Why Biden will win Wisconsin

[walleye26]

Obviously Wisconsin will be very close, but I think that Biden will ultimately win Wisconsin. There are several factors involved in this. I am listing them in no particular order.

The first is that many parts of rural Wisconsin, while not maxed out for Trump, can’t get too much more red. Places like Taylor County are already 75-25 GOP, and places like Marinette, Rusk, Langlade, Shawano, Clark, etc already are voting 70/30 Trump. There just simply are not a lot of places for Trump to squeeze out of rural Wisconsin; rural Wisconsin is not rural Alabama; Trump won’t win it by 80 points. There are a combination of enough 1) retired Chicago/Illinois/Twin Cities liberals that have lake homes in places like Hayward, Spooner, and Rhinelander 2) Native Americans and 3) remote workers to hold most of rural Wisconsin from dropping off completely for Dems.

Second, shifts are bad for the GOP in both WOW and BOW. Republicans have seriously lost ground in eastern Waukesha and Ozaukee counties in a big way. Additionally, inner ring suburbs such as Greenfield, Franklin, and Hales Corners in MKE county have moved solidly left too. This isn’t just Trump, but Evers did well there in 2022, and Barnes actually cracked 37% in Waukesha and 42% in Ozaukee. Often overlooked, but critically important, are the Fox Valley suburbs. Evers only lost Brown by 4%, and Democrats flipped places like De Pere and significantly improved in places like Bellevue and Howard. If Trump loses any support in BOW or WOW, it’ll be very hard to make that up elsewhere.

Third, Dane County’s growth is stupid. It’s crazy how many people are moving there, many of them Democratic leaning. Although much smaller, St Croix County and Eau Claire are growing solidly too, with St Croix being some blue spillover from the Twin Cities.

Lastly, Wisconsin actually got fair state legislative maps this year. Democrats are investing a lot to try to flip the state assembly (the senate is still out of reach). This will likely help with Democratic turnout, and I can’t explain how much of a dumpster fire the WisGOP is right now. Despite having billions of dollars in state surplus, the GOP refuses to find Wisconsin schools and they are going to referendums to try to avoid shutting down. The GOP refused to expand abortion access, marijuana, and are constantly infighting (see Robin Vos recall effort). This is unlikely to stop anytime soon.

Thoughts?

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Of course he will it's a 303 map

[heatcharger]

Wisconsin is the friendliest battleground state for Biden.

[Oregon Eagle Politics]

Of course he will it's a 303 map

Doubt it. Having 0 states flip in either direction would be unprecedented.

[Steve from Lambeth]

I love how walleye is out here with a detailed multi-paragraph analysis of the factors that could help Biden in Wisconsin while olawakandi is like "Of course he will it's a 303 map"

[Pres Mike]

Of course he will it's a 303 map

Doubt it. Having 0 states flip in either direction would be unprecedented.

George Washington says hello

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Wisconsin is a swing state that purely comes down to turnout. In some ways, it's good because we know its going to be pretty damn close, but also its borderline impossible to predict turnout like we can with margins. So I guess let's just say for example the turnout is the same as 2020. Not neccesarily the same amount of raw votes, but the same proportion per county.

Even if Biden gets JANET margins in Dane, and the three WOW counties, that only puts the state around 2.5ish for Biden. All Trump has to do is swing the rest of the state 4 points in his favor to narrowly eeke out a win, and that doesn't even include Milwuakee! But Janet was probably the absolute ceiling for WI Dems. If Biden gets Evers margins in those places, Trump only needs to swing the rest of the state (not-including Milwuakee) by 3.

However, this assumes we get 2020 turnout rates. If the rural part of the state stays home, but the Dem engine comes out in Dane, then Biden can start running away with the state.

Barring that though, the state is going to be tight but Trump has more upside here than Biden, and the more I look at it I think he has better odds in Wisconsin than even Georgia now.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Wisconsin is a swing state that purely comes down to turnout. In some ways, it's good because we know its going to be pretty damn close, but also its borderline impossible to predict turnout like we can with margins. So I guess let's just say for example the turnout is the same as 2020. Not neccesarily the same amount of raw votes, but the same proportion per county.

Even if Biden gets JANET margins in Dane, and the three WOW counties, that only puts the state around 2.5ish for Biden. All Trump has to do is swing the rest of the state 4 points in his favor to narrowly eeke out a win, and that doesn't even include Milwuakee! But Janet was probably the absolute ceiling for WI Dems. If Biden gets Evers margins in those places, Trump only needs to swing the rest of the state (not-including Milwuakee) by 3.

However, this assumes we get 2020 turnout rates. If the rural part of the state stays home, but the Dem engine comes out in Dane, then Biden can start running away with the state.

