In Critical Wisconsin, the Fox Valley May Decide the State’s Winner
Many of Wisconsin’s swing voters live in and south of Green Bay, a region of old mill towns and farms burning with coronavirus infections and personality-driven politics.
The combination of old factory towns and rural voters who have migrated to the Republican Party, college towns and small cities becoming increasingly Democratic, and Catholic voters inclined to back Democrats as long as they aren’t too strident on abortion rights has made the region that includes the state’s third-, fifth- and sixth-largest counties the ultimate presidential battleground.
It is the headquarters of the John Birch Society and the cradle of McCarthyism — Senator Joseph McCarthy was born in Grand Chute — but it reveres Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, one of the N.F.L.’s most prominent social justice activists.
It is also an epicenter of the coronavirus surge rampaging through Wisconsin. All three counties have new virus case counts that exceed the state’s average for the last week. Of the 15 cities with the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the country, eight are in Wisconsin and five — Appleton, Fond du Lac, Green Bay, Manitowoc and Oshkosh — are in the greater Fox Valley. And that may change the political equation in an area that is not ordinarily driven by national issues.
The New York Times