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.” ■
U.S. President Donald Trump holds a chart next to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick as Trump delivers remarks on tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., on April 2, 2025.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
The tariff policy outlined by President Donald Trump on Wednesday appears set to raise the level of U.S. import duties to the highest in more than 100 years.
The U.S. introduced a baseline 10% tariff on imports, but also steep country-by-country rates on some major trading partners, including China. The country-by-country rates appear to be related to the trade deficit the U.S. has with each trading partner.
Sarah Bianchi, Evercore ISI chief strategist of international political affairs and public policy, said in a note to clients late Wednesday that the new policies put the effective tariff rate above the level of around 20% set by 1930’s Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which is often cited by economists as a contributing factor to the Great Depression.
“A very tough and more bearish announcement that pushes the overall U.S. weighted average tariff rate to 24%, the highest in over 100 years – and likely headed to as high as 27% once anticipated 232s are complete,” Bianchi wrote. The “232s” is a reference to some sector-specific tariffs that could be added soon.
JPMorgan’s chief U.S. economist Michael Feroli came up with similar results when his team crunched the numbers.
“By our calculations this takes the average effective tariff rate from what had been prior to today’s announcement around 10% to just over 23%. … A White House official mentioned that other section 232 tariffs (e.g. chips, pharma, critical minerals) are still in the works, so the average effective rate could go even higher. Moreover, the executive order states that retaliation by US trading partners could result in even higher US tariffs,” Feroli said in a note to clients.
An estimate from Fitch Ratings was in the same range, with a report saying the tariff rate would hit its highest level since 1909.
Trump referenced the Smoot-Hawley Act in his Rose Garden remarks on Wednesday. The president said the issue was not the tariffs imposed in 1930 but the previous decision to remove the higher tariffs that existed earlier in the 20th century.
“It would have never happened if they had stayed with the tariff policy. It would have been a much different story. They tried to bring back tariffs to save our country, but it was gone. It was gone. It was too late,” Trump said.
The full economic impact of the new tariffs will likely depend on how long they are in place and if other countries retaliate. Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have indicated that the country-by-country tariffs could come down if those trade partners change their policies.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Craig Hudson | Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Now that President Donald Trump has set out his landmark tariff plans, the Federal Reserve finds itself in a potential policy box to choose between fighting inflation, boosting growth — or simply avoiding the fray and letting events take their course without intervention.
Should the president hold fast to his tougher-than-expected trade policy, there’s a material risk of at least near-term costs, namely the potential for higher prices and a slowdown in growth that could turn into a recession.
For the Fed, that presents a potential no-win situation.
The central bank is tasked with using its policy levers to ensure full employment and low prices, the so-called dual mandate of which policymakers speak. If tariffs present challenges to both, choosing whether to ease to support growth or tighten to fight inflation won’t be easy, as each courts its own peril.
“The problem for the Fed is that they’re going to have to be very reactive,” said Jonathan Pingle, chief U.S. economist at UBS. “They’re going to be watching prices rise, which might make them hesitant to respond to any growth weakness that materializes. I think it’s certainly going to make it very hard for them to be preemptive.”
Under normal conditions, the Fed likes to get ahead of things.
If it sees leading gauges of unemployment perk up, the Fed will cut interest rates to ease financial conditions and give companies more incentive to hire. If it sniffs out a coming rise in inflation, it can raise rates to dampen demand and bring down prices.
So what happens when both things occur at the same time?
Risks to waiting
The Fed hasn’t had to answer that question since the early 1980s, when then-Chair Paul Volcker, faced with such stagflation, chose to uphold the inflation side of the mandate and hike rates dramatically, tilting the economy into a recession.
In the current case, the choice will be tough, particularly coming on the heels of how the Jerome Powell-led central bank was flat-footed when prices started rising in 2021 and he and his colleagues dismissed the move as “transitory.” The word has been resurrected to describe the Fed’s general view on tariff-induced price increases.
“They do risk getting caught offsides with the potential magnitude of this kind of price increase, not unlike what happened in 2022 where, they might might feel the need to respond,” Pingle said. “In order for them to respond to weakening growth, they’re really going to have to wait until the growth does weaken and makes the case for them to move.”