Barring that though, the state is going to be tight but Trump has more upside here than Biden, and the more I look at it I think he has better odds in Wisconsin than even Georgia now.

Early voting in WI, PA and MI went 2/1 and Provisions ballots to Biden we always have the edge in Early voting in 303 states

[ProgressiveModerate]

Wisconsin is a swing state that purely comes down to turnout. In some ways, it's good because we know its going to be pretty damn close, but also its borderline impossible to predict turnout like we can with margins. So I guess let's just say for example the turnout is the same as 2020. Not neccesarily the same amount of raw votes, but the same proportion per county.

Even if Biden gets JANET margins in Dane, and the three WOW counties, that only puts the state around 2.5ish for Biden. All Trump has to do is swing the rest of the state 4 points in his favor to narrowly eeke out a win, and that doesn't even include Milwuakee! But Janet was probably the absolute ceiling for WI Dems. If Biden gets Evers margins in those places, Trump only needs to swing the rest of the state (not-including Milwuakee) by 3.

However, this assumes we get 2020 turnout rates. If the rural part of the state stays home, but the Dem engine comes out in Dane, then Biden can start running away with the state.

Barring that though, the state is going to be tight but Trump has more upside here than Biden, and the more I look at it I think he has better odds in Wisconsin than even Georgia now.

Yeah WI turnout is really interesting. Dane County tends to always have high turnout so if turnout is up statewide - it could actually be bad for Biden since there's only so much more to juice out of Dane.

To be fair Dem parts of Milwaukee tend to be some of the lowest turnout in the state - but much of that is heavily non-white areas where getting turnout up is generally harder and where non-voters may not be as favorable to Biden.

I think what happens in a lot of these smaller cities like Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh, Stevens Point, Ew Claire, Kenosha, Racine ect will be key to if Trump can flip the state. In 2020, these cities and their immediate surroundings generally swung left and if they do so again I see Trump's path to victory becoming very hard, even if he gains notable ground in rural WI.

[ProgressiveModerate]

The Dane growth thing you could see in 2022 - it's how turnout there was so close to 2020 Pres. If one analyzes the 2022 results, they'll see a pretty substantial ring of precincts around Madison proper that saw their raw vote totals increase 2020-->2022. That was almost certainly a result of growth.

[Tekken_Guy]

Wisconsin is a swing state that purely comes down to turnout. In some ways, it's good because we know its going to be pretty damn close, but also its borderline impossible to predict turnout like we can with margins. So I guess let's just say for example the turnout is the same as 2020. Not neccesarily the same amount of raw votes, but the same proportion per county.

Even if Biden gets JANET margins in Dane, and the three WOW counties, that only puts the state around 2.5ish for Biden. All Trump has to do is swing the rest of the state 4 points in his favor to narrowly eeke out a win, and that doesn't even include Milwuakee! But Janet was probably the absolute ceiling for WI Dems. If Biden gets Evers margins in those places, Trump only needs to swing the rest of the state (not-including Milwuakee) by 3.

However, this assumes we get 2020 turnout rates. If the rural part of the state stays home, but the Dem engine comes out in Dane, then Biden can start running away with the state.

Barring that though, the state is going to be tight but Trump has more upside here than Biden, and the more I look at it I think he has better odds in Wisconsin than even Georgia now.

Where in Wi do you think Biden will be weakest relative to 2020?

[Progressive Pessimist]

Of course he will it's a 303 map

Doubt it. Having 0 states flip in either direction would be unprecedented.

That doesn't mean it can't happen.

[OSR stands with Israel]

The Republicans still have a lot more they can gain in SW WI

[Tekken_Guy]

The Republicans still have a lot more they can gain in SW WI

Who are these voters in SW WI who didn’t vote for Trump in either of his past two runs but are open to doing so this time?

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Another thing is a lot of growth in WOW is actually people who moved from Milwaukee. So while the R margin decreases there it doesn't really affect the statewide result.

Wisconsin is a swing state that purely comes down to turnout. In some ways, it's good because we know its going to be pretty damn close, but also its borderline impossible to predict turnout like we can with margins. So I guess let's just say for example the turnout is the same as 2020. Not neccesarily the same amount of raw votes, but the same proportion per county.

Even if Biden gets JANET margins in Dane, and the three WOW counties, that only puts the state around 2.5ish for Biden. All Trump has to do is swing the rest of the state 4 points in his favor to narrowly eeke out a win, and that doesn't even include Milwuakee! But Janet was probably the absolute ceiling for WI Dems. If Biden gets Evers margins in those places, Trump only needs to swing the rest of the state (not-including Milwuakee) by 3.

However, this assumes we get 2020 turnout rates. If the rural part of the state stays home, but the Dem engine comes out in Dane, then Biden can start running away with the state.

