Surrounded by food trucks, Ferris wheels and funnel cake stands on a hot August afternoon, Stephanie Soucek has one goal in mind.
The 42-year-old chair of the Republican Party in Door County, a bellwether district in the battleground state of Wisconsin, is at the county fair to urge undecided voters to cast a ballot for Donald Trump.
Upon meeting Tammy Conway, a Democrat who is considering voting Republican for the first time in decades, Ms Soucek begins talking about her own family’s two expensive car payments, an economic message that seems to resonate.
Ms Conway is concerned about “sky-high” housing interest rates and says Trump might make the economy “a lot less complicated”.
But as Ms Soucek lays out her case for the Republican presidential candidate, she avoids mentioning the latest spate of controversial remarks Trump has made, including personal attacks on Democratic challenger Kamala Harris.
“I try to tell people to focus on the policies and ignore the candidates,” she says, knowing that Trump’s brash personality has deterred women previously.
Republican officials in a handful of swing states – where the election is likely to be decided – are adopting Ms Soucek’s strategy of promoting policy over personality with white suburban female voters. It’s a pivotal voting bloc Trump narrowly won in his first presidential race but has struggled to appeal to since.
Local Republicans say they wish Trump would adopt a similar approach against Vice-President Harris, whose campaign has been powered by female voters since she replaced Joe Biden at the top of the ticket in July.
Read more at BBC.com
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