- How does southeastern Wisconsin fit
into this national election picture?
- I mean it's battle ground zero, right?
We've always been a battleground but,
always at the end of these elections,
it seems to have faded away
and other States have become more focused.
I think Wisconsin is a great place
and I think that even when we have differences,
we can a have a beer and a brat, right?
- [Narrator] Roughly half of America's voters live
in the suburbs,
and in the final months of the campaign,
as president Trump seeks to boost his support
in those communities,
he has zeroed in on the threat of violent crime.
- The suburbs are coming big to us
because the suburbs are next.
If you elected this guy,
the suburbs would be overwhelmed with violence and crime.
[Narrator] And Wisconsin, a swing state,
is likely to be some of the most fought over ground.
In 2016, President Trump won here by fewer
than 23,000 votes.
- [News Anchor] He will win Wisconsin,
with its 10 electoral votes
he's cracked the so called, "Blue wall"
- [Narrator] A Marquette Law School poll
of likely Wisconsin voters
from early September showed former vice president Joe Biden
leading president Trump 47% to 43%.
Three suburban counties around Milwaukee serve
as a GOP counterweight
to the traditionally large democratic margins recorded
in the State's two largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison.
The president will likely need to win big
in the suburban counties
if he wants to take the state again.
We sat down with a group of voters
from Waukesha and Ozaukee counties,
half voted for Trump and half voted for Clinton in 2016,
to discuss the coronavirus pandemic, the economy, policing
and how they are weighing a sudden supreme court vacancy,
as they think about November's election.
- Did anybody really sort of struggle
with that decision in 2016?
- I actually voted Republican in 2008, in 2012
and then in 2016, I voted Democrat for the first time,
in my case was because of the person instead of the party.
I couldn't vote for Donald Trump.
- Raise your hands if you plan to vote for president Trump
between now and November.
And who plans to vote for Joe Biden?
Sabrina it seemed like your hand raise
on Joe Biden was a little bit lukewarm.
- Yes, I do want him to show up more strongly
on some issues so I'm still listening closely.
- He might not get your vote?
- It's completely possible, yes.
- On Memorial Day weekend George Floyd was killed
in Minneapolis neighboring state to Wisconsin,
and then subsequently in the summer,
another man was shot in Kenosha by police.
I wanna get your sense for sort
of the Black Lives Matter movement,
there's been calls for police reform,
it's obviously a challenging topic
to talk about race in America,
but let's try to talk about it a little bit
and see where you're feeling in terms
of how these protests have gone,
sometimes they've moved into riots
and what you think should be done in terms of police reform.
- There's over 700,000 law enforcement
in the country right now
that we can expect those human beings in those situations,
those conditions with that responsibility
to act flawlessly as ridiculous.
And one is even more childish is to think
that we can improve that by reducing the amount
of law enforcement.
It's super unfortunate
that there are situations like Floyd that do arise,
but when it comes to the numbers itself and the interaction
and the people we're dealing with, they are people,
yeah, there could be a little bit more reform in terms
of making people accountable for their jobs
in the proper way and making sure they're not
on the force if they're not capable.
- Sabrina, you've talked a little bit
about the segregation that exists in this metropolitan area.
What is your take?
- It would be hypocritical to be an American per se
and not understand that we have a history
of violence in this country.
Unfortunately, change has come through violence.
It's not the way that I want it to be.
I'd love to come to the table
and talk it out and just get rid of the ills
of our country but that's not what happened.
So understanding that racism has seeped into so many parts
of our country, just it's as American as apple pie, right?
There has to be reform within healthcare,
there has to be reformed within housing,
there has to be reformed within the criminal justice system,
there has to be reformed in immigration.
We have all these areas that we have to dismantle racism
and become aware of our unconscious bias and choose justice.
- When they talk about,
well only a few people have been shot or killed or whatever,
that's just the tip of the iceberg.
It's really a lot more than just a few bad apples.
It's really systematic.
I do feel that Trump really incites the violence
and incites the divisiveness and incites on the hate.
- The root of the problem is systemic racism.
We can't just turn a blind eye and say,
oh, you know, everything's fine.
And it starts with opportunities and the economy.
Like you said we have a segregated city.
Look at the resources we're providing to the South side
and the North side of Milwaukee
versus a predominantly white area like Brookfield
and Waukesha County,
the resources are day and night.
How do we expect people to be okay?
- Sue your turn.
What's are your observations about the summer of unrest
that took place in this country?
Well, I guess I don't understand
why people think it's Trump's fault
that all this is going on.
I was always taught as a young child growing up
that if a police officer tells you to stop, you stopped.
I don't care what color you are,
black, white, yellow, or purple.
These people deal with people that are on drugs,
people that are crazy and so I could see how some
of these police officers are nudge,
now we have some of them taking it way too far?
Yes, they do believe so.
And I'm not saying they were right
in what I think is torturing George Floyd.
That certainly is not right
but there needs to be a little bit
of acceptance on both sides that both sides did wrong.
- Tamir Rice was shot before he had any chance
to respond to any kind of police order.
So the narrative that people aren't following directions,
isn't completely true unfortunately
I've had police approached me
when their hands are literally on their weapon
if they're coming up to me,
and my kids are right there seeing this.
So it's not that folks are necessarily attempting
to not listen to police,
I think that narrative has to go.
- My father is a retired police officer.
So I have the utmost respect for police.
And I think our big problem too is a lot
of the words we use,
the terminology, defund the police, that's a bad term.
I wish nobody had put that term out there.
It's not about taking away money
or taking away police officers.
It's really, most of us want,
we want better education for police officers,
we want more support for them,
social workers coming in on some of these calls.
- Sabrina, can you just talk a little bit
about your vote and how you are feeling
about former vice president Joe Biden?
- I do feel like Joe Biden recently he started a campaign
or at least his team started a campaign
of being more harsh on the variety.
When I think about Philando Castile
and being murdered in Minnesota,
and then I think about what happened
with George Floyd being murdered in Minnesota,
again same place, same kind of injustice
but there wasn't really change
or a movement until George Floyd was murdered
and the public had an uprising, same state.
So people don't listen until things get out of hand per se.
So I really don't like the messaging of Joe Biden.
I do want him to stand with the fact that there's injustice
that needs to be fixed.
There are people being crushed underneath these systems
and they are Americans also.
And when we say defund the police, we definitely mean it.
I don't wanna lose that message either,
we do mean defund the police - We do
- Because we want systems that actually do support people
in the ways that policing can not.
- We're sitting down just days after the passing
of Ruth Bader Ginsburg leaving a seat open
on the Supreme court.
How many of you think
that seat should be filled still
during Donald Trump's first term?
- Well, obviously we have a constitution,
it's by the advice and consent of the Senate.
The Senate is Republican.
If the president wants
to put forward his nominee he has his right.
He's still the until January.
- Well, I agree with Chris, I'm gonna qualify it
though there's one thing
that concerns me the most is what implications will be
on the election if in fact that president Trump
and the Senate goes forward with the nomination.
I'd hate to think
that pushing this forward would
put president Trump's re-election at risk
or some of the senators that are up for reelection.
- Sabrina talk a little bit
about why you don't think it should be filled this year.
- Just looking at the last example of the way
that Republicans stood up and said no,
Barack Obama cannot bring somebody into this role
when he had more time than this one,
then I would say the same thing.
- Lets pivot to a subject
that really has dominated obviously all
of our lives practically all year, and that's the pandemic.
How many of you routinely wear a mask when you go out
in public pretty much anywhere?
- Well it depends.
I mean if some place where I know there's gonna be a lot
of people that of course I will wear a mask,
but if I'm taking my dogs for a walk by myself,
I'm not gonna put a mask on.
- Well, again, it goes back to the inconsistent messaging
about the effectiveness of mask.
There is this like a virtual signaling issue
with mask out there at this point as well.
It does come down to sort
of what are our rights as citizens?
- The president has talked
about having a vaccine potentially in time for the election.
What do you all think of about,
who do you believe when it comes to the vaccine?
- So to try to get a vaccine out and mask produced
and available in a matter of weeks
or months it's not possible, it's not safe.
- Who all do you listen to in terms of trusting what
to know about the vaccine?
Who do you trust in terms of that topic?
- I think it was hard when the CDC came out
or somebody came out and originally said,
mask don't help , don't use masks.
and that made it really hard for a lot of people to trust.
But I think we didn't know what we didn't know
and we shouldn't have assumed that we knew something.
I definitely I still listen to file sheets,
I try to trust the CDC.
I think unfortunately they've been influenced politically
when they shouldn't be,
but I think they're still a reputable source.
- Chris who do you trust in on this topic?
- Well, it's what's stunning
to me I think is doctors are starting to sound like lawyers.
There's a lot of different opinions and none of them seem
to agree which always worries me.
My nephew was just diagnosed with COVID,
asymptomatic no issues.
I have two assistants,
one of my assistants got COVID.
So it's affected me personally but I'm not sure who
to believe on it
- Is there anybody on the panel lost a job
or significant piece of income because of the pandemic?
- So I own a private practice optometric practice,
and so we were forced to close.
So I ended up having to lay off my entire staff.
- Are you open again?
- Yeah.
- Give me your sense
for how you think president Trump
has handled this situation.
- I think he's done a good job
as far as letting the states determine each individual state
on how they wanna handle it because
when New York was being so burdened, Wisconsin had nothing.
- We can't blame Trump for the virus of course.
And I don't even really blame him
for his initial actions or inactions
but I think now, especially six months plus later,
they are holding and having these rallies,
political rallies with hundreds of people,
or sometimes even thousands in a closed space without masks
and him continuing to attack people
or make fun of people who wear masks including Joe Biden.
