Wisconsin Right Now

Of the record 14 million illegal border crossers reported under the Biden-Harris administration, more than 1.62 million are from four Countries of Particular Concern (CPC): China, Cuba, Nicaragua and Russia.

The U.S. State Department has designated CPCs for their policies of “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom,” which includes “torture, prolonged detention without charges, forced disappearance, or other flagrant denial of life, liberty, or security of persons.”

U.S. designated CPCs include Burma, the People’s Republic of China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. The CPCs of Cuba, North Korea, and Iran are also designated State Sponsors of Terrorism (SST).

U.S. Customs and Border Protection records nationality for every illegal border crosser but not all nationality data is published online. Of the 12 CPCs, CBP published apprehension and encounter data reported nationwide for four: China, Cuba, Nicaragua and Russia.

Published data is from fiscal years 2021-2024; a fiscal year begins Oct. 1 and ends Sept. 30. CBP CPC data under the Biden-Harris administration excludes data from the first three months of fiscal 2021 under the previous administration. It also excludes gotaway data, those who illegally entered and evaded capture, and those released through several parole programs.

More than 176,000 Chinese illegal border crossers

Under the Biden-Harris administration, the greatest number of Chinese illegal border crossers was reported nationwide in U.S. history of 176,038.

That’s up from nearly 160,000 The Center Square reported in June.

The greatest number was reported in fiscal 2024 of 78,701, up from 52,700 in fiscal 2023, 27,756 in fiscal 2022 and 16,881 for nine months in fiscal 2021.

Republican members of Congress have expressed alarm about national security threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party, Chinese intelligence outposts operating in the U.S., Chinese and other illegal border crossers breaching U.S. military bases, Democratic vice presidential candidate Minn. Gov. Tim Walz’s alleged ties to the CCP, among other concerns. The U.S. House also passed bills to counter the CCP threat.

Nearly 786,000 Cuban illegal border crossers

Under the Biden-Harris administration, the greatest number of Cuban illegal border crossers was reported nationwide in U.S. history of more than 786,000.

The most were reported in fiscal 2022 of 224,607, followed by 217,615 in fiscal 2024, 200,287 in fiscal 2023 and 33,876 in nine months in fiscal 2021. They total 676,385.

At least 110,000 inadmissable Cubans were released into the U.S. through a CHNV Parole Program, according to CBP data.

Republican members of Congress have demanded answers about Chinese spies operating out of Cuba targeting Americans, nonimmigrant visas expanded to Cubans “endanger[ing] our national security,” non vetting of SST diplomats, among other concerns.

More than 536,000 Nicaraguan illegal border crossers

Under the Biden-Harris administration, the greatest number of Nicaraguan illegal border crossers was reported nationwide in U.S. history of more than 536,000.

The greatest number was reported in fiscal 2022 of 164,600, followed by 138,729 in fiscal 2023, 91,049 in fiscal 2024 and 49,254 in nine months in fiscal 2021, according to the data. They total 443,632. At least 93,000 inadmissible Nicaraguans were released into the country through the CHNV Parole program, according to CBP data.

Both Cuban and Nicaraguan nationals have been released into the country by historic proportions due to a new CHNV parole program created by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. CHNV parolees are also being arrested nationwide for committing violent crimes against Americans, The Center Square reported.

Nearly 127,000 Russian illegal border crossers

Under the Biden-Harris administration, the greatest number of Russian illegal border crossers was reported nationwide in U.S. history of 126,683, with the most reported in fiscal 2023 of more than 57,000, according to the data.

This year, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified multiple times before Congress of increased terrorist threats, including from China, Iran, North Korea and Russia. Several federal agencies also warned about Russian cyberthreats targeting U.S. “critical infrastructure with disruptive and destructive cyber and physical attacks,” as west Texas municipal water systems were targeted by Russian hackers, The Center Square reported.

The total excludes data not published about 8 CPCs as well as CPC nationals released into the U.S. through the CBP One App and other parole programs.

Combined, illegal border crossers from these four CPCs, 1,625,738, total more than the individual populations of 11 states: Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming.

They are also the equivalent of more than 36 U.S. Army corps, with 45,000 soldiers in a corps, and roughly double the number of U.S. troops who served in Afghanistan for 20 years.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Senate race between incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin and Republican challenger Eric Hovde are nearly dead even, polls from Emerson College and Trafalgar Group showed.

The results are like a Quinnipiac poll of 1,108 likely voters showing the two candidates are too close to call.

The Emerson College poll of 800 likely Wisconsin voters had each candidate at 48% support in a poll conducted Oct. 21-22 through contacting the cell phones of potential voters (61% of respondents) and an online panel of voters (39%).

The Emerson poll had Donald Trump with 49% support and Kamala Harris with 48% in the state. Nearly 65% of the 1.2% of undecided voters said that they lean toward Harris while 35% lean toward Trump.

