‘In the trenches’: Wisconsin’s struggling small businesses could turn a Trump ally’s district blue

Wisconisn Democratic congressional candidate Rebecca Cooke and congressman Derrick Van Orden. Composite: Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenWisconisn Democratic congressional candidate Rebecca Cooke and congressman Derrick Van Orden. Composite: Getty ImagesAmerican crossroadsUS midterm elections 2026‘In the trenches’: Wisconsin’s struggling small businesses could turn a Trump ally’s district blueAffordability and small businesses’ economic woes feature heavily in the House race for Wisconsin’s third district

Rachel LeingangTue 3 Nov 2026 06.00 ESTLast modified on Tue 3 Nov 2026 18.34 ESTSharePrefer the Guardian on GoogleAfter 18 years in business, Erin Klaus is closing her storefront, a handmade artisan market in downtown Eau Claire, Wisconsin, at the end of the year.

She opened Tangled Up in Hue amid a recession, during a time when downtown was “kind of a ghost town”, weathering construction and the pandemic. But the current economic crisis proved too much. She’s seen a downward trend in sales for two years, and was dipping into her own pocket from her other job, as the executive director of business non-profit Downtown Eau Claire Inc, to pay staff.

“This is the first time it’s out of my control to save my business,” she said. “It just feels so desperate right now for a lot of our small business owners … From the tariff wars to inflation to cost of living to healthcare, I mean, honestly, there’s no money left in the bucket at the end of the day for regular folks and, unfortunately, that means our regular folks who run businesses, too, are just not able to kind of hang on any longer.”

These economic woes feature heavily in the toss-up race for the US House of Representatives in western Wisconsin’s third district, where Eau Claire is located. Republican incumbent Derrick Van Orden has stuck closely to Donald Trump and defended the administration’s record, while Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke is making a third run at the seat by tapping into, and commiserating with, economic despair among working people, farmers and business owners.

Communities like Eau Claire are losing small businesses as people are getting pinched financially and don’t have the extra funds to spend, even if they wanted to, Klaus said. The culture of consumerism changed during the pandemic as well, with people wanting quick, online options. Tariffs on, in her case, T-shirts, forced her to eat the added cost. Healthcare subsidies on the Affordable Care Act marketplace weren’t extended. A paid parking program downtown felt like the final straw. Klaus knows she’s not alone among small business owners.

View image in fullscreenA cutout of Donald Trump stands propped in the corner as the US House Speaker, Mike Johnson, campaigns for Derrick Van Orden on 29 October 2026 in Platteville, Wisconsin. Photograph: John Moore/Getty ImagesThe messages coming from the Trump administration seem to insist that these economic conditions aren’t happening, or aren’t affecting people like her, to the degree they are, Klaus said. It feels “almost like we’re getting mocked for the hardships that we’re enduring”.

Other small business owners in the district say they’re struggling, too. Amy Burke Lepper, the owner of One Of A Kind Interior Design in Chippewa Falls, has worked with a cabinet maker in Canada for more than two decades, and now those cabinets have added tariffs. A couple of her clients have put off building homes because of costs right now, she said. Her retail shop, Lagom, has been “remarkably slow”. She has no health insurance for the first time in her life because the cost rose from over $1,000 per month for her and her husband to nearly $3,000.

She doesn’t plan to close her business but she decided to speak out about the struggles she’s facing so that people understand how federal policies are affecting small businesses like hers.

“I’m one person, and I know this is affecting everybody else and waking people up to the fact that, you don’t understand that’s why your prices are higher. It’s because of these things. It’s not a magic thing,” Burke Lepper said.

As weeks and months of campaigning have given way to the final days and hours before Tuesday’s US midterm elections, rising prices and affordability have created competitive races in unexpected places. Democrats and independents have found a lane in rural areas stretched thin by gas costs, fertilizer increases, tariffs and healthcare cuts, though the third district was always expected to be competitive.

Before Van Orden’s win in 2022, Democrat Ron Kind had represented the district for more than 20 years. The district, made up of mostly rural and suburban areas, backed Barack Obama twice, then Trump three times, but also sometimes for Democrats elsewhere on the ballot. Tens of millions of dollars in outside spending has poured into the race from both sides.