Constituents more polarized over Paul Ryan than ever, reflecting Trump effect in Wisconsin

RACINE - Two of the most commonly heard opinions about Paul Ryan in his home district are:

He’s a nice guy.

He’s got an awful job.

It is striking how much his constituents — of all political stripes — have absorbed the tortured nature of Ryan’s position as House speaker dealing with a divided party and a lightning-rod president.

“Ryan is in a bad spot. He really is. What can he do?” said Racine retiree Jerry Ruud.

Yet voters who share this sense of their congressman’s plight are deeply divided in their response to it.

Some, like Ruud, give Ryan credit or cut him some slack. They view him as trying to negotiate an awkward and arduous path.

“He didn’t know he was going to get into the mess he’s in,” said Lila Schaefer of Oak Creek, who said she doesn't know how she will vote in Ryan's race next year. “He’s walking that line (of) ‘I don’t want to burn bridges on either side, I want to get things done, but I want to be elected again.' "

Others have little sympathy for Ryan’s trials as speaker because, in their minds, he has failed to “step up to the plate,” especially when it comes to President Donald Trump.

“Yeah, he does have a crap job, but I think he put himself up for the crap job,” said Tim Droster of Burlington. “I have a little bit more clarity (now) on what a chameleon he is.”

The Janesville Republican is widely seen as the favorite to win his 10th re-election bid next year in this GOP-leaning southeastern Wisconsin district.

But never have his constituents been more polarized over him. His speakership and his support for Trump have eroded the likability he long enjoyed among voters outside the Republican base, including many Democrats, liberals and moderates. Ryan has carried Democratic cities such as Kenosha and Janesville (his hometown) in many of his campaigns. That is very unlikely to happen next year.

The congressman’s support among Republicans back home remains broad, but for some pro-Trump voters, he’s not supportive enough of the president.

“He’s a little wishy-washy. He’s trying to appease everybody,” said Rick Burdick of Greendale, who plans to vote for Ryan but views him as part of a Republican old guard that is “pandering to the Democrats a little bit more than (they) should.”

The Ryan race is a test of the speaker’s ability to withstand what could be powerful national headwinds: the unpopularity of Trump, the poor image of Congress, the frictions in his party and public skepticism toward GOP plans on health care (which failed to pass) and taxes (which Republicans hope to enact in the coming weeks).

It is also a unique window into the Trump effect in Wisconsin, a state Trump narrowly won last year, but where Republican leaders and voters have sent mixed signals about him.

Trump lost the 1st District by almost 20 points in the state’s 2016 GOP primary — much bigger than his losing margin statewide. He came back and won the district by 10 points in the November election, but ran behind Senate Republican Ron Johnson (who won it by 14) and far behind Ryan (who won it by 34).

Trump’s approval rating in Ryan's district is more negative than positive this year, according to polling by the Marquette Law School. The district includes three Democratic cities (Janesville, Kenosha and Racine), a handful of purple, blue-collar towns close to Lake Michigan, and a lot of much redder turf.

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Those Republican communities include suburban areas where the Ryan brand is arguably more popular than the Trump brand, but also rural areas where Trump ran very strongly last year.

Assessing the “Trump effect” on Ryan is especially complicated because their relationship — and public perceptions of it — have shifted back and forth. Voters come in at least four varieties on this front: those who see Ryan in tandem with Trump and applaud it; those who see the same thing and abhor it; those who see Ryan maintaining some distance and are heartened; those who see the same thing and are annoyed.

At Fred’s Burgers in Burlington, some conservative voters praised Ryan for becoming more supportive of the president since the 2016 campaign, when he clashed with Trump.

“I think he’s come around,” said Cynthia Mullen of Lake Geneva.

But other Republicans praised Ryan for the opposite reason — independence from Trump.

“I think that’s what I like about him — that’s he’s not necessarily constantly pro-Trump and he does push back on some things,” said Heidi Erdmann of East Troy. “I think he’s doing a fantastic job. … I think being the speaker is tremendously difficult.”

The fiercest Ryan critics these days are anti-Trump voters, who in interviews used phrases such as “kissing his butt” and “sleeps with the devil” and “pussycat" to describe what they see as Ryan’s failure to stand up to Trump's rhetoric and behavior.

“I’d like him to tell (Trump) what he really thinks, which he usually doesn’t,” said Linda Brown, whose front door in Sturtevant is covered with Democratic bumper stickers.

“He’s made his bed,” said Droster of Burlington. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets very gray and old in the next few years."

Some of these voters are Democrats or independents who say they have sometimes voted for Ryan but now think he has changed or is caving to party pressure or is showing a side of himself they hadn’t seen before.

“I know that he is in a tough place,” said Ann Heide of Mount Pleasant, but “Paul Ryan is never getting my vote ever again.”

Eric Kramer, a financial analyst in Wind Point, said that after criticizing Trump during the campaign, Ryan “rolled over like a dog” when Trump got elected.

