Will rural America respond to Biden’s call for masks?

A second spike in U.S. coronavirus cases has been led by places like Wisconsin’s Shawano County. The region is a test of whether behaviors will change under new circumstances – and a new president.

As coronavirus cases swept through the rural communities of the upper Midwest this fall, more people here began to wear masks and stay home, say residents of Shawano County, one of the hardest hit counties in Wisconsin.

Richard Kucksdorf was not one of them. An Iraq War veteran and head of the Shawano County Republican Party,...