I was a Wisconsin resident when another campaign made desperate last minute visits to the state. In 1992, campaign genius Mary Matalin had George H.W. Bush drop into the state about 5x in the last 6 days. His voice was gone, he looked haggard. I recall him on Larry King, live from Wisconsin on the Friday evening before the election. Earlier that afternoon Caspar Weinberger had been indicted in Washington, so that was the topic of the moment, and Bush seemed peeved and distracted. It was a miserable end to the miserable campaign, but Matalin thought that being in Wisconsin at the end would help. Result - Clinton won by 5%. Apparently the Bush campaign’s internals were confounded by Ross Perot’s presence.
May Barack Obama feel the same heartbreak in the Badger State in 2012!
Despite having voted for Dukakis in 1988, WI was one of 9 states that definitely would have gone to Bush instead of Clinton in 1992 had Perot not been on the ballot (the others were GA, MT, CO, NV, OH, NH, NJ and KY); IA, CT and ME would likely have been narrow Clinton wins, but had Bush won IA and CT, he would have gotten exactly 270 EVs.