President Joe Biden takes his economic message to union workers at a DeForest training center during Wisconsin visit

DEFOREST – If President Joe Biden is seeking a second term, his path started Wednesday in Wisconsin where he courted blue-collar voters who continue to inch away from the president's party.

Following a State of the Union address focused on expanding jobs for America's middle class and ahead of a potential 2024 announcement, Biden made his first stop in Dane County — a voting powerhouse for Democrats that also is one of the only areas of the state with consistent population growth. Biden promoted an economic plan he argues will address the challenges of an aging population and a stagnant workforce.

He arrived at a time when most Wisconsin voters don't approve of the way Biden is handling the presidency and as voters nationally are sour on the idea of a 2020 rerun between Biden and former President Donald Trump, according to recent polling by the Marquette University Law School that showed 34% wanting Biden to run in 2024 and 29% backing a Trump campaign for president.

Biden's tiny victory in 2020 over Trump sparked a two-year war in this evenly split battleground state over whether his presidency was legitimately won. On Wednesday, Biden pressed an economic message in an appeal to the middle-class and blue-collar voters who have in recent years diverted their support to Republican candidates.

Takes message to LIUNA training center

"A typical middle-class family for decades was the backbone of America. The middle class has been hollowed out — it's been hollowed out," Biden said at the Laborers' International Union of North America training center in DeForest, 14 miles north of Madison.

"You saw it Janesville," he said, referring to the 2008 closure of a General Motors plant that had employed 7,000 workers at the peak of its 89-year lifespan.

"Once-thriving cities and towns became shadows of what they used to be. When those towns were hollowed out, something else was lost: pride, self-esteem, a sense of self-worth. But now we're going to turn that around and build an economy where no one's going to be left behind."

To a crowd of Democratic officials, donors, and dozens of union laborers, Biden touted the hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs created under the American Rescue Plan, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act.

According to a memo released by the White House, private Wisconsin companies have committed to creating $4 billion worth of manufacturing projects since Biden took office and $2.9 billion in federal funding has been put toward infrastructure projects as a result of the measures.

Sarah Varga, a 21-year-old laborer who lives in Janesville, introduced Biden at the event. She said after the speech she doesn't as a practice share whom she votes for but characterized Wisconsin's union labor industry as being strengthened in recent years.

"I think the mood is definitely getting better with President Biden. Before that it was, we have to work to pay our bills. Now that we have more opportunity and availability to work even harder and get more training, it makes me unbelievably happy. I think it really raises the spirits for all laborers," Varga said.

Fewer than 8% of Wisconsin workers belong to a union — down from 21% three decades ago, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Union membership in Wisconsin has steadily declined since the 1980s and dropped significantly in 2015, the same year then-Gov. Scott Walker signed a right-to-work law, which banned labor contracts from requiring all workers in certain jobs to pay union fees, even when the staff members don't want to belong to a union.

Last time Biden was in Wisconsin:President Biden celebrates union gains during speech at Milwaukee's Laborfest, continues broadside against 'MAGA Republicans'

Republicans also focus on Wisconsin with 2024 RNC held in Milwaukee

Biden's middle-class focus comes as Republicans are also putting priority on Wisconsin by holding their 2024 national convention in Milwaukee.

Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said Wednesday that Biden would not succeed in his blue-collar appeal, characterizing the Wisconsin stop as a victory lap that "is out of touch with American families who are struggling to keep up with Biden’s failed economy."

"Every day is a crisis for American workers facing rising costs to feed their families, yet Joe Biden continues to deflect, divide, and duck blame without offering solutions," she said in a statement.

Brian Schimming, chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said "Biden’s first re-election campaign stop in Madison will do nothing to improve his standing with Wisconsin voters."

"Wisconsin households and businesses have faced crushing inflation, decreasing real wages, and increasing energy bills for months and trying to buy votes with his inflationary spending and Green New Deal agenda isn’t the answer to helping Wisconsin families," he said in a statement.

More:As Biden prepares 2024 reelection run, Democrats worry blue-collar voters are slipping away

Ben Wikler, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said he expects Biden's economic message to resonate in rural areas of Wisconsin as well as the urban centers that undergirded his 2020 win.

"Wisconsin in presidential politics is a must-win state. It's no coincidence that President Biden's first stop after the State of the Union is the Badger State. The president's message feels tailor-made for Wisconsin voters," Wikler said.

In his Wednesday remarks, Biden took aim at U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson's suggestion to make Medicare and Social Security subject to annual budget deliberations — similar comments to those that drew heckling from a number of Republicans during his Tuesday address when he accused members of the GOP of threatening the two programs in the debate over the nation’s debt limit. Speaker Kevin McCarthy has asserted that Republicans will not touch the entitlement programs.

Biden on Tuesday touted recent economic gains and his plan to build the economy “from the middle out” — arguing the U.S. is in a better position now than it was two years prior during a speech in which he at times drew fire from Republicans.

But facing a newly divided Congress, Biden also urged Republicans to work with him to “finish the job” on issues ranging from expanding health care coverage to reforming policing practices and supporting seniors — a nod to a potential reelection campaign.

"This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America," he said Wednesday.

Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Joe Biden brings economic message to LIUNA training center in DeForest