TOM BEVAN: Fear, Loathing and Turnout in Wisconsin.

Fear and loathing of the choice facing voters on Nov. 8 is one of the defining features of this election, and not just among swing voters. Nowhere is that more true than in Wisconsin, which stands alone as the only battleground state this year where Democrats and Republicans resoundingly rejected both current nominees in their party primaries earlier this year.
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Wisconsin may be the birthplace of the Grand Old Party, but it hasn’t gone for a Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan’s 49-state landslide win in 1984. George W. Bush nearly flipped the state red in 2000, losing to Al Gore by just 5,708 votes out of more than 2.5 million ballots cast. Bush almost did it again in 2004, losing to John Kerry by only 11,384 votes.

After those consecutive nail-biters, the state fell hard for Barack Obama in 2008, with Wisconsinites giving him a 14-point win, nearly double the margin by which he won election nationally. Ditto 2012, when the state gave Obama a seven-point victory while winning nationally by just less than four.

But things changed in Wisconsin in 2010, when a young, ambitious conservative Milwaukee County Executive named Scott Walker won the gubernatorial race.

If anyone knows how to work the GOP’s Wisconsin turnout machine, it’s Walker, who tweeted his nameless endorsement of Trump back in July.