In Wisconsin, Real Battleground Is Rural WAUSAU, Wis. - The presidential candidates rarely trek this far north, but on election night, experts in the Wisconsin vote said, they would pay close attention to the vast region west and north of Green Bay, viewing it as a telltale of whether the state's political upheaval since 2010 has undermined President Obama's bulwark of support. The rural northwest may be the most volatile area of the state, where Mr. Obama flipped 19 counties from red to blue in 2008, all of which then shifted back, hard, in a Republican wave two years ago. On Wednesday, Barb Amsrud cast an early vote at City Hall here for Mitt Romney, a switch from her 2008 choice of Mr. Obama. "Honestly, I'm not totally crazy about Romney, but we have to do something because what we have now is not working," said Ms. Amsrud, 58, who works in health care. Moments later another early voter confided she switched to Mr. Obama after voting four years ago for Senator John McCain, his Republican rival. "This is a really hard vote for me," said the woman, who declined to give her name because she had come from an anti-abortion vigil outside a family planning clinic and did not want friends to learn of her vote. "This morning I thought I really have to vote for Romney, but I thought there's more than one issue," she said. Life is also people having health insurance. With recent polls sending mixed signals about this battleground state, the presidential candidates plan repeated visits before Election Day. Mr. Obama touched down on Thursday outside Green Bay, returning to full campaign mode after Hurricane Sandy, and Mr. Romney is due at a rally near Milwaukee on Friday. "If you're willing to work with me again and knock on some doors with me, make some phone calls for me and turn out for me," Mr. Obama told supporters on Thursday, "we'll win this election." A poll by Marist, NBC News and The Wall Street Journal of likely Wisconsin voters released Wednesday showed Mr. Obama favored 49 to 46 percent over Mr. Romney, within the margin of sampling error. The Obama campaign argues that the electoral map is on their side, with the president retaining an advantage in a firewall of Midwestern states, including Iowa, Ohio and Wisconsin, enough to secure his re-election. But Mr. Romney's campaign calls that wishful thinking. In Wisconsin, it points to continuing momentum from the 2010 Republican tsunami that swamped Democratic stalwarts in the Senate and the House, plus elected Gov. Scott Walker, whose restrictions on public employees" unions inspired a recall effort this year, which failed. "Intensity is what wins elections in Wisconsin," said Ben Sparks, a spokesman for the Romney campaign in the state, predicting that enthusiasm for Mr. Walker would carry forward to Nov. 6. But Mr. Walker's seven-point margin of victory in the June recall has not fully carried over to Mr. Romney. Analysts said the parties" efforts to turn out their bases - Democrats focused on Milwaukee and Madison, Republicans on the Milwaukee suburbs - while important, would more or less balance each other out. That leaves the race in the hands of voters in less partisan areas with a history of swinging between parties. About half of such voters, 20 percent of the total state electorate, live in the northwest quadrant. The population is rural, working class and almost entirely white. It's a region "nobody ever bothers to go to, where the vote swings the most," said Paul Maslin, a Democratic pollster in Madison. If Romney wins, it'll be because he made major inroads there. If Obama wins, it'll be because he holds more of the 2008 vote. In Wausau, which may be best known nationally for a train depot that appears in the logo of the Wausau Insurance Company, passions ran high among early voters at City Hall. Heather Brimacombe, 42, a mother of four, voted for Mr. Romney because she does not believe taxes should be raised to pay for programs that, in her view, encourage dependency. "The folks who work the system, didn't go to school, stay on food stamps - I'm expected to pull the weight for them?" she said. No, that doesn't make sense. Sue Ast, also 42, who works for a national retail chain, said, "It's been a rough couple of years for us." Her husband, Dan, quit working because of health problems and a daughter entered college. A Romney administration means "four years to keep the rich richer and the poor poorer," said Mr. Ast, 54. You'll have no middle class. Both campaigns call this election the most important in a generation, which can sound like boilerplate. But many voters agreed. "I got a catch in my throat when I filled in my vote because I felt this was so critical," said Michelle Mercier, 55, a church administrator, who voted for Mr. Romney. Her eyes filled with tears. "I don't know if I've ever made such an important vote," she said, pulling out a tissue. Probably a lot of my Democratic friends feel the same way.