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EAU CLAIRE - Vice President Mike Pence stopped in western Wisconsin on Thursday to rally support for the Trump administration's efforts to revive the nation's economy clobbered by the coronavirus pandemic and to fight for voters in a politicallyunpredictable area of the state.

To a crowd of about 100 seated on the floor of a Midwest Manufacturing distribution building on the campus of Menards' headquarters, Pence said President Donald Trump will continue to impose tariffs in an effort to "level the playing field for American workers."

"It's a win for American jobs and American farmers," Pence said about the new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico. "This president stood strong and drew a hard bargain for Wisconsin dairy. It's true."

Vice President Mike Pence speaks at Midwest Manufacturing in Eau Claire on Thursday.(Photo: Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

Pence said Trump also pushed back against Canada over allowing product lines that would crowd out American dairy products.

"Canada agreed to end the unfair treatment of dairy farmers and we're going to increase our dairy exports by more than $300 million that's a win," Pence said, referring to projections from the International Trade Association.

While advocatesdescribe the trade agreement as a better deal than NAFTA, Brookings Institution fellowGeoffrey Gertzhas saidthe new pact"looks remarkably similar" to the agreement it would replace.

Among the biggest changes, he wrote in a 2018 analysis, were higher rules-of-origin requirements in the automobile industry and "marginally greater U.S. access to the Canadian dairy market."

Democrats have blasted the Trump administration's efforts to bolster a collapsing dairy industry in Wisconsin, pointing to arecent CNBC investigation that showed U.S. trade aid benefited mostly large farms and not the typical-size farm that has struggled in the state in recent years.

SPECIAL REPORT: Dairyland in Distress

Republicans see western Wisconsin the swingiest region of this swing state as a key to a successful re-election bid in Wisconsin. U.S. Rep. Ron Kinds district, the 3rd Congressional District, voted Democratic for president by 11 points in 2012, Republican for president by 4 points in 2016, and Democratic for governor by 2 points and Democratic for U.S. Senate by 13 points in 2018.

Farmers have takena lot of the economic hitsin Wisconsin in recent years.But Republicans have more than a 20-point edge over Democrats in how farm families describe their partisan leaning in Wisconsin, according to polling by the Marquette Law School.

And Trump has a similar margin over Biden among farm familiesin Marquette's polling dating back to last fall.

Wisconsin billionaire John Menard, the state's wealthiest resident and a GOP donor, and his family were seated among the crowd. Pence wasjoined by Ivanka Trump, President Trump's daughter and adviser, and U.S Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia.

Pence made his pitch for manufacturing the same week Wisconsin's top elected Republican delivered a very different message on the issue. U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson this week touted outsourcing jobs, saying "it makes no sense for American workers to produce high-labor-content products" when businesses can get them "dirt cheap" overseas.

While Thursday's event was billed as one focused on manufacturing jobs, Pence also keyed inon two issues the Trump campaign is depending on to improve the president's position in his re-election bid.

The vice president received standing ovations while promising to defend law enforcement and to quickly fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat on the U.S. Supreme Court following her death.

Ginsburg, he said, "paved the way for women in the law."

"As we rightly honor her life of service, the Constitution of the United States provides the president shall appoint a judge to the Supreme Court and I promise you come this Saturday, President Donald Trump will do his duty as we nominate a principled conservative woman," Pence said.

Following the event, Pence took a bus to Minneapolis for an event focused on law enforcement.

Pence did not mention comments Trump made to veteran journalist Bob Woodward, admitting he deliberately downplayed the risk of the coronavirus to the public. Instead, he memorialized the 200,000 people who have died since the pandemic hit the United States.

"Thefamilies that have suffered loss during the course of this pandemic have always been on our heartsand you're in our prayers," Pence said. "There's not a day that's gone by Ihaven't thought about families who lost loved ones."

The vice president has visited Wisconsin four times over the last month, and at least five times this year.

He wasin Janesvillelast week, La Crosse on Labor Day, Darien in August and Ripon in July. It's the third visit to Wisconsin this week by top officials in the Trump administration.

RELATED: Biden maintains lead over Trump in Wisconsin and two other northern battlegrounds in UW poll

Thursday's visit coincides with a $2 million ad buy by Republicans to make a play for Kind's western Wisconsin seat, which covers Eau Claire.

The Congressional Leadership Fund will begin airing ads on television and posting them online beginning Friday.

Kind's GOP opponent, Derrick Van Orden, attended Pence's event, talking to attendees alongside U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany beforehand.

Pence's event was held at a time coronavirus cases are skyrocketing in Wisconsin and hospitalizations are at a record high. Crowd members and staff all wore masks inside the event and seating was spaced out.

Tiffany, who spoke to the crowd beforehand, said he has a good friend in intensive care with a coronavirus infection. He credited the Trump administration for approving therepurposed Ebola treatment Remdesivir, which he said his friend would have died without.

Ahead of the event, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwinripped the Trump administration's response to the pandemic and cited three areas of failure. She said the administration should have been "straight with the American people," created enforceable pandemic work standards on an emergency basisand unleashed "the full potential of the defense production act."

"Rather than saying, hey mayors, it's your responsibility, hey hospitals, it's your responsibility, hey states, it's your responsibility. And they're bidding against each other, being price gouged and it has done nothing to stem the short supply," she told reporters.

"If we could have right from the get-goreduced the transmission and then be at such a low number where every new case could be contact traced, quarantined, isolated, we wouldn't be where we are now," Baldwin said.

"In Wisconsin this past week we have had four of our record high days of positive tests. Four! We have more people in the hospital today in September, then we have at any other point in this pandemic," Baldwin said."If you hear me being quite emotional about it it's because I feel President Trump has been an utter failure in terms of this leadership on the pandemic."

Bill Glauber of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.

Contact Molly Beckat molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MollyBeck.

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Link:
Mike Pence rallies swing district voters in 4th recent campaign trip to Wisconsin - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel