Joe Biden is likely to visit Wisconsin after Labor Day, just don’t expect large crowds

MADISON, Wis. (CBS 58) – With the Democratic and Republican national conventions in the rearview mirror, the road to Election Day is about a nine-week sprint.

While Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden holds leads or competitive polling in most battleground states, experts say it is likely that the campaign will have to hit the road in order to boost his chances of defeating President Donald Trump in November.

“The vice president will come to Wisconsin, I’m certain,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D – Wisconsin) said in a Biden campaign press call Friday. “But we’re not going to do it in a way that’s selfish or stupid.”

Pocan said he is glad the Biden campaign has not taken unnecessary risks in holding large, in-person events where the potential of spreading coronavirus increases.

“I am quite sure he will stop here, I just hope that when he does it, we don’t do it in any kind of a way is anything how Donald Trump and Mike Pence have treated people in Wisconsin without any respect,” Pocan said.

President Trump, his son Eric and Vice President Mike Pence all held events in Wisconsin between Aug. 17 and Aug. 19 with crowds at the Trump and Pence event numbering in the hundreds with little social distancing measures in place and some attendees wearing masks and others not.

Pence told the crowd in Darien that both he and the president would be campaigning multiple times in Wisconsin.

“Get used to seeing us because President Donald Trump and I are going to be back in Wisconsin again and again to earn four more years,” Pence said.

In a virtual fundraising event, Biden told attendees, “one of the things we’re thinking about is I’m going to be going up into Wisconsin, and Minnesota, spending time in Pennsylvania, out in Arizona. But we’re going to do it in a way that is totally consistent with being responsible.”

Biden has kept in-person events to a bare minimum because of the COVID-19 pandemic. While his standing in polls is strong, experts say not holding any in-person events in Wisconsin may be costly.

“[Biden] has to come to Wisconsin and mobilize his base,” UW-Milwaukee Professor Emeritus Mordecai Lee told CBS 58 in an interview. “Otherwise what happens is President Trump can rely on his sort of hot and bothered voters who are dying to vote and he may very well squeak by with another win in Wisconsin.”

On Friday, Aug. 28, President Trump held an event in New Hampshire while Vice President Pence held events in Minnesota and Michigan.