How Democrats can win Wisconsin, with barely a mention of the rural

Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair, Ben Wikler, was Ezra Klein's guest last week, and the podcast was published under the headline, "This is How Democrats Win in Wisconsin."  The subhead was "Ben Wikler, the chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, discusses whether Kamala Harris can appeal to voters in the swing state."  In short, Wikler is all in on Wisconsinites embracing Harris, though I did not find myself convinced by his comments.  I didn't hear much evidence or analysis, mostly only broad assertions of Harris' appeal in the Forward State.  

Most striking to me in his comments was the inattention to rural voters.  Below are the only two quotes in which Wikler (or Klein) use the word "rural." 

You know, wherever you go in Wisconsin — and Wisconsin is small towns. It is factory towns or water tower towns as they’re called. It has bigger cities, no huge cities. Milwaukee is well under a million people. It has a ton of rural areas.

* * *

And [Kamala Harris] connects with voters in rural areas, in small towns, in suburbs, in cities. She listens to people. They can tell that she likes them. She has this record. And if you listen to her stump speech, there’s a lot about how she stands up to the big drug companies. She stood up to the insurance companies. She wrote the law that allows people to get on their parents’ health insurance until age 26.

The first mention is just descriptive of Wisconsin's geographic demography, stating the obvious, that it has both small towns and cities!!  The second mention is similar but it asserts, with no support, that Harris is connecting with voters in all of these various sizes of population clusters.  I'm not seeing any effort on the part of the Harris campaign to connect with rural voters on rural issues, and Wikler isn't suggesting that she is doing anything rural specific.  So, really?  

Compare this Ezra Klein interview to this post from last month, which takes Wisconsin's rural voters very seriously as key to the state's electoral outcomes this fall.  Other posts about the Democratic Party's efforts (or lack thereof) in Wisconsin are here.  

Indeed, compare this to Kathy Cramer's book on rural resentment.  

Also, I happen to have been in Wisconsin last week, including in rural areas surrounding Madison, but mostly in Madison.  I saw neither Trump signs nor Biden signs in either place, but perhaps I wasn't paying enough attention.