To be sure, the Trump administration sees the tariffs as pro-growth and anti-inflation, though officials have acknowledged the potential for some bumpiness ahead.
“It’s time to change the rules and make the rules be stacked fairly with the United States of America,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC in a Thursday interview. ” We need to stop supporting the rest of the world and start supporting American workers.”
However, that could take some time as even Lutnick acknowledged that the administration is seeking a “re-ordering” of the global economic landscape.
Like many other Wall Street economists, Pingle spent the time since Trump announced the new tariffs Wednesday adapting forecasts for the potential impact.
Bracing for inflation and flat growth
The general consensus is that unless the duties are negotiated lower, they will take prospects for economic growth down to near-zero or perhaps even into recession, while putting core inflation in 2025 north of 3% and, according to some forecasts, as high as 5%. With the Fed targeting inflation at 2%, that’s a wide miss for its own policy objective.
“With price stability still not fully achieved, and tariffs threatening to push prices higher, policymakers may not be able to provide as much monetary support as the growth picture requires, and could even bind them from cutting rates at all,” wrote Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.
Traders, however, ramped up their bets that the Fed will act to boost growth rather than fight inflation.
As is often the reaction during a market wipeout like Thursday’s, the market raised the implied odds that the Fed will cut aggressively this year, going so far as to put the equivalent of four quarter-percentage-point reductions in play, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tracker of futures pricing.
Shah, however, noted that “the path to easing has become narrower and more uncertain.”
Fed officials certainly haven’t provided any fodder for the notion of rate cuts anytime soon.
In a speech Thursday, Vice Chair Philip Jefferson stuck to the Fed’s recent script, insisting “there is no need to be in a hurry to make further policy rate adjustments. The current policy stance is well positioned to deal with the risks and uncertainties that we face in pursuing both sides of our dual mandate.”
Taking the cautious tone a step further, Governor Adriana Kugler said Wednesday afternoon — at the same time Trump was delivering his tariff presentation in the Rose Garden — that she expects the Fed to stay put until things clear up.
“I will support maintaining the current policy rate for as long as these upside risks to inflation continue, while economic activity and employment remain stable,” Kugler said, adding she “strongly supported” the decision in March to keep the Fed’s benchmark rate unchanged.
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Employees of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) hug each other as they queue outside the Mary E. Switzer Memorial Building, after it was reported that the Trump administration fired staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at the Food and Drug Administration, as it embarked on its plan to cut 10,000 jobs at HHS, in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 1, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
A surge in federal government job cuts contributed to a near record-setting pace for announced layoffs in March, exceeded only by when the country shut down in 2020 for the Covid pandemic, according to a report Thursday from job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Furloughs in the federal government totaled 216,215 for the month, part of a total 275,240 reductions overall in the labor force. Some 280,253 layoffs across 27 agencies in the past two months have been linked to the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency and its efforts to pare down the federal workforce.
The monthly total was surpassed only by April and May of 2020 in the early days of the pandemic when employers announced combined reductions of more than 1 million, according to Challenger records going back to 1989.
“Job cut announcements were dominated last month by Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] plans to eliminate positions in the federal government,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president and workplace expert at the firm. “It would have otherwise been a fairly quiet month for layoffs.”
However, DOGE has continued to cut aggressively across the government.
Various reports have indicated that the Veterans Affairs department could lose 80,000 jobs, the IRS is in line for some 18,000 reductions and Treasury is expected to drop a “substantial” level of workers as well, according to a court filing.
The year to date tally for federal government announced layoffs represents a 672% increase from the same period in 2024, according to Challenger.
To be sure, the outsized layoff plans haven’t made their way into other jobs data.
Weekly unemployment claims have held in a fairly tight range since President Donald Trump took office. Payroll growth has slowed a bit from its pace in 2024 but is still positive, while job openings have receded but only to around their pre-pandemic levels.
However, the Washington, D.C. area has been hit particularly hard by the announced layoffs, which have totaled 278,711 year to date for the city, according to the report.
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