Also, Racine really is driving distance from Milwaukee. The southern suburbs literally border Racine.
The factory is a dumb idea, but this is not the reason why.
The vast majority of Republican voters in WI live in a ring of suburban counties surrounding Milwaukee. Yes, some rural counties are also red, but the absolute numbers of voters there is tiny. Go to suburban MKE, you hit a sweet spot of attractive economics for FC and possible political impact for state Repubs.
[0] https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/population/southeastern.htm
Parent's observation that the WOW counties determine the statewide offices and electoral college vote allocation is absolutely accurate.
Oh, I misinterpreted the parent post's comment. Yeah, that's not true.
2016 was strange across the ballot in Wisconsin. Clinton was not a Wisconsin-friendly Democrat. The 2018 and 2020 elections will be interesting to watch. In general, it's a good rule of of thumb that getting things just right in WOW is one path to victory. There are other paths, of course, depressed turnouts being one of them.
You seem to be suggesting these locations are a political favor. But one is downtown (not suburban) Milwaukee, and the others are 150+ miles from Milwaukee. Not in that Charlie Sykes listening suburban ring of Milwaukee.
And anyway, the factory itself is near suburban Milwaukee so why would a downtown engineering (sales/business?) be a favor? And I'm not sure, but Racine is probably the least conservative county that touches Milwaukee.
As a sidenote, what kind of firms are up there? I'm familiar with madison and milwaukee, and know some companies in the Fox River Valley, but am not real familiar with Eau Claire and the surrounding area.
>“If, six months ago, you asked me, what would be the mix of labor? I would pull out the experience that we have in China and say, ‘Well, 75 percent assembly line workers, 25 percent engineers and managers,’” Woo said. But “now it looks like about 10 percent assembly line workers, 90 percent knowledge workers.”
1. the percentages changed because the total numbers dropped. I.e., it's not like there's going to be a ton of white collar jobs. It's more like there aren't going to be a ton of jobs, period.
2. And even then, this is a Foxconn representative who has every incentive to mis-characterize. They're basically just saying whatever they think is best to say at the moment. Not even 3 months ago they were pushing hard on an ad campaign about manufacturing jobs. Then the projected manu salaries dropped and now they're saying that the avg salary will be higher because we'll hire so many tech people. All while hoping (1) gets lost in the exchange.
2. If you're not from Wisconsin, why would you move to Wisconsin? There's nothing wrong with Milwaukee, BTW. Nice city. But there are dozens of other nice low-CoL cities in the USA, many with nicer weather and many still in the Midwest.
What? Eau Claire is 260 miles away from Racine. Green Bay is 150 miles. An Eau Clare location can attract people who want to stay near Minneapolis. And the Downtown Milwaukee location is a more desirable place to work to Milwaukee metro residents than out in Sturtevant, home of that one Amtrak stop.
You can't put a 4 square mile factory downtown, but I'm not sure why all your engineers have to work at the factory.
Also, lesser universities? They mean not Madison. But if you're ruling out Madison (maybe they figure a Madison to Milwaukee commute is reasonable), they seem like good choices. Maybe La Crosse lost out to Eau Claire because of proximity to Minneapolis?