The poll showed that nearly 42% of voters believe the economy is the most important issue facing the state while 17% said threats to democracy, 10% said abortion access and 9% each said immigration and housing affordability.

Of those surveyed, 46% said they voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 while nearly 46% said they voted for Trump.

The Trafalgar Republican-based poll showed Trump with a 0.2% lead over Harris in the state with 1.9% undecided and Hovde with a 0.4% lead over Baldwin with 3.4% undecided among 1,083 respondents between Oct. 18-20.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Senate race between incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin and Republican challenger Eric Hovde is too close to call, according to a new Quinnipiac Poll.

Baldwin has 49% support amount the 1,108 likely voters polled from Oct. 17-21 while Hovde saw 48% of the support in a poll with a 2.9% margin of error, making it too close to call.

That’s a tightening from an Oct. 9 poll that showed Baldwin with 50% support compared to 46% for Hovde. The toss-up call is similar to how the Cook Political Report sees the race. The two faced off in what was expected to be their only debate Friday evening.

The Quinnipiac Poll has run since 1994 and uses a random sampling of adults using random digit dialing with live interviewers calling both cell phones and land lines.

The poll also showed Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are tied with 48% support from likely voters in the presidential race in the state. All third party candidates received less than 1% support.

That compares to an Oct. 9 poll that showed Trump with 48% support and Harris with 46% support in Wisconsin.

The poll shows that Wisconsin women back Harris 57% to 39% while men back Trump 59% to 38%.

It showed that Trump has 52% support compared to Harris’ 47% on the economy, 50% prefer Harris to Trump’s 47% on preserving democracy while 54% in Wisconsin prefer Harris to 40% for Trump on abortion.

Voters were split 48% to 48% on whether Harris is considered honest while 56% say Trump is not honest and 40% believe that he is.

Annual FBI crime victimization surveys show violent crime is up 10.4% and property crime is up 6.4% between 2019 and 2023.

Each year, the FBI releases headline crime report data for the calendar year prior, and a separate crime victimization survey that asks Americans what crimes they have been the victims of. Comparing these reports provides insight into crime reporting rates and the accuracy of crime statistics.

While earlier reporting demonstrated that theft is worsening and often underreported, the growing divergence between the FBI’s annual crime victimization survey and its tabulations of reported crime indicates worsening trends in theft.

However, recent changes in how crime reporting data is collected, along with anomalous 2020 COVID-era data and reporting, have muddied the waters.

The FBI set a January 1, 2021 deadline back in 2016 for agencies to transition from the paper-based Summary Reporting System, which reports each incident of crime with the worst crime committed in the incident, with the computer-based National Incident-Based Reporting System, which can log up to 10 crimes per incident. But 40% of law enforcement agencies didn’t make the change in time. This included most agencies in populous California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Florida, and the two largest agencies: New York Police Department and Los Angeles Police Department.

As a result, reported violent and property crime dropped 15.9% and 27.3% respectively between 2020 and 2021, while at the same time victimization for violent crime rose 0.9% and property decreased 3.3%. The ratio of reported violent crimes to victimization declined from 85.6% in 2021 to 71.4% in 2021, while that of property crimes declined from 51.6% to 38.8%, highlighting how the 2021 reported crime figures are the product of a muddled transition in data collection.

Data did improve for 2022 and 2023, with only 17% of agencies failing to submit at least three months of NIBRS data in 2022, and 16,009 agencies covering 95.2% of the national population reporting for 2023. The full 2023 data released at the end of September now shows that violent crime reporting rates — reports divided by victimizations — for property crime are back to 2019 levels, but that property crime reporting rates are 14.4% below 2019 levels, highlighting perceptions that Americans just aren’t reporting as much of the property crime that happens to them.

Newly released polling data on former President Donald Trump’s increased margins with Black and Hispanic voters mark a seismic shift in the electorate with just two weeks until Election Day.

A USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll released Monday found that nationally, Harris leads Trump by 1 point, well within the margin of error at 46% to 45%.

However, Trump significantly leads Harris with Hispanic voters and has made unprecedented gains among Black voters

The poll, which surveyed 1,000 likely voters between Oct. 14-18, shows that Trump leads Harris with Hispanics, 49% to 38%.

Harris also has 72% support among Black voters, which is much higher than Trump’s 17% support but much lower than other recent Democrats.

Previous Democrats like former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden received between 90-95% of Black voters’ support.

Black voters hold particular sway in the urban ares of key swing states like Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Detroit, Atlanta and others.

The increased Hispanic support is a boon to Trump as well, particularly in the southwest swing states of Arizona and Nevada, which is about one third Hispanic.

Notably, Biden received 58% support from Hispanic voters when he beat Trump in 2020.

Harris does much better with women while Trump does better with men, something other polls have shown.

The Center Square Voter’s Voice poll as well as The New York Times/Siena College polling from earlier this month showed Harris’ weakness with Black voters, sending shockwaves through the Democratic party and pushing Harris to roll out new efforts to curry favor with Black voters.

