This video explores the unique political landscape of Door County, Wisconsin, deemed America's most prominent swing county due to its record of voting for the winning presidential candidate in every election this century. The county's diversity, both demographically and economically, makes it a bellwether for predicting election outcomes not just in Wisconsin but potentially nationwide. Door County acts as a microcosm of the larger political challenges faced by the nation.

The video highlights the differing issues driving voter choices, as illustrated by perspectives from residents like dairy farmer Austin Vanderti and boutique owner Emma Cox. The political division is palpable, with rural areas leaning Republican and more urban or artsy areas trending Democratic. Interviews with local politicians, activists, and residents underscore the pivotal role this county might play in swaying the state and possibly the national vote.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. swing states [swɪŋ steɪts] - (noun) - States in the U.S. where both major political parties have similar levels of support among voters, viewed as important in determining the overall result of a presidential election. - Synonyms: (battleground states, purple states, key states)

For all the polarization in American politics, everyone can agree that seven states hold the key to next month's election. These swing states contain a total of 513 counties.

2. whipsawed [ˈwɪpsɔːd] - (verb) - To subject to two difficult situations or opposing pressures at the same time. - Synonyms: (buffeted, jolted, swung)

Unencumbered by tribal loyalties, the citizenry is whipsawed from George W. Bush twice to Barack Obama twice, to Donald Trump and then to Joe Biden.

3. bellwether [ˈbɛlˌwɛðər] - (noun) - An indicator or predictor of future developments. - Synonyms: (indicator, leader, forerunner)

It feels like there's pressure for us to deliver in as much as you can have a bellwether town within a bellwether county.

4. enduring [ɪnˈdjʊərɪŋ] - (adjective) - Continuing or long-lasting. - Synonyms: (lasting, persistent, perpetual)

Door county and its coastline come embroidered with limestone cliffs, trees that blaze to life in the fall, and enduring traditions like the fish boil, boil over.

5. propensity [prəˈpɛnsɪti] - (noun) - An inclination or natural tendency to behave in a particular way. - Synonyms: (tendency, inclination, predisposition)

Is it risky to rely on this sector, these low propensity voters who have been so unreliable in the past?

6. mobilizes [ˈmoʊbəˌlaɪzɪz] - (verb) - To organize or prepare, especially for a concerted effort. - Synonyms: (organize, deploy, prepare)

The people that Trump mobilizes to vote really do turn out for him, but they seem to drop out of the electorate in the midterm.

7. contentious [kənˈtɛnʃəs] - (adjective) - Causing or likely to cause an argument; controversial. - Synonyms: (controversial, debatable, divisive)

Emma Cox, who runs Kind Goods, a new age boutique. For this election, what is going to be the issue that you're most concerned about? I think the issue that has been driving the work of activism that I've been doing for the last two years has been reproductive rights. Charming as her little pocket of America might be, she understands Door county may be the leading indicator in this most contentious election.

8. pivotal [ˈpɪvətl] - (adjective) - Of crucial importance in relation to the development or success of something else. - Synonyms: (crucial, critical, essential)

Expect to stay up very late. And when you find out who won Wisconsin, which might happen at 4 in the morning, you probably know who won the presidential election. It's that pivotal.

9. transplants [ˈtrænsˌplænts] - (noun) - People who have moved from one place and settled in another. - Synonyms: (migrants, immigrants, settlers)

Well, politically we were strictly Republicans, but then the transplants came and now Door county is the ultimate political weather vein.

10. swaths [swɒθs] - (noun) - A broad strip or area of something. - Synonyms: (tract, area, zone)

Meanwhile, they'll try to stance the bleeding in rural swaths that have swung heavily towards Trump.

This Wisconsin county has backed the winning presidential candidate for the last 6 elections

For all the polarization in American politics, everyone can agree that seven states hold the key to next month's election. These swing states contain a total of 513 counties, and among them, only one has voted for the winning candidate in every presidential election this century. Door County, Wisconsin offers a distinct shade of purple. Unencumbered by tribal loyalties, the citizenry is whipsawed from George W. Bush twice to Barack Obama twice, to Donald Trump and then to Joe Biden. Consider Door a window into this critical election.

Feverishly, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have been campaigning in swing states, especially Wisconsin. But neither has visited America's swingiest county. So we decided to. The story will continue in a moment. The Wisconsin Tourism Board could do worse than to anchor its next marketing campaign in Door county, the peninsula wedged between Lake Michigan and Green Bay. The water not the home of the packers, nicknamed the Cape Cod of the Midwest, Door county and its coastline come embroidered with limestone cliffs, trees that blaze to life in the fall, and enduring traditions like the fish boil, boil over.

