Wisconsin to hold first Assembly elections in November since redistricting

Elections for the Wisconsin State Assembly will take place in 2024. The general election is on November 5, 2024. The primary was August 13, 2024. The filing deadline was June 3, 2024. Wisconsin is is one of 44 states holding regular legislative elections across 85 of 99 state legislative chambers.

Four incumbents lost in the primaries. Three of those incumbents lost against other incumbent Assembly members following redistricting, and one incumbent lost to a member of the Wisconsin Senate who ran for the Assembly. Click here to learn more.

On Feb. 19, 2024, Gov. Tony Evers (D) signed Senate Bill 488 into law, adopting new Wisconsin legislative maps. Gov. Evers originally proposed the newly adopted legislative maps in 2021. Both chambers of Wisconsin’s state legislature approved the maps on Feb. 13. The Wisconsin Senate passed the new maps 18-14, and the Assembly passed the new maps 63-33.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Under the new boundaries, the state Assembly and state Senate will likely see more balance between the two parties. Republicans currently hold 64 out of 99 state Assembly seats under the Republican-drawn maps. Under the new state Assembly map, the districts are more evenly split. The new map has 46 districts that lean Republican and 45 districts that lean Democratic. The eight districts left are likely to be a toss-up between Democratic and Republican candidates.”

Ballotpedia identified 12 Assembly battleground districts. As of Sept. 8, CNalysis projected that the outcomes of each of these districts would be decided within a margin of 10 or fewer percentage points. Democrats represent two of these battleground districts and Republicans represent 10. Incumbents are running in nine of these races, while the other three are in open districts, meaning no incumbents are running. Click here to read more about the battleground elections.

Both the Republican State Leadership Committee and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee listed Wisconsin as a state in which they would prioritize state legislative elections this year.

Wisconsin has a divided government, since Democrats control the governorship while Republicans control both chambers of the Legislature. The outcome of the Assembly elections alone can not change Wisconsin’s trifecta status because Republicans also control the Senate.