“I still think he’s a good guy deep down. He is shackled by the donors and by the climate that he’s in,” said Kramer. “He has to work with (Trump) so I kind of understand that. But there comes a point (where) you also have to have a backbone.”

Sympathetic or not, many voters on both sides display an almost clinical appreciation for the political complications of Ryan’s role: that being speaker is a career-ender, that Ryan didn’t want the job, that Trump wasn’t his candidate, that his party is divided, that Congress is dysfunctional.

Some take it as a given that Ryan disapproves of Trump — “He clearly does not like the guy,” said one — but consistently supports him now because his party demands it and he’s got to “play the game.”

Some GOP voters point to their own party’s divisions and dissenters, suggesting that Democrats are more team-minded.

Ken Reed, a retired plant manager in Racine, said he thought Ryan had a lot of virtues: "He’s honest, straightforward ... a man of great values and he tries real hard, it's just a very difficult time.”

Reed said he backs Ryan, but questioned whether he is the kind of leader that can corral wayward Republicans in Congress.

“I don’t think you’d ever accuse Ryan of being dynamic,” said Reed. "Do people gather behind him, and say, ‘We want you as the spearhead and we’re going to shoot through this?’ He doesn’t have that capability.”

“When you see Nancy Pelosi, you’re looking at daggers," said Burdick, the Greendale voter. "When you see Ryan, he’s patting (people) on the back. I think the daggers work a whole lot better.”

Ryan’s district was once evenly divided in its makeup but has become more GOP-friendly thanks to redistricting. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney won it by 4 points in 2012 despite losing statewide by 7.

Voters polarized that year along party lines over Ryan because of his presence on the GOP ticket, producing his closest re-election race. He went from winning his Democratic hometown of Janesville by 26 points in 2010 to losing it by 10. But he still won his district by almost 12 points.

To close that large gap, a great deal would have to go right for Democrats. They are hoping that Trump’s unpopularity and the GOP’s divisions demoralize the Republican base and produce a Democratic turnout advantage. Republicans are hoping that GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s presence on the ballot mobilizes the party’s base in southeastern Wisconsin, as it has since 2010.

The governor’s race isn’t the only X-factor in Ryan’s re-election. There is the huge electronics factory promised by Foxconn in Racine County, a project Ryan has promoted. Voters here voiced a mix of skepticism and hope about its economic impact, but Foxconn is likely to play a smaller role in Ryan’s race than Walker’s.

There is the performance of Congress between now and next November. That includes the GOP’s push for tax cuts, which has risks for Ryan whether it passes or not. In interviews, reaction to the Republican plan broke along party lines, but voters seemed a lot less engaged and plugged in on the issue of taxes than on health care.

There is the opposition. Ryan has two Democratic opponents: Cathy Myers, a school board member in Janesville, and Randy Bryce, a union ironworker in Racine who has drawn national backing and money from party activists. Ryan will have millions to spend on his campaign, but more money may be spent against him than ever before.

And finally, there are the next 11 months of the Trump presidency and how that affects perceptions of Ryan.

Not every constituent will be evaluating Ryan through a Trump lens, of course. Many will judge him on the policies he has pushed, the record of this Congress, his two decades in office and their personal perceptions of the man.

But this is Ryan’s first re-election as Republican speaker in a Republican presidency and we’ve already seen how the Trump factor can influence Ryan’s standing back home.

In 2016, when Ryan sparred with Trump, Ryan’s standing declined among Republican voters in Wisconsin, but rose among moderates, independents, liberals and Democrats, according to surveys by the Marquette Law School.

This year, with Trump in the White House and Ryan playing a more supportive role, the inverse has happened, resulting in Ryan's lowest statewide popularity ratings in years: 44% viewed him favorably and 44% unfavorably in a survey this past summer.

“When he has been a ‘congressman from Wisconsin,’ not necessarily ‘the speaker,’ he has benefited from relatively high Democratic approval ratings (for a Republican) in the state. But when we saw him become more of partisan figure in the 2012 race as the vice-presidential candidate, and where we see him (now) as speaker and especially speaker with the Trump administration, we’ve seen that partisan polarization grow,” said Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School poll.

One example of the Trump effect could be seen at Fred’s in Burlington, where three men were enjoying their burgers together at the bar as the television overhead showed the closing stages of another victory by the undefeated University of Wisconsin football team.

Asked by a reporter for their opinions of Ryan, two of the men immediately began arguing about Trump.

“I’m not trying to start a fight,” the reporter said, trying twice more, in vain, to bring the discussion back to their local congressman.

But the feud over Trump continued, laced with profanities. The friendly lunch mood ruined, one of the men finally called timeout.

“Why don’t we just drop politics?” he said.

Craig Gilbert is reporting an ongoing series on the shifting political landscape in Wisconsin after the state helped propel Donald Trump to the White House.