The population 30,000. And no one knows more of the locals than 84 year old Niles Wieborg, longtime fire chief. Tell me about Door County. How far do you want to go back? My relatives landed here in 1851 from Norway. Weborg has a handy way of placing Door county on Wisconsin's map. And this is where we're at. Dark county is up the thumb of Wisconsin and Green Bay is down here, Milwaukee is down here and we're about right here on the peninsula. So we got a Bayside and we got a Lake Michigan side. There you go. Tell me, politically, what are people like? Well, politically we were strictly Republicans, but then the transplants came and now Door county is the ultimate political weather vein.

In 2020, Joe Biden carried Door county by 292 votes, the tightest margin in any Wisconsin county. And it's not just the presidential elections. It's virtually every statewide election. We seem to pick the winner. It's kind of weird. Republican Joel Kitchens represents Door county in the state Assembly. What do you attribute that to? I think a lot of it is that we are just such a cross section of the state that we have a lot of people that came here from the cities and from the suburbs and retired. We have a strong agricultural community. We have heavy manufacturing. As you can see when you drive along the lakeshore and the bayshore. There's a lot of money here, but there are also a lot of people that are really struggling as well.

On our road trip through Door County, Last week we saw this firsthand. The county is 92% white, but politically diverse in the rural south, abundant signs for Donald Trump and towering silos. 25 year old Austin Vanderti is a 6th generation dairy farmer. When you go into that voting booth first Tuesday in November, what is the one issue that's most going to impact how you vote? Inflation. You know, inflation affects the cost of my feed, my fuel, my seed, my fertilizer, everything that it takes for me to grow a crop and feed it to my cows to get a good product. Like many of his neighbors, Mandur Tie is voting for Trump.

But as we headed north, cows and deer blinds gave way to artists and rainbow flags. Near the top of the thumb in Door county, in the tourist town of Sister Bay, where red gives ground to blue, we met Emma Cox, who runs Kind Goods, a new age boutique. For this election, what is going to be the issue that you're most concerned about? I think the issue that has been driving the work of activism that I've been doing for the last two years has been reproductive rights. Charming as her little pocket of America might be, she understands Door county may be the leading indicator in this most contentious election. Well, it feels like all eyes are on us.

All eyes are on Wisconsin, all eyes have been on Door county. And it feels like there's pressure for us to deliver in as much as you can have a bellwether town within a bellwether county. Sturgeon Bay is Dorr's gravitational and political center. Shipbuilding is the big industry here. Sensibilities vary from one yard to the next. Even the animals get into the act. Tell me who we have here. Oh, this is Ziva. She's our dog for democracy vote in November. We met Ziva as well as her owners, John and Annette Vincent, who organized a pop up rally flanking both sides of the main drag in Sturgeon Bay, drumming up support for the Democratic ticket.

And this is where shabby stereotypes come to die. I saw a truck with a gun rack honk and I saw Prius go by and give you a thumbnail. Isn't that interesting? It's more than just coincidental. We're so on the edge that we're, I mean, here comes a truck. We're purple on cue. We are very purple. That is. Our impression from moving up here is that we are very, very purple. Now retired, they relocated from Chicago. They come three days a week, not just to rally, but to gauge the political winds swirling off the bay.

What's a positive response look like? Positive response can be anything from Just a nod of the head to an enthusiastic wave, a horn honk, a solid horn honk. Thumbs up. You have data on raised thumbs versus raised middle fingers. Well, that happens. We get those two. But I would say that I keep, you know, I have a pretty good sample size and we run well over 80% positive to the negative. For a more scientific assessment of the entire state of Wisconsin, we turn to the director of the Marquette Law School poll, Charles Franklin. His poll, widely considered Wisconsin's best, currently has Kamala Harris up 4. But not so fast.

What is it like being a pollster these days? Well, it's challenging because we've seen polling errors in 2016 and 2020, and those were major issues. Memorably, in 2016 and 2020, most polls, CBS included, fell short when accounting for the Trump vote. There's something specific particular to Trump that makes his support hard to capture. In these four most recent elections. The two big errors have both come when Trump's on the ballot and the two elections without him on the ballot. We've been as good or better than our long term average. Say more about why you think that is. The people that Trump mobilizes to vote really do turn out for him, but they seem to drop out of the electorate in the midterm.

