To the editor:

Visitors to our area see mainly Trump yard signs and assume that Copper Country voters are almost overwhelmingly for President Trump. This assumption is far from the truth.

This year I have been volunteering for Democrats, making over a thousand phone calls to voters in three western U.P.  counties: Houghton, Ontonagon, and Baraga). Many, many Biden voters from many ethnic and social backgrounds live in these counties. They live in very rural areas and college towns. Some have traditional names from several countries. Rural Finns can be the most articulate anti-Trump voters of all.

When I ask “strong Biden” voters if they’d like to have any yard signs, many answer that such signs would likely be stolen. Some say that their neighbors are so intolerant that Biden people feel it’s a bad idea to proclaim their preference for Democrats.  

Stealing yard signs is a denial of free speech. Theft of yard signs consists of two misdemeanors, one for theft and one for trespassing. Ironically, the once venerable Republican party is most associated with denying Americans’ freedom of speech.