'Didn't think my vote would count:' Voters weighing options, turnout expected to rise in 2020

MILWAUKEE -- The national Trump campaign is making overtures to black voters here in Milwaukeee. Feb. 29, the campaign hosts an event in Milwaukee called "Black Voices for Trump." The biggest voter turnout drops in 2016 were in the Milwaukee districts with the largest African-American populations.

James Smith

Will 2020 be another razor-close finish? In 2016, 40,000 fewer people voted in Milwaukee alone -- and President Donald Trump won the state by 23,000 votes.

"I didn't think my vote would count," said Milwaukee resident James Smith.

Smith voted for President Barack Obama in 2012, but sat out in 2016.

"I felt like a total idiot, you know, for not voting," Smith said. "I'm like, we could've changed lives."

The biggest drop from 2012 to 2016 in Milwaukee was in the 15th district, where voter turnout dropped 38%. But at Upper Cutz barbershop near 10th and North, folks stick their necks out on politics.

"I think Joe Biden, he would have been my pick, but I think his time is passed," Jeffrey Butler, a Milwaukee resident, said.

Jeffrey Butler

"All of this political big-money stuff, we don't see none of that," said Milwaukee resident Derrick McConaga. "We are out here in the hoods, in the inner cities, where things need to be changed. Like good drinking water, streets need to be fixed, stuff like that."

Milwaukee resident Rashad Lee is planning to vote again for President Trump.

Derrick McConaga

"Biden and Bernie (Sanders), the mass incarceration bill got a lot of my brothers locked up back in the days when Clinton passed it, so there's a lot of reasons why I won't vote for other candidates," Lee said.

And unlike in 2016, this time, Smith will pick up a ballot.

Rashad Lee

"You know I'm going for Bernie (Sanders)," said Smith. "If I ever decide to go back to school, he's the man, you know."

But first, Sen. Sanders has to make the cut in the Democratic Primary.

The Milwaukee Election Commission's Neil Albrecht told FOX6 News that he's optimistic that turnout may be good in 2020. That's because 2018 midterms saw more voters than the 2014 midterms. He blames the low turnout in 2016 to big changes made to voter registration and the state's voter ID law which went into effect then.