Bernie Sanders, Buoyed by Poll, Sprints Through Wisconsin

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont spent Wednesday crisscrossing Wisconsin, hosting events in three cities and arguing that his stances on trade deals, campaign finance and foreign policy make him a stronger candidate than Hillary Clinton.

As a new poll showed him leading Mrs. Clinton by four points in the Badger State ahead of Tuesday’s primary, Mr. Sanders attacked her for supporting what he characterized as “disastrous” trade policies that led to thousands of Wisconsin jobs being shipped overseas and several factories closing or scaling back across the state.

Mr. Sanders also assailed Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican who has waged public feuds with progressive groups over several issues, including voter identification laws, union organizing, reproductive rights and cuts to educational programs.

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The senator began the day in Kenosha, Wis., speaking to a crowd of 2,750 at Carthage College. There and in later events, he took aim at Mrs. Clinton for her stances on trade policies like the North American Free Trade Agreement and cast himself as the best person to protect American workers from companies who would rather employ lower-paid workers abroad.

“Over the last 30, 40 years, we have had trade policies in this country written by corporate America, and what they have been designed to do is to allow companies to shut down plants in Vermont, in Wisconsin and all over this country because they don’t want to pay workers here $15, $20, $25 an hour,” Mr. Sanders said. “They don’t want to pay them a living wage. They don’t want to protect environmental rules. They don’t want to deal with unions. They’d rather move to Mexico or China, pay people pennies an hour.”

He went on to connect Mrs. Clinton to those companies, using a line of attack that worked well in Michigan, where he pulled off a surprising victory this month. “We are talking, over a period of years, of the loss of tens of thousands of good-paying jobs here in Wisconsin, millions of jobs throughout this country,” he said. “On all of these trade policies, Nafta, permanent normal trade relations with China, I not only voted against them, I help lead the opposition against them. On the other hand, over the years, Secretary Clinton has supported virtually all of these disastrous trade agreements.”

Mr. Sanders listed several companies in Wisconsin that he said had been affected by trade deals. He said Chrysler received billions of dollars in a bailout in 2009 but then shut down its Kenosha Engine Plant and cut 800 jobs, moving the operation to Saltillo, Mexico. He also pointed to the 2008 closing of the General Motors manufacturing plant in Janesville, which he said meant the city lost more than 2,800 jobs because the company moved the plant to Silao, Mexico.

In an effort to further appeal to voters, Mr. Sanders also assailed Mr. Walker for making changes to the state’s voter identification laws and urged his supporters to set a new voter turnout record for Wisconsin.

“We will win if the voter turnout is high. We will lose if the voter turnout is low,” Mr. Sanders told 1,678 people who came out to his Madison rally. “And I am asking that all of those people who have given up on the political process, who have turned their backs on politics and no longer vote, please come out. And I am asking the young people who maybe have never voted in their lives to please come out. Let’s send a very strong message to Governor Walker.”

Earlier in the afternoon, Marquette Law School released a poll showing that among likely voters in the Wisconsin Democratic primary, Mr. Sanders held a 49 percent to 45 percent edge over Mrs. Clinton.

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