STOCKHOLM, Wis. On a cold, icy day in February, a couple dozen people were tucked into the Stockholm Pie and General Store, the heart of this tiny village along the Mississippi River. The gathering was actually sizable, considering the population of Stockholm is just 66.

Stockholm is right in Donald Trump country. Pepin County went for Trump by a solid 25 points in the last election, the first time it backed a Republican presidential candidate since 1972.

But Pepin County also voted for Democrat Tammy Baldwin by 3 percentage points, when she ran for Wisconsins open U.S. Senate seat in 2012. So for now, Pepin is also Baldwin territory, and the people who turned out on Presidents Day were there to meet with her and figure out how they can help her get re-elected in November.

Pepin is one of 13 unusual counties in Wisconsin that voted for Trump and Sen. Ron Johnson (R) in 2016; President Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012; Gov. Scott Walker (R) in 2010, 2012 and 2014; and Baldwin in 2012. More than any other place in the state, they have gone back and forth between parties in recent years.

Pepin County and other rural areas in the western part of Wisconsin may not seem like fertile land for one of the Senates most liberal members. But theyre key to Baldwins re-election strategy this year.

Tony Bowe, a dairy farmer in Chippewa Falls, is the type of voter Baldwin needs. Bowe voted for Trump, but he said hes also backing Baldwin, who has visited his farm in the past.

I think shes been working real well, especially trying to get the Dairy Pride Act passed through, Bowe said after a roundtable discussion on dairy farming in Altoona with Baldwin.

Bowe, who said he backed Trump because the Democrats didnt have a good candidate, chuckled when asked how he thinks the president is doing.

Its hard to say, he said. One day hes one way, the next day hes the other way.

Baldwin is not like most of her Democratic Senate colleagues who are up for re-election from states that went to Trump and are known as moderate or conservative Democrats.

The site FiveThirtyEight, which tracks how often members of Congress vote with Trump, found that Baldwin is near the bottom right along with Democratic senators from significantly bluer states such as Massachusetts, New York and California.

So when Trump was looking for Senate Democrats from states he carried to potentially cross the aisle and back the tax bill, he wasnt looking toward Baldwin.

If your solutions are progressive solutions, I think thats OK, Baldwin told HuffPost in an interview.

Wisconsinites in the western part of the state who like Baldwin, however, rarely mentioned her progressive bonafides when they were naming reasons they support her. Over and over, they said shes responsive and willing to work with others. She is, in other words, typically Midwestern nice. (Being nice is so prized that one woman at the Stockholm meet-and-greet objected to the term Minnesota nice, saying that state shouldnt get to own the quality.)

Her reaching out across the aisle to work on bills is really important...because that shows shes hopefully able to bridge that divide, said Todd Macklem, a teacher in Cameron who attended a gathering of local Democrats and grassroots activists for Baldwin in Rice Lake Monday night.