As we look at the key battleground states in campaign 2020 we are doing here in washington with craig gilbert, bureau chief for the milwaukee journal sentinel. As you look at covid19 and the Political Climate across wisconsin what is the state of play right now . Wisconsin is very perfectly divided state along red and blue lines. It is also has a divided government right now with republicans with a large majority in the legislator but a democratic governor so there has been a lot of growing partisan disagreement and conflict over how to manage the pandemic which means between the government and the legislator and wisconsin is a little bit unique in that we had this situation where a state Supreme Court with them majority struck down the governors estate home order. So overnight lifting the restrictions that had been put in place and which were gradually going to be lifted anyway. That is the state of play and wisconsin bread wisconsin has had two elections in the middle of the pandemic which attracted a lot of national attention. I want to focus on campaign 2020 political back for years to 2016 which of the results between then candidate donald trump and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and again we are reminded just how closed the race was between the two contenders, less than one percentage point between the two of them so what were the mistakes and that the democrats made and walked to the tramping to write in 2016 . I think it had more to do with what the democrats were capable of. They thought that they had the upper hand politically when they didnt. And it wasnt strange that wisconsin had a close election because were very close elections in 2000, 2004 but the forces that went into that election were very odd. When massive swings in rural areas, trump underperforming in public suburban areas so i dont second guess the campaigns for beans prized by the outcome but i do thank you have to secondguess the democrats in particular for not announcing a Serious Campaign in wisconsin. It was a state in the democratic primary that Bernie Sanders one over Hillary Clinton but the opposite in 2020 when the primary was shelved in early april after the start of this pandemic and an easy victory for the Joe Biden Campaign for what you attribute that to . On paper this good event of perfect state. He pointed to his win in 2016. Wisconsin is a big progressive element within the Democratic Party wisconsin and by the time wisconsin president ial primary came around in early april the National Picture had just entirely slept with joe biden taking command of the race and democratic voters across country deciding that he would be the nominee so we had president ial primary in wisconsin that coincided with a big april nonpartisan state election and by the end the state election ended up demanding attention within the state the democratic president ial primary. If you look at the campaign with President Trump traveling to the state on a couple of occasions and a lot of effort by the democrats with the Party Convention in milwaukee now in mid august, what do you see on the ground . We have had joe biden do virtual ovens and wisconsin. Earlier on we had President Trump doing wisconsin and this is a big . In particular in the case of the Democratic Convention which has already been pushed back from a july convention in milwaukee to an august convention in milwaukee, the week before the republican and charlotte but the republicans of course have been much more openly hurting with the idea of a Virtual Convention and democrats have compared to republicans so we dont know how much of the physical convention there will be in milwaukee and we think it will be at a minimum a large heavily Virtual Convention but we dont know if we entirely entirely remote, mostly remote or a little bit of both. Based on that is clear is why the democrats chose milwaukee as their Convention City but will they get any traction as you look at this in late may. Yet, it is hard to know how much of the chaos they will get from the convention itself and part of the value of having a convention and for example its building a volunteer army and it is hard to do that if it is not a traditional convention attracting thousands of delegates and others to milwaukee. It is also the symbolism, the symbolic value of having a convention in the walkie and a city where democrats underperform in wisconsin, state they, you know, obviously let slip through their hands in 2016, midwest industrial battleground and the symbolic value of that is probably not as great, if you dont have a traditional physical convention in milwaukee and if it is mostly remote events. The questions they are but we also note that democrats arent going to repeat the mistakes of 2016 when they neglected the state. They will fight for their lives in wisconsin, quite friendly. If you look at the democratic and republican stronghold in the state clearly milwaukee, madison strong for the democrats, greenbrae strong for the republicans so where else are you looking . The thing about wisconsin is it doesnt fit all the stereotypes we have nationally of what kinds of voters are