Speaking with Spectrum News on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump expressed doubt that polls showing him trailing Vice President Kamala Harris in the key swing state of Wisconsin are accurate, claiming, “I think we’re perhaps up a lot.”

“You know, I've given big [ship-building] contracts to Wisconsin, you know, I gave the big one that every state wanted, I gave it to Wisconsin. And we do a lot for Wisconsin. I have a lot of friendships in Wisconsin. I think we're going to win Wisconsin,” Trump said, charging: “I think we are winning. I think we're leading. We've been leading with almost every poll Wisconsin. And again, I've given a lot of business to Wisconsin.”

In particular, Trump took onus with the New York Times/Siena College poll released over the weekend that showed him trailing Harris by four percentage points in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. His campaign put out a memo responding to the poll arguing that the well-respected pollsters “dramatically understated President Trump’s support.” Surveys from a variety of pollsters have shown Harris and Trump in a close race in the state, mostly recording a slim lead for the vice president, since she got in the race replacing President Joe Biden.

Notably, Trump also stopped himself from pushing the lie that he won Wisconsin in 2020, a false claim he continued to make as recently as May. Biden beat Trump in 2020 by around 20,000 votes in the state after Trump outran Hillary Clinton by a similar margin in 2016. 

“I think we’re going to win Wisconsin. We won it- did really well last time and in 2016, as you know, we won it,” Trump said. 

The former president also said he will “be coming to Wisconsin a lot” down the home stretch of this election. His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, is headed to Milwaukee on Friday for an event with the Milwaukee Police Association.

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — “the gentleman that's doing a terrible job from a place called Minnesota. I don't really speak about him much,” Trump told Spectrum News on Tuesday — were in Eau Claire last week. Milwaukee was the site of the Republican National Convention in July. 

“I'm so glad you brought up Milwaukee. It was a great convention. I think it was the best convention ever held. It was unified. It was beautiful. The arena was really nice. Milwaukee was 100%, there was literally no problem,” Trump said. “So I want to thank Milwaukee and everybody for doing such a good job. They really did. I spoke to the mayor, I thanked him, but Milwaukee was fantastic, everything from the arena to just everything. It could not have been better.”

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson is a Democrat who has campaigned with Harris, though he did advocate heavily to bring the RNC to his city for the economic investments that would come with it.

“[Trump's] candidacy seems to be floundering. There’s a lot of energy and a lot of excitement on the ground for Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz and their election prospects,” Johnson said in a separate interview with Spectrum News on Tuesday. “We’ve got a history in this state of having elections on a statewide level be decided on a razor’s edge. I mean, that’s how we do it in the state of Wisconsin, but I’ll tell you this: the fact of the matter is that Democrats have made strong and strategic and early investments to touch people and voters where they are.”

Trump appealed to Wisconsin voters, pointing to a federal contract worth as much as $5 billion to build frigates for the Navy that was awarded to Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Marinette, Wis., during the final year of his administration. And he argued his energy and economic policies would better serve Wisconsinites than those Harris has to offer. Harris has consistently addressed her vision for an economic agenda since rising to the top of the Democratic ticket — she frequently mentions fighting to lower costs and combat price gouging — but plans to go into detail in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday.

“I created a lot of jobs in Wisconsin, especially maybe with the ship building. But I created a lot of jobs with — we have the different trade agreements that I made with many many countries where Wisconsin is one of the biggest beneficiaries,” Trump said. “And we’re going to make sure they honor those trade agreements because now with Biden, they didn't honor so much of them and they should have, but they have no respect for the guy whatsoever, as you can imagine.”

As he has repeatedly during the campaign, Trump hit Harris for the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S.-Mexico border and immigration policy, claiming “she’s responsible for a very close to destruction of our country.” And he also said “she destroyed San Francisco when she was” district attorney, disparagingly describing her as a “San Francisco liberal.”

But he also hit her for backing the elimination of taxes on tips, a proposal Trump had pitched earlier in the campaign. Harris also proposed raising the minimum wage when she endorsed the policy last week in Nevada. On. Tuesday, Trump expressed annoyance that she was mimicking his proposal and suggested the Biden administration “viciously” cracked down on service workers who rely on tips.

“She could have done this four years ago. She could have done it three and two and one year ago, too. She never did it. And then, in fact, the opposite. They went after waitresses, they went after caddies and drivers. They went after all these people that make tips. You know, they make tips. And they went after them viciously,” Trump said. “She ought to call her plan the Trump plan, because basically that's what she's doing. But if she ever got into office, she wouldn't implement it.”

Trump’s campaign previously pointed to an IRS proposal from February 2023 that would establish a new “tip reporting program between the IRS and employers in various service industries.” The goal of the proposal would be to replace three previous tip reporting compliance programs and to better track tip reporting from businesses. It has not taken effect and would not change the existing legal requirements for taxes on tips if it was implemented. 

For Trump’s policy, he said he would encourage more domestic oil and gas extraction — he called it “liquid gold” — during his next administration and promote unspecified economic “growth” to make up for the loss in revenue from ending taxes on tips. The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated when Trump first proposed the policy that "exempting all tip income from federal income and payroll taxes would reduce federal revenues by $150 to $250 billion over ten years." 

“It's a lot of money, but not a lot of money in this kind of a situation,” Trump said. “I was talking to people, and the people that worked, and they were getting hurt by inflation, but we would make it up easily with growth. And in fact, even that would lead to some growth, but we will make it up easily with growth.”

Trump also opined on the Wisconsin Senate race between incumbent Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Madison businessman Eric Hovde, who Trump endorsed and who is likely to win the Republican primary on Tuesday. Hovde has poured $13 million into his own campaign, but polls show Baldwin has held a solid lead all year long, rising to a seven percentage point advantage among likely voters for Baldwin in the Times/Siena poll conducted last week. 

“Well, he's a good man, and I hope he wins,” Trump said. “Eric is a very talented guy, a very caring person, a person that loves Wisconsin like a lot, and I think he's going to do better than the polls are showing. He’s not doing badly, he’s right behind. But I think he should win and if he does win, that would be great."