The latest polling shows so far she hasn’t had much success.

Trump spent the weekend at a Pennsylvania McDonalds, simultaneously courting voters in the swing state and mocking his opponent, who he says lied about having previously worked at a McDonalds.

“I’ve now worked [at McDonald’s] for 15 minutes more than Kamala,” Trump told bystanders and media at the McDonalds location.

Meanwhile, Harris fired back online saying that she worked there for a summer job and that Trump wouldn’t understand that since he received a sizeable inheritance from his father.

According to Real Clear Politics’ polling average, Trump leads in every single one of the seven closest swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

His leads, though, are all less than two points and within the margin of error for most polls.

Harris leads by between 4 and 7 percentage points in Minnesota, New Mexico and Virginia.

Trump holds a 7-point lead in Ohio.

With no more scheduled debates and two weeks of feverish campaigning, who will manage to build a slight lead remains to be seen.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin has seen 305,000 absentee ballots returned heading into the final two weeks before the election.

In-person absentee voting began Monday and runs through Nov. 3 at sites throughout the state. Voters can register in person at their local municipality and need to show valid identification to receive an absentee ballot.

The deadline for online and mail voter registration has passed.

Wisconsin provides information on in-person absentee voting based upon address on its MyVote site.

An updated list of ballot drop boxes shows that 107 drop boxes are in use throughout the state that have been reported to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, up from 78 that were listed a week ago.

That includes 14 in Madison, 14 in Milwaukee and seven in Racine.

There were 500 drop boxes in use for the 2020 presidential election during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wisconsin has sent out 586,616 absentee ballots of the 593,550 requested through Friday with 305,344 already returned.

Less than 48 hours before arrival in North Carolina and just over two weeks until Election Day, Donald Trump has become the first to clear the margin of error leading a presidential poll in the battleground state.

Trump leads Kamala Harris 51%-46% in the latest poll from Rasmussen Reports and American Thinker. The margin of error is +/- 3% with a 95% level of confidence in the sampling of 1,042 likely voters taken Oct. 9 through Monday.

Trump is slated for a visit to the East Carolina University campus in Greenville on Monday afternoon, where he’ll speak from Minges Coliseum. Pitt County was a 53.96%-44.51% win for the challenger Biden against the incumbent Republican in 2020, taking more than 47,000 of 87,573 votes.

Pitt was one of 10 counties, and the southern-most sans one, east of Interstate 95 he captured. The Maine to Florida connector is recognized as a bit of a divider for the state, with more populous areas toward the western two-thirds and plenty of rural socioeconomic challenges from it to the Atlantic Ocean.

Other key answers from the poll: Federal funding is favored 80%-12% for Americans impacted by disaster over “assistance for illegal aliens;” 70% prefer “major change” to “business as usual” in relation to the next president’s governing; and Harris, daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, is collecting 70% of Black voters as compared to 92% by Biden in 2020.

The top issues question in choosing a president or U.S. senator was led by the economy (33%), border security (17%) and abortion (12%). At 7% each were violent crime, climate change and government corruption. Education (5%) matched other (5%) and was just in front of not sure (4%) and global conflicts and war (3%). North Carolina does not have a Senate seat race this year.

On the question of “who is the biggest enemy America faces?” the Democratic Party got 27%, China 19%, the Republican Party 16%, Russia 15%, domestic extremists 9%, unsure 8%, and Iran 6%.

In 2020, Trump won North Carolina 49.9%-48.6% over the ticket of Biden and Harris. In 2016, Trump won the state 49.8%-46.2% over the ticket of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine. Trump outperformed the September and October polls each time.

North Carolina is one of seven consensus battleground states that collectively pivot 93 electoral college votes. Few prognosticators believe either candidate can win without the state or Pennsylvania, and perhaps need to take both.

Pennsylvania has 19 electoral college votes, North Carolina and Georgia 16 each, Michigan 15, Arizona 11, Wisconsin 10 and Nevada six.

The 78-year-old Trump has a 20-point platform, led by a return to enforcement of securing national borders. He chastises the Democrats for inflation that at 2.4% remains higher than when he left office in January 2021, yet is considerably lower than the 9.1% high of June 2022 in the era of Bidenomics. Energy independence and “manufacturing superpower” are also in his top five.

Harris, second in command to Biden and turning 60 on Sunday, says her top issues are an opportunity economy and lower costs for families. Tax cuts for the middle class, affordable rent and home ownership, and growth by small businesses also top her list. On abortion she favors federal regulation over state authority, meaning a return to Roe v. Wade.

Republicans own an unmistakable 14-cycle pattern in presidential elections. Since Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson carried North Carolina and won the presidency in 1964, only Democrats Jimmy Carter (1976) and Barack Obama (2008) have prevailed. Respectively four years later for each, they lost to Ronald Reagan and Mitt Romney.