My suspicion is it keeps the Kamala Harris campaign up all night long that there's this cohort that hasn't been capturable. Correct. Brian Scheming, Wisconsin's Republican Party chair, is shaking the trees to identify those hidden Trump voters and crucially, get them to the polls. How many potential Trump supporters are there in Wisconsin who have never voted before? Well, I spoke at President Trump's rally the other day and I said to the folks there, look, there are hundreds of thousands of people in this state who think like us, that they act like us, they live like us, they believe like us, but they don't vote. And I truly believe that.

Is it risky to rely on this sector, these low propensity voters who have been so unreliable in the past? It's risky not to make sure that they get out to vote. For the Democrats, the strategy entails running up the numbers in Milwaukee and booming Dane county, home to Madison, the state Capitol, and the University of Wisconsin, where Biden won more than 75% of the vote in 2020. Meanwhile, they'll try to stance the bleeding in rural swaths that have swung heavily towards Trump. Are you ready to organize?

Ben Wickler, state Democratic Party chair, thinks it's a complete jump ball right now for Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes. So on election night, expect to stay up very late. And when you find out who won Wisconsin, which might happen at 4 in the morning, you probably know who won the presidential election. It's that pivotal. Wisconsin was the state that tipped the Electoral College for Donald Trump in 2016. There is every possibility that Wisconsin could tip the presidential election again in 2024. Wisconsin was decided by less than 1% in the last two elections, but get this, around 80% of the state's counties were decided by a double digit margin, which only magnifies Door counties.

Uncanny distinction. I think in Door county, this election's almost perfectly tied as well. I was just looking at the county by county data before I joined you today. Whoever wins Door county on election day probably wins the state of Wisconsin. Yet again, you say whoever wins Door county likely wins Wisconsin. You also just said, whoever wins Wisconsin likely wins the national election. Not an exaggeration. Door County Wisconsin. Historically the case, whoever wins in Door county is probably the next President of the United States.

It got us thinking, is there one person in Door county who's actually picked the winning candidate in each of the last six presidential elections? The county did collectively. But did any single voter? If so, finding this mystery figure might provide a heck of a clue into how this presidential election will go. So we went on a search. This is your 5:00 news from the Door County Daily News. We started with an APB at the local radio station. If you or someone you know in Door county has voted for the presidential winner of every election going back to the year 2000, please reach out to 920.

But no response from the airwaves to the rooftops. Al Johnson's Swedish restaurant is best known for the goats that graze on the grass roof. Inside, we found the locals who beat the sunrise. And the tourists let themselves in through the back door and pour their own coffee. Do you know anyone that's voted for president six straight years now and gotten it right? No. No. We were told to go to another table and ask the guy in the hat. We got a hot tip. It was no, I had some of them. George H.W. was my book. But not his son.

Next stop in our pursuit, the local watering hole. Do you know that person? I'm out. I do not. You have your work cut out. Then suddenly, a promising leap. Seriously, Right over there. Seriously. There at the end of the bar, sitting before something called a badger melt and a tall glass of milk. Trucker. Joe Conlon. Bush. Bush. Obama. Obama. Trump. Biden. I came close. Five out of six? Five out of six. Yeah. I didn't vote for Bite. Can I ask you how your gonna be voting this year? I think I'm gonna be voting for Trump again. Three times in a row. Yes. Me too.

We had come agonizingly close. Three numbers are 898. Our last stop, the Rotary Club of Sturgeon Bay. I'm curious, does anyone know someone, a voter who actually voted for the winning candidate all six years? Anyone? Oh, I think I did. Now ask the question. Yes, I think I did. Behold our Door county unicorn. No, no, now. No I didn't. Now that I'm thinking back. You thought you had all six. I thought I did. But no, now I'm thinking back, I didn't.

After scouring Door county, we came up empty, which shows the improbability of it all. But in our quest, maybe we stumbled across something even more rare. We found a place in America where family and community outrank party loyalty. In this divisive election season, we came to America's ultimate battleground. Except there was no battle. As they say here with pride. We live above the tension line. What's your sense of how the tone in Door county compares to the tone nationally? You don't want to alienate your neighbors, you don't want to alienate your fellow business owners. You all come together. Do you have family members that are going to vote differently from you? Oh, absolutely. Everyone invited to Thanksgiving regardless?

Absolutely. You know, politics is, you know, if we can't talk about it, that means it's gone way too far in the wrong direction. You recognize that's not necessarily the vibe in the country at large. We're a little different. Wisconsin, I guess we got that Midwest, nice going on. In keeping with the undulations of Highway 42 in Door County, Wisconsin, you switched swing back and forth and continue on down the road.

Politics, Wisconsin, Swing States, Elections, Inspiration, Community, 60 Minutes