Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 68. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:33 PM for 15h 18m 10s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 31.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 9 AM, and the full school board meets in closed session shortly after 6 PM, resuming open session at 7 PM. Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1944, American paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division secure the town of Carentan, Normandy, France.
Is Door County a bellwether county? Danielle Paquette and Sabrina Rodriguez report This county backed every president for two decades. What about 2024?:
Situated in what is expected to be a key 2024 battleground state, Door is one of nine counties across the country that have backed the presidential winner in every election since 2000.
“We voted for Bush twice, Obama twice, the other guy and Joe Biden — hopefully Joe Biden twice,” Kris Sadur, chair of the Door County Democrats, said at a May pie-auction fundraiser, prompting chuckles. “All eyes are on Wisconsin, and it’s a very exciting time to be in Door County.”
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Farming, manufacturing and tourism — all fields bolstered by newcomers — have shaped Door County. Over the years, seasonal laborers transformed the region into one of the country’s biggest cherry suppliers. Out-of-town recruits have filled shipyards in Sturgeon Bay, the county seat, constructing military vessels during World War II and, more recently, a superyacht that Italy confiscated last year from a Russian oligarch. The peninsula’s quaint beach towns and forest trails draw admirers from Milwaukee, Chicago and other blue cities — many of whom have snapped up vacation homes or opted to retire here.
The result: a reliably purple region.
In 2020, Biden beat Trump in Door County by 292 votes. Four years earlier, Trump bested Hillary Clinton by 558 votes, and four years before that, President Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney by 1,229 votes. (While The Post’s analysis of bellwether counties focused on election results since 2000, Door’s streak goes back to 1996, when the county voted for President Bill Clinton.)
The county’s bellwether status has applied to state races, too. A majority of voters in April supported Democratic-backed judge Janet Protasiewicz, whose victory flipped control of the state Supreme Court to liberals. In the 2022 midterms, Gov. Tony Evers (D) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R) both prevailed by slim margins here and in the state overall.
“We’re kind of an indicator of what’s going to happen,” said Stephanie Soucek, chairwoman of the Republican Party of Door County. “It makes me nervous to see the results here. More pressure on us.”
Interesting, but hardly compelling.
(Soucek seems to imply that what happens in Door County somehow influences what happens in America, but that’s impossible. The results in Door County won’t change any other outcome except, in small measure, the statewide total. The success of one party or another won’t jinx the result nationally, as though failure in Door dooms a party in America. Door County’s politics may be representative of trends elsewhere, but they are not causal of results elsewhere.)
Bellwethers, though, as microcosms of the national scene, will be tested depending on the GOP nominee, America’s reaction in 2024 to that nominee, Trump’s waxing criminal indictments, the influence of abortion as a national topic, and in Wisconsin how voters may respond to state court decisions on abortion and gerrymandering, etc.
However much Door County may have in the past mirrored national results, there’s no certainty, let alone magic, in looking closely there again.
Children lost in Amazon jungle found alive after 40 days of search: