainty in the short run, it’s crystal clear that it will accelerate the disinflation.”
“But in the medium term, the inflation outlook is not all that clear. I think there are still these negative factors. But in the medium term, you might get retaliation. You might get the disruption of global value chains, which might also be inflationary in other parts of the world than the U.S. only. And then, of course, we have the fiscal policy coming in in Europe. So this is actually a time in which you need projections.”
On a June rate cut and market pricing for two more ECB rate cuts in 2025:
“I’m fully open minded. I think it’s way too early to already take a position on June, whether it would be another cut. It will fully depend on these projections.”
“I would need to see a more structured analysis of the impact on the inflation profile ahead of us, and only then can I say whether the market is pricing fair or whether I don’t.”
Robert Holzmann, Austrian National Bank governor
On the need to wait for more data and news on tariffs:
“We have not seen this uncertainty now for years… unless the uncertainty subsides, by the right decisions, we will have to hold back a number of our decisions, and hence, we don’t know yet in what direction monetary policy should be best moved.”
“Before looking at data in detail, the question is, what kind of political decisions will be taken? Is it that we will have some tariff increases? Is it that we will have strong tariff increases? Is it that we will have retribution by high counter tariffs?”
On the ECB’s April rate cut:
“I think there’s a broad consensus [on rates]. But of course, at the margin, people differ.”
“My assessment is that at this time, it wasn’t clear yet to what extent [tariff] countermeasures were being taken. Because with countermeasures in Europe, prices may have increased. Without countermeasures, quite likely the price pressure is downward. And for the time being, we don’t know yet the direction.”
On the direction of interest rates:
“I think if the recent noises about an arrangement [on trade] were to be true, in this case, quite likely it is more towards the downside than the upside with regard to prices. But this can be changed with different decisions and the result of which, we may even imagine in [the] other direction. For the time being, no, it will be down.”
“There may be further cuts this year, but the number is still outstanding.”
Mārtiņš Kazāks, Bank of Latvia governor
On opportunity from tariffs:
“With all this uncertainty and vulnerability, this is also the time of opportunities for Europe.”
“It’s a time for Europe to grasp all the aspects of being an economic superpower and becoming a really fully-fledged political and geopolitical superpower, and this requires doing all the decisions that in the past, were not carried out fully.”
“This requires political will, political guts to make those decisions, and to strengthen the European economy and assert its place in a global world.”
On market reaction to tariffs:
“So far it seems to be relatively orderly … but if one looks at the spillovers to Europe, the financial markets are working more or less fine, we haven’t seen spreads exploding or anything like that.”
“But in terms, however, of the macro scenarios, this uncertainty is extremely elevated in the sense that, given the possible outcomes, the multiple scenarios and their probabilities are very similar with the baseline [tariff] scenario.”
US President Donald Trump speaks during a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister of Norway Jonas Gahr Store in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2025.
Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images
President Donald Trump denied that an aggressive bond market sell-off influenced his decision earlier this month to hold off on aggressive “reciprocal” tariffs against U.S. trading partners.
“I wasn’t worried,” Trump said in a Time magazine interview during which he was asked about financial market tumult after his April 2 “liberation day” announcement.
In the decree, Trump slapped 10% across-the-board duties against all U.S. imports and released list of tariffs against dozens of other nations. The extra levies were based on trade deficits the U.S. had against the respective countries and raised fears about inflation, a potential recession and disruption of long-held trade agreements.
Markets recoiled following the release. Treasury yields initially headed lower but quickly snapped higher. The 10-year yield rose half a percentage point in just a few days, one of its quickest moves ever, as investors also ditched stocks and the U.S. dollar.
Ultimately, Trump issued a 90-day stay on the reciprocal tariffs to allow time for negotiation. But he said it wasn’t because of the market tumult.
“No, it wasn’t for that reason,” Trump told Time in the interview from Tuesday that was published Friday. “I’m doing that until we come up with the numbers that I want to come up with. I’ve met with a lot of countries. I’ve talked on the telephone. I don’t even want them to come in.”
Yields have since moved lower, with the 10-year most recently around 4.28%, about a quarter percentage point higher than its recent low. Trump had said when he made the decision to hold off that the bond market had gotten the “yips.”
“The bond market was getting the yips, but I wasn’t. Because I know what we have,” he said. “I know what we have, but I also know we won’t have it for long if we allowed four more years of the gross incompetence. This thing was just running — it was running as a free spirit. This was — this was the most incompetent president in history.”
Though negotiations over tariffs are ongoing, Trump added that he would consider it a “total victory” even if the U.S. has levies as high as 50% still in place a year from now.
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The Bank of England is focused on the potential impact of U.S. tariffs on U.K. economic growth if there is a slowdown in global trade, the central bank’s governor Andrew Bailey said Thursday.
“We’re certainly quite focused on the growth shock,” Bailey told CNBC’s Sara Eisen in an interview at the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings.
Going into its May 8 monetary policy meeting, the central bank will consider “arguments on both sides” around the impact of tariffs on growth and domestic supply constraints on inflation, Bailey said.
“There is clearly a growth issue we start with, with weak growth … but a big question mark is how much of that is caused by the weak demand, how much of it is caused by a weak supply side,” he continued.
“Because the weak supply side, of course, unfortunately, has the sort of the upside effect on inflation. So we’ve got to balance those two. But I think the trade issue is now the new part of that story.”
Inflation could be pulled in either direction by wider forces, with a redirection of trade exports into other markets being disinflationary, but a retaliation on U.S. tariffs by the U.K. government — which he stressed did not appear likely — pushing up inflation.
Bailey added that he did not see the U.K. as being close to a recession at present, but that it was clear economic uncertainty was weighing on business and consumer confidence.
IMF downgrade
The IMF earlier this week downgraded its 2025 growth forecast for the U.K. to 1.1% from 1.6%, citing the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, higher borrowing costs and increased energy prices.
However, economic forecasting remains mired in uncertainty as countries engage in negotiations with U.S. officials over Trump’s swingeing universal tariff policy, currently on pause. The U.S. has imposed 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos and a 10% levy on other British exports.
U.K. policymakers have expressed hopes of reaching a trade deal with the White House, with U.S. Vice President J. D. Vance saying there is a “good chance” of an agreement.
Bailey told CNBC on Thursday that he would be “very encouraged if the U.K. does make a deal,” but that its economy was very open and services-oriented, so it would still be impacted by a wider slowdown in growth or trade.
He also noted that inflation would increase from the current 2.6% in the coming readings due to effects from markets such as energy prices and water bills, but that the bump up would be “nothing like what we saw a few years ago.”
The Bank of England held interest rates at 4.5% at its March meeting, before Trump shocked the world with the scale of his tariff announcement.
Markets now see the BOE slashing rates to 4% by its August meeting.