For much of America’s history, the patch of green just to the west of Lake Michigan was best known for cows, beer, and Lambeau Field. Today, as the 2024 presidential race rumbles toward November, Wisconsin is a jewel in the Electoral College crown as one of the seven swing states.
Alongside Arizona , Georgia , Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, Wisconsin is a hotly contested battleground state expected to swing red or blue by the slightest of margins. Ignoring Wisconsin is often highlighted as one of the key errors former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made en route to losing the 2016 election to former President Donald Trump, so both presidential tickets will frequent America’s Dairyland between now and Election Day.
Democrats took Wisconsin in five of the last six presidential races, with Trump winning by less than 1 percentage point in 2016. However, three of those blue wins also came by less than 1 point, with former President Barack Obama’s victories being the exceptions in 2008 and 2012.
According to Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette University Law School Poll, the most referenced polling organization in the state, both parties will spend millions to win a state teetering on a knife’s edge.
“Throughout the current campaign, our numbers have had it between tied or 2 points up for Trump or 2 points up for [President Joe] Biden,” Franklin said. “Our most recent polls show Trump up by 1 point with registered voters, but [Vice President Kamala] Harris is up 50% to 49% with likely voters.”
Franklin reported that, even after Biden’s disastrous first 2024 debate performance, Trump’s Wisconsin lead peaked at only 4 points.
Craig Gilbert recently retired as the Washington bureau chief and national political reporter for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the state's largest newspaper. He has covered every presidential campaign since 1988 and described a deeply divided state dominated by an entrenched rural vs. urban divide. Democrats dominate the state’s two major population centers of Milwaukee and Madison, but the red deepens as the analysis moves from those cities.
“There’s a big urban-rural divide that’s been growing over time, but there’s some nuance there,” Gilbert said. “There was a time when Democrats could still be competitive amongst rural voters and Republicans were strong with suburban voters around Milwaukee. Both of those statements are less true today.”
Gilbert’s description doesn’t ease the pressure on both parties as the ground Democrats might pick up in the suburbs can be offset by Republican support stiffening in the state’s western and northern regions.
Back at Marquette, Franklin said the divide is heavy enough to make Wisconsin strongly Republican overall, with the obvious Milwaukee and Madison exceptions remaining the Democrats' safe havens. Still, he agrees with Gilbert that the Milwaukee suburbs are a key swing area as they shift to the left.
“Those suburbs cast 37,000 fewer less votes for Republicans in 2020 than they did in 2012,” he reported. “And 37,000 votes are a lot in a state decided by 21,000 in 2020.”
With less than three months remaining in the race, Gilbert saw no one voting issue unique to Wisconsin, as the same major discussions drive its voters that propel the national scene.
“Obviously, the economy is at the top of the list, with immigration and abortion closely behind,” Gilbert explained. “Abortion is a particularly hot issue in Wisconsin because of its preexisting state laws. That issue played a role in recent state Supreme Court elections that turned the court left.”
Abortion was made legal in Wisconsin in September 2023 for the first time since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court decision in June 2022. Franklin’s polls show abortion is still the major issue for Democrats.
Vicki McKenna, a conservative talk radio host at Milwaukee’s WISN and self-proclaimed "right-wing hippie," made it clear that the economy is far and away the major topic on her listeners' minds.
“Inflation and the economy are the No. 1 issue motivating Wisconsin voters, period,” McKenna said. “What is not happening is an intuitive connection between government policy and people's current economic conditions. You have to explain that to people.”
Unlike Franklin and Gilbert, McKenna doesn’t see the urban vs. rural separation as a major factor beyond the media’s influence.
“There really isn't an ‘urban-rural’ split in our state,” she added. “It’s a ‘media metro’ vs. outstate divide. Very generally, the further you get away from media centers like Madison and Milwaukee, the more likely voters are to blame government for the problems of this economy. That makes them more likely to be Trump supporters.”
Focusing on Wisconsin’s southern regions, including larger population centers and former manufacturing meccas such as Milwaukee, Racine, and Kenosha, along with the "WOW" counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington, McKenna blamed left-wing media influence for blocking a Republican campaign focusing on inflation.
“The economy is also the most important issue where the major media metro is,” she added. “But Democrats' divisive messaging is effective there. And of course, Democrats control media to the point of exclusion.”
If the Wisconsin race goes to the Democrats again this year, McKenna will lay the blame at the Republicans' door for not being as active as in recent cycles.
“Our Republican-controlled legislature, which used to be quite activist and was a natural buoy to Republican candidates statewide, has ossified quite a bit,” she complained.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
As in so many elections, the fight over Wisconsin will come down to voter turnout. As Franklin pointed out, more than 60% of the state’s voters still wait until Election Day to make their choices official. While the Trump vs. Biden option left the state’s voters cold, Harris’s entrance to the race changed all of that.
“We don’t poll enthusiasm on willingness to vote for an individual candidate,” Franklin explained. “We look at overall enthusiasm to vote in November, and we saw it running 15% to 20% behind where it was in the same months of 2020 before the Harris effect. We found a 20-point rise in interest from Democrats in July and a 7% increase for Republicans and independents — and we see no sign that 2024 will be anything but as close as ever.”
John Lewinski, MFA, is a writer based in Milwaukee.
Most Popular
Comments / 0