It was a rich sample of blue-collar Wisconsin: farmers markets and the farms stocking them, parks, ice cream shops, gas stations, and, when COVID-19 protocols were followed, local party offices.
From Aug. 13 to 29, Caroline Kubzansky (left) left no hay bale unturned as she navigated the virus and country roads to gauge and report the political temperature in the far reaches of the swing Badger State that flipped blue in the 2020 presidential election.
The 21-year-old University of Chicago fourth-year student and managing editor of the school’s newspaper, The Maroon, insisted one thing go on the record after she recounted the surreal experience during a phone interview Dec. 15.
“I want to underline three times that I would not have done it if I didn’t think I could keep 6 feet away, outside, and do it safely,” she said.
As part of her internship with WisPolitics, she scoured Kenosha County before driving to Winnebago County (now a Covid-19 hotbed southwest of Green Bay), where she covered a Trump rally in an airport hangar. Next she covered ultra-rural white Crawford and Adams counties near Madison, before making the 7-hour journey through mostly deep-red country to Sawyer County, a traditional bellwether in the Northwoods.
“It was very lonely,” Kubzansky said. “It wasn’t, ‘Reporter settles in with the community.’ It was ‘Reporter draws a 6-foot bubble.’ I got groceries once.”
She did some door-to-door canvassing, “attempted” meeting sources at local bars, “although that’s sort of cliched,” she said, and felt her skin crawl at some places where COVID-19 protocols were not being followed.
Kubzansky was grateful to the university’s Institute of Politics for footing the AirBNB bills so she could feel safe in single-person lodging.
But she still thought critically about the trip before hitting the road.
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Categories: Wisconsin, Rural Lifestyle