I think to me that is probably what bothers me the most.
- And we should not have this many people
in the United States who died from this.
So the response was not quick enough.
It was not to the degree that it should have been.
And they had disproportionate outcomes
for different communities.
There's more black folks who have died from this.
There are more Latinos who are dying from this.
This is not fair.
- How about your local and state officials?
Do you feel like they've done a better
or worse job than Washington on this issue?
- It's very inconsistent which creates confusion.
We literally have school districts within Ozaki County
that have different policies
about how they're handling kids going back to school.
What makes Port Washington different from Macon?
- You have the liberal areas saying science shut down,
forget the economy, everyone's dying.
Conservative areas are saying open it up,
we got to have an economy freedom
and those neighborhoods are very close to each other.
So it's kind of like within five minutes you can be
in three different zones of opinion.
I generally follow the policy of what my client wants.
So when my client shows up in a mask, I put on a mask.
If my client asks me to take it off, I take it off.
- Everybody has since agreed
everything has been politicized.
When I see clients, I wear a mask,
My clients wear a mask in my office.
I have a hand sanitizer,
not because I'm afraid, I'd rather be in on the safe side,
why take a chance?
Why would I wanna be responsible of infecting somebody
and that person potentially could die because
of how I do things?
I definitely don't want the economy shut down,
I wanna see customers, I wanna take care of them.
I'll see them in my office anytime, any day,
but with the proper precaution.
- The economy and the pandemic are very much intertwined.
Chris talk a little bit about your real estate business
and what you've seen.
- When the pandemic started I was very nervous
and braced for the worst.
The real estate economy which
to me has always been an indicator,
obviously for me personally it's my business,
has been amazing.
- Raise your hand
if you thought the economy was pretty good
in January and February.
Everybody else has their hands up other than Sabrina,
she's still kind of not sure
that the economy was that great.
Now raise your hand again if you're satisfied
with the economy as it is today.
- I think so many people I feel look
at the stock market as the economy
or what you're seeing your 401k,
but when you look at Milwaukee,
it's kind of like inequities the average suburban
or those of us in these counties,
maybe our economy or whatever is fine,
but when you look at the city of Milwaukee in certain areas,
I don't think our economy is fine.
- Bernie you work with a lot of immigrants.
What's your take on sort of how new immigrants are doing
in the economy right now?
- Definitely not doing very well
because well number one,
a lot of the immigrants didn't qualify
for these stimulus checks.
So overall a lot
of the huge Latino community is impacted negativity.
- Sue what is your sense
as a business owner just for the economy sort
of writ large in your area?
- The economy, yes Is coming back.
Is it back 100% in certain fields?
I believe it is,
but certain fields it is nowhere near a hundred percent.
You start having people lose their jobs
then they lose their insurance.
It's all a chain reaction or a trickle down effect.
If we don't save our economy,
it's gonna affect many many more lives
than this pandemic will.
So I do believe that we need to be very protective
of our economy and get things moving.
Yes, do it safely, but we cannot just keep,
we can't all lock ourselves in and shut everything down.
It's just going to be a disaster
- We've gleaned tonight that there's there's division here
in the suburbs of Milwaukee,
differing opinions not unlike the rest of the country.
Some of you have who have lived
in the area for longer times.
Can you just talk about how the area is changing
and sort of if you sense more political division
as the area has diversified?
- This community was always very Republican
and now there's Biden signs out there.
I think it's very divided within neighborhoods,
which we've never seen before.
- Other than when I was serving in different duty stations
I've always came back to Waukesha and I've been through 89.
At that time, there was a very few Latino families.
It's grown tremendously over the years.
Traditionally, the Latinos vote more Democrat
- Being aware of the history of Wisconsin and the red lining
that caused these suburbs to stay so white
and how those barriers are starting to be removed
and allowing people to move out into areas really allows
for a diversity to exist.
And I do appreciate the fact that there's different voices
to speak to different people who are available.
I do like different ideas.
- The question isn't necessarily
whether Trump will win
these suburban Milwaukee counties probably will,
but it'll depend on how much margin he gets and then how
that affects the overall statewide totals here in Wisconsin.
What do you guys think?
- I feel a lot of leadership pushing people
to register and to vote and
if we get everybody coming out and we increase the voting,
we already got a Democrat governor last time.
So we actually I think that is going blue
and I see that trend.
So as long as people get out and vote,
I think that Trump will lose in the state.
- Chris what's gonna happen in Wisconsin?
- I think Trump will do very well in Waukesha County
and Washington County,
Ozaki County is the one that is I think the closest.
The question will there be enough votes rural
in rural Wisconsin to offset the huge turnout
in Madison and Milwaukee and that's usually the game.
I think Trump will win and I'm counting on it.
I'm nervous, but I'm hopeful.
(soft music)