ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
At the edge of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, with WUWM reporter Maayan Silver.
MAAYAN SILVER, BYLINE: Hi there.
SHAPIRO: Good early morning.
SILVER: Yes.
SHAPIRO: The sun's not even up yet...
SILVER: No.
SHAPIRO: ...And we're standing out here in the rain. Tell us where we are and why we're here.
SILVER: We are standing right near Bradford Beach on Milwaukee's lakefront.
SHAPIRO: It's an actual beach.
SILVER: It's an actual beach. People play volleyball here. They hang out. You've got this hill going up that way, and you hit right upon North Avenue.
SHAPIRO: North Avenue, this 15-mile road that runs east to west all the way through Milwaukee and its many different kinds of neighborhoods.
SILVER: Yes, it cuts through all the demographics. I mean, here's the thing about Wisconsin is it's such a crucial swing state, and North Avenue basically cuts through every different type of neighborhood. You've got urban, suburban, rich, poor, racially segregated, racially diverse. You've got all the different neighborhoods, and you can find all those groups on North Avenue.
SHAPIRO: The thing that stands out to me about Wisconsin is that it is a state of nearly 6 million people, where the presidential vote has often been decided by as little as 20,000 votes, which means it's not one demographic group that could make the difference...
SILVER: It's all of them.
SHAPIRO: It's all of them.
SILVER: Yes.
SHAPIRO: So we are going to cover the 15 miles of North Avenue today and tomorrow, talking with as many voters as we can to try to get that whole sweep.
SILVER: And the thing is, you know, people say, as goes North Avenue, so goes Wisconsin.
SHAPIRO: And the reason we're here at the water's edge before dawn on this rainy morning is because some crazy runners meet up here - rain, sleet, snow, heat - and they have agreed to talk to us about politics.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Who loves running?
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: We love running.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Good morning.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Good morning.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Y'all good?
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Oh, yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Whoo (ph), let's go.
SILVER: One of the organizers of the OMG Running Group is 64-year-old Patrick Bieser, and he says when this crew runs along the lake before dawn, they usually don't talk politics.
PATRICK BIESER: I would say that our particular group here, the Milwaukee Running Group, has a more liberal lean, and so we are - reasonably we agree with each other, mostly, so there's not a lot to discuss.
SHAPIRO: Somebody's just run up soaking wet...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Oh, it's Hans.
SHAPIRO: ...With black and white cow shorts. You want to introduce yourself? Come under the awning.
HANS GOLDENBERG: Sure. Sure.
SHAPIRO: Get dry.
HANS GOLDENBERG: Hi, my name is Hans Goldenberg. I'm 34 years old, and I live in downtown Milwaukee.
SHAPIRO: And his political views are different from the rest of the group.
HANS GOLDENBERG: I don't know. I may or may not vote.
SHAPIRO: You're the rare undecided may or may not vote?
HANS GOLDENBERG: Well, I mean, yeah, I don't like either candidate, to be completely honest.
SILVER: He wants lower taxes and less crime. He thinks Republicans would do a better job of addressing that. But he's also more socially liberal.
HANS GOLDENBERG: 'Cause I've gone both ways in the past. I voted for Obama. You know, I feel like sometimes my vote doesn't really matter.
SHAPIRO: Thirty-two-year-old Jackie Breen (ph) jumps in.
JACKIE BREEN: I understand that, because I have felt for many, many elections for a very long time, like, who am I voting for? I don't want either.
SHAPIRO: She says her top issue is the environment, and she's a committed Harris voter, but she gets why Goldenberg is frustrated.
BREEN = WI RESIDENT: Where's someone who actually is closer to my age, who understands that my generation is going to have debt for the rest of their lives?
SHAPIRO: I know you all have jobs to get to, and it's so helpful to just be able to hear your honest points of view.
Let's get out of this rain. Where are we going next, Maayan?
SILVER: I want to take you to a place called Beans & Barley. It's right up the road. It's a coffee shop, restaurant, gift shop.
SHAPIRO: I could use some caffeine.
(SOUNDBITE OF COFFEE PERCOLATING)
SHAPIRO: Beans & Barley first opened its doors 50 years ago.
SILVER: I like to say they introduced tofu to Milwaukee.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
SILVER: Jim Neumeyer started as a teenage dishwasher here, and now he's one of the owners.
SHAPIRO: How do you feel about the phrase hippie food?
JIM NEUMEYER: I think it's, like, a perfect description, to be honest, kind of like a hippie Cracker Barrel. I mean, of course, like, maybe the opposite side of the politics of that.
