MILWAUKEE – Democrats protesting outside the Republican National Convention (RNC) say they have no real choice but to vote for Joe Biden, despite ongoing debate over whether he can beat Donald Trump and serve another four years.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at Red Arrow Park, a few streets from where the RNC is being held in central Milwaukee, carrying banners reading “Free Palestine” while others yelled “lock him up”, a version of the chant Trump used to lead when campaigning against Hillary Clinton.
“Everyone is really worried about things like Project 2025 [the vision for a second term set out by a think tank with ties to Trump] and the taking away of freedoms,” Morgan, a 25-year-old social worker, told i.
She said she was especially worried about the threats to women’s reproductive rights, and transgender rights. “I worry about people being harassed.”
Another protester, 28-year-old editor Jessica, said she was not thrilled by either of the major parties’ candidates. Indeed, polls show 70 per cent of Americans would prefer not to vote for either Trump, 78, or US President Joe Biden.
“Trump is a felon,” she said, referring to the former president’s recent conviction over an illegal hush money payment to a former adult actress. “It has to be Biden.”
Pollsters say Wisconsin is one of a handful of battleground states that will decide the election. It is seen as crucial to enabling the 81-year-old President to reach the 270 electoral college votes he needs.
The state was narrowly won by Trump in 2016, one of three in the upper midwest he bagged on his way to the White House, and in 2020 Mr Biden won it back, also by just a few thousand votes.
A New York Times poll shows Trump just three points ahead in Wisconsin, while other polls have shown Vice President Kamala Harris doing better than Mr Biden, adding to the already heavy pressure from those who think the President should stand aside and let the former California senator become the Democratic candidate.
In what appears to be an effort to tie up Mr Biden’s nomination well ahead of the Democrats’ convention on 19 August, party officials are planning a “virtual roll call” later this month, a move that is already highly controversial. It would formally make him the nominee, despite the persistent doubts triggered by a disastrous debate performance last month.
The calls to remove Mr Biden as Democratic candidate for November’s presidential election have been quieted by the attempted assassination of Trump at a Saturday rally and the President has seized his opportunity to take a statesmanlike position, underlining his stance against gun violence.
But concerns remain. The Wisconsin Democratic Party, which is holding its own convention this week, did not respond to questions from i, but chairperson Ben Wikler stressed the importance of defeating Trump after he appointed JD Vance as his running mate.
“The stakes of this election just got impossibly higher. In the years since JD Vance called Trump out as ‘reprehensible’, he’s managed to reinvent himself as a Maga true believer,” Mr Wikler said in a statement.
“In election after election, we’ve seen Wisconsinites reject the extreme, anti-freedom Trump-Vance agenda and they’ll do it again this November.”
The latest senior Democrat to raise doubts about Mr Biden is California congressman Adam Schiff. The New York Times reported that at the weekend he told donors that if he is the “nominee, I think we lose”.
The protesters in central Milwaukee with their placards and songs told i it was essential to raise awareness of what was at stake should Trump secure a second term.
Eric Salminen, 48, a union activist who had travelled from Minneapolis, said he wanted to vote for a president who would stand for the rights of everyone.
He said: “I’m a unionist and as a unionist I believe we can stand for every kind of justice, between protecting immigrants’ lives, Black Lives, Native lives, fighting the genocide in Palestine and standing up against Donald Trump.”