publicans and what voters are democrats. We have educated, collegeeducated, suburbs around milwaukee that in another state, a National Context you might think of as being democratically leading but are republican leading. Weve also had a history of rural White Communities in wisconsin that are divided between red ones and blue ones. Part of the drama and part of the suspense in wisconsin is whether these voters will go back to form in wisconsin and weathered the rural democrats will swing back to the democrats after voting for trump in 2016 and whether the republicans will provide him better for trump after not performing very well for republicans in recent cycles. That is a big part of the drama in wisconsin. Over the years the big part of campaign has been the grassroots efforts, knocking on doors, making telephone calls. This will be a very different kind of campaign with covid19 so how do the parties adapt to these changes . We are already adapting. I mentioned we had two elections in wisconsin in the pandemic. We had our april election which was again not just the president ial primaries but a big major judicial election which basically had, you know, almost a partisan election in reality and we also had a Congressional Election in northern wisconsin. The state has overnight on the sly conferred it to heavily mail voting and absentee ballots by mail which have very little precedent in wisconsin before the selections of the parties are already adjusting to the notion that huge amount of their vote will be cast via absentee mail ballot and organizing around that and political controversies around that and they are having to shift their operations to digital organizing from face to face organizing. If you could, give us a snapshot, the state of the trunk campaign right now in the state of the Biden Campaign in wisconsin. I could look at the polling in 2020. If you take the most reliable poster in wisconsin its the Marquette Law School which they have pulled four times in 2020 and if you combine those numbers to biden is about two and half points ahead of donald trump which is smaller than bidens lead in the National Polls. That shows you how competitive the state is. If you look at the perceptions of President Trump it is basically 5050. 40 approval, 49 disapproval. The state itself is perfectly divided and Republican Voters and democratic voters but it has all the ingredients of a down to the wire stay assuming its a closed National Election and each party has its particular challenges. Democrats need to do a better job of getting out the vote in milwaukee and need to try to win back some of those purple Rural Communities and trumps big challenge, in many ways, showing up for the republican voting in the suburbs. We could say this is nationally and elects election cycles. Clearly, one of the big lessons of campaign 2020 is dont Pay Attention to the National Polls pretty will come down to the state polls in wisconsin, in michigan, in pennsylvania and elsewhere. Yet, the same polling, one of the rock of all things about the state polling in wisconsin is that how little the numbers change from month to month. If you think of the things happening in the recent months weve had impeachment, pandemic, massive economic crisis, month by month these numbers dont change very much. Joe biden is a little bit ahead of donald trump and his Approval Rating is invariably in the high 40s and back in the last six, seven polls its been over 47, 40 talking about President Trump and in every one of those polls so it tells you how stable the race is in many respects. Again that is a formula for a very competitive may be somewhat unpredictable november. Quick aside, does that surprise you . While, from one perspective it does, given the volatility of the real world and another perspective, no. In the sense that we have seen how pulverized wisconsin is and i have doug and people are in the partisan tribes, wisconsin probably is as good an example of that from any state in the country and so when you have basically each party voters overwhelmingly supporting their partys candidate they appear to be equally enthusiastic about the election at this point. These voting blocks are the same size so there is not a lot of play. There is a small ban of, you know, independent uncommitted voters in one of the things that we set in 2016 is the voters belonging to john trump whether they would vote the same way again in 2020 is a huge question. On battleground state wisconsin, craig gilbert, bureau chief year in washington for the journal sentinel in milwaukee. We thank you for being with us. Thank you. Great to be with you. The u. S. Senate meets this afternoon at 3 00 p. M. Eastern. Senators will resume work on judicial nominations. Later this week they will turn their attention to the nomination of one house senior associate counsel, brian miller, to be the First SpecialInspector General for pandemic recovery. Senators may also work on legislation providing greater flex ability to Small Businesses who receive Paycheck Protection Program loans and possibly more debate on the pfizer reauthorization bill. Watch the senate live on cspan2