SILVER: Two-story windows let daylight stream in here. It's a gift shop, deli counter and restaurant. There's a sign on the glass that says Black Lives Matter. On the reverse, it says, racism is an insidious cultural disease. Milwaukee is only 40% white, and it's also one of the most segregated cities in the U.S.
SHAPIRO: As a small business owner, one of the biggest challenges Neumeyer faces right now is the price of ingredients. Some of his costs have gone up 20%.
NEUMEYER: You know, we're not like a super-duper fancy restaurant. We're like an everyday restaurant. And in order to be a place that people in the community, for instance, can gather daily, we have to keep it really reasonable.
SHAPIRO: How does that overlay on politics for you?
NEUMEYER: I think what it means is that we have to have someone who's very interested in, obviously, the smaller business, not necessarily tax breaks for only the largest of businesses, you know. We also need to see, like, you know, some relief from the prices and to hopefully see some of them be able to come down.
SHAPIRO: Other voters we've talked to in Wisconsin have said, and that's why I'm voting Trump.
NEUMEYER: Yes. Well, I do not think that Trump would deliver that.
SILVER: In the restaurant, people are sitting down to order breakfast. It's a mix of retirees, parents with kids and folks at the bar having a cup of coffee. Thirty-eight-year-old Sandy Reitman is a freelancer and a staunch Democrat.
SANDY REITMAN: I'm feeling very positive and hopeful. I'm an election poll worker.
SHAPIRO: There's so much pressure on poll workers all over the country this year.
REITMAN: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: Are you concerned about that?
REITMAN: Actually, tonight, there's a two-hour, like, safety program. I've never gone to something like this before.
SILVER: Behind the scenes in the bakery, Rena Hartman (ph) has finished making a vegan almond apricot cake.
SHAPIRO: And the smell makes it hard to think about anything else.
RENA HARTMAN: Just put it in.
SHAPIRO: It's amazing.
HARTMAN: Really love it, yeah.
SILVER: She's a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she participated in protests against the war in Gaza.
SHAPIRO: She says watching the deaths of Palestinians makes her think about what her own Native American ancestors endured in this country. She's especially opposed to U.S. support for Israel's military campaign.
HARTMAN: A lot of the way our, like, money is allocated feels very surreal sometimes, especially being a student, you know, seeing, like, more money go into military than it does education and schools.
SHAPIRO: As a 20-year-old, this is the first time she's old enough to vote for president. In the Democratic primary this year, she was one of almost 50,000 people in Wisconsin to vote uninstructed, the state's version of an uncommitted vote protesting the war in Gaza. And now, in the general election?
HARTMAN: Obviously I don't want to vote for Trump, and it's kind of tough with the next-best choice being Kamala. It's like, OK, I guess she is - like, she would be our first Black woman president. It's hard to improve a system that, like, is inherently broken.
SILVER: She still doesn't know what she'll do. And she says a lot of her college classmates are also on the fence.
HARTMAN: I don't see enough of my peers voting and being registered to vote.
SILVER: Like most big cities, Milwaukee is overwhelmingly Democratic. In 2020, Joe Biden got 70% of the vote in the county, while the entire state split almost exactly 50/50.
SHAPIRO: Yeah, he ultimately carried Wisconsin by less than 1%, roughly the same margin Trump won by four years earlier. So any weakness in the urban democratic base here could be a problem for Harris.
All right, Maayan, let's keep heading west on North Avenue. What's our next stop?
SILVER: We're going a couple miles down to a place called Bronzeville. It's a historically Black neighborhood. It's an arts district. It's been through some rough times, but it's being reinvigorated. And you can kind of see just how segregated Milwaukee is in this short distance.
Harold Turner just celebrated his 82nd birthday a couple weeks ago. He's a pastor and also the owner of the Milwaukee Times.
HAROLD TURNER: Well, it's a weekly newspaper.
SHAPIRO: What's the issue that's got your attention the most right now?
TURNER: Well, a change, and I do believe that Kamala going to be the next commander in chief.
SHAPIRO: What do you think this community needs from a president?
TURNER: Well, I think jobs. I think if you work and you feel like you're somebody if you got a job. You have some worth when you have a job.
SILVER: On the corner of this block, Harold Turner has a neighbor that stands out. The windows are plastered with political signs and posters for Trump. It's a campaign office.
(SOUNDBITE OF KNOCKING ON DOOR)
SHAPIRO: When we knock on the door, it's closed, and no one is in. But as we keep heading west along this 15-mile artery of North Avenue, we'll leave Milwaukee and head into the suburbs, where Trump lawn signs start to appear and the Republican Party is on much stronger footing. That's tomorrow, as our week of reporting from Wisconsin continues in our series We, The Voters. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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