of the amount previously agreed upon. In Racine. Donald Trump's
visit this week marked his third trip to Wisconsin this year, and
we will see much more of him with the Republican National
Convention in Milwaukee next month. What a ride. It has been
since he first entered the race for president in 2016. It was at
that time we discussed his nascent run with Uw-stevens
Point professor of political science John Blakeman. We check
back in with him now. And nice to see you, Professor.
>> Thank you. >> So of course, Donald Trump
won Wisconsin and the presidency in 2016, but we talked a lot
then about how he was leading with how it would be a rigged
election. And clearly that still figures prominently in his
messaging. >> Yes, that is absolutely true.
The fact that so many federal and state judges dealt with
different, different cases concerning the 2020 election and
, and it still resonates so strongly against a good
percentage of within the electorate, just strikes me as
completely bizarre, you know, and it's something that
political scientists are studying. But no one is really
able to fully explain why this the big lie, as it's called, has
become so entrenched in a part of the electorate in Racine this
week, he continued to say that he did a lot better in Wisconsin
in 2020 than in 2016. >> He did not. He lost to Joe
Biden. Do voters just chalk this another kind of fact challenged
comments to Trump being Trump and does that matter?
>> Well, I part of it is, yes, Trump being Trump. And he's just
a different type of political candidate, I know that doesn't
help people necessarily understand it, but there's
really good qualitative research coming out now based on in-depth
interviews with a wide range of voters. And for a lot of really
strong Trump supporters, the truthfulness doesn't necessarily
matter for them. What matters is he's sort of giving it back to
political elites. He's sort of putting them in the hot seat.
He's embarrassing them and that's what really hardcore
Trump supporters like. It's the truthfulness doesn't matter.
It's the fact that he's going after people who they think,
have an outsized control over the political system.
>> The other or one other thing that we spoke about together in
2016 was rural race, age. With immigration. The leading issue
there. RFK, Jr. how has that changed over these past two
cycles? election cycles, it's become
much more entrenched in rural areas. I mean, a Pew polling and
I think PRI both show that, over 60% of rural voters typically
rank immigration as their top 1 or 2 national issues that they
focus on. They don't encounter immigrants as much as urban or
suburban voters do, and it could just be the place. Boundedness
the fact that they don't interact with non citizens,
migrant workers so much, immigrants, that probably is one
of the main reasons that affects their views on immigration on
but you know, support for building Trump's wall on the
southern border is much, much stronger in rural areas than it
is in urban and suburban areas, and again, that's one of those
it's sort of an oddity, especially, in rural areas that
are far removed from the southern border, like Wisconsin,
Minnesota, the Dakotas, you know, Minnesota and the Dakotas,
North Dakota obviously share an international border. But the
immigration problems in the north are not nearly as severe
and dramatic as in the South. >> Interesting. Well, when we
speak again in eight years, I hope it's sooner. But what do
you think we will have seen then?
be optimistic. >> I think, the Republican Party
will pack back a little bit towards center, right where it
historically is, the Trump faction within the Republican
Party won't be nearly as strong eight years from now. There's
probably got to be a successor to Donald Trump in the
Republican Party, and that successor who knows who it will
be. But, I will predict that our politics will tack back towards
the center and become a little more even Kiel.
>> All right, we don't hold me to that, though.