Barring that though, the state is going to be tight but Trump has more upside here than Biden, and the more I look at it I think he has better odds in Wisconsin than even Georgia now.

Where in Wi do you think Biden will be weakest relative to 2020?

The driftless swung R in 2020 and Wisconsin even trended R in 2020 which should be somewhat worrying to Biden.

[Malarkey Decider]

I agree with points 2,3 and 4.
However, as Arizona Iced Tea said, I think it's very possible that Driftless / Rural Areas shift further to the right.

To Illustrate this, I would compare two counties right across the border from each other: Allamakee County, Iowa and Crawford County, Wisconsin. These two counties have similar populations (13k to 17k), racial demographics (89% and 94% White) and Educational Levels (51.5% and 48% No College), yet there is a major gap in voting patterns, with Allamakee being Trump+29 and Crawford being Trump+8.

You are correct in that rural Wisconsin will never be as red as rural Alabama, but it might get close to being as red as Iowa or other comparable rural northern areas.


On the other hand, one possible plus for Biden is that Kenosha will probably not deviate like it did in 2020 because of the riots. Similar areas shifted to Biden by like 4%, but Kenosha swung right by 4% (And Racine had no swing). I suspect that if the protests/riots hadn't of occurred, Biden would have netted 10k more votes from these two counties and pushed his statewide margins above 1%. I think he may get many of those voters in 2024.

[BlueSwan]

Obviously Wisconsin will be very close, but I think that Biden will ultimately win Wisconsin. There are several factors involved in this. I am listing them in no particular order.

The first is that many parts of rural Wisconsin, while not maxed out for Trump, can’t get too much more red. Places like Taylor County are already 75-25 GOP, and places like Marinette, Rusk, Langlade, Shawano, Clark, etc already are voting 70/30 Trump. There just simply are not a lot of places for Trump to squeeze out of rural Wisconsin; rural Wisconsin is not rural Alabama; Trump won’t win it by 80 points. There are a combination of enough 1) retired Chicago/Illinois/Twin Cities liberals that have lake homes in places like Hayward, Spooner, and Rhinelander 2) Native Americans and 3) remote workers to hold most of rural Wisconsin from dropping off completely for Dems.

Second, shifts are bad for the GOP in both WOW and BOW. Republicans have seriously lost ground in eastern Waukesha and Ozaukee counties in a big way. Additionally, inner ring suburbs such as Greenfield, Franklin, and Hales Corners in MKE county have moved solidly left too. This isn’t just Trump, but Evers did well there in 2022, and Barnes actually cracked 37% in Waukesha and 42% in Ozaukee. Often overlooked, but critically important, are the Fox Valley suburbs. Evers only lost Brown by 4%, and Democrats flipped places like De Pere and significantly improved in places like Bellevue and Howard. If Trump loses any support in BOW or WOW, it’ll be very hard to make that up elsewhere.

Third, Dane County’s growth is stupid. It’s crazy how many people are moving there, many of them Democratic leaning. Although much smaller, St Croix County and Eau Claire are growing solidly too, with St Croix being some blue spillover from the Twin Cities.

Lastly, Wisconsin actually got fair state legislative maps this year. Democrats are investing a lot to try to flip the state assembly (the senate is still out of reach). This will likely help with Democratic turnout, and I can’t explain how much of a dumpster fire the WisGOP is right now. Despite having billions of dollars in state surplus, the GOP refuses to find Wisconsin schools and they are going to referendums to try to avoid shutting down. The GOP refused to expand abortion access, marijuana, and are constantly infighting (see Robin Vos recall effort). This is unlikely to stop anytime soon.

Thoughts?

Always interesting to read breakdowns like this so thank you for that.

However, I do think that one should be very careful about drawing too many conclusions from that. Wisconsin is gonna be super close yet again and ultimately turnout will decide the election. Since Biden is the current president it will "all else being equal" be harder to energize the anti-Trump turnout which ensured Bidens victory in 2020.

Regarding Dane County you say that a lot of D leaning people are moving to Dane. But that would mean fewer D leaning people elsewhere, so it should only be a net gain for Dems if those D leaners are moving to Dane from other states. Whether this is the case or not I have no idea.

I think the general idea that a candidate is "maxed out" in certain areas is problematic. First up there are still a lot of WWC's who are voting democratic and haven't gotten the memo that the GOP is now their party (not saying this is at all true, but that is the feeling amongst many WWCers). Second, this ignores the effects of social pressure. In areas that are totally dominated by one party, I think it is more likely that social pressure turns that area even more towards that one party, than the opposite happening.

Anyway, I am definitely not calling this either way. I am on record for stating that WI/MI/PA is THE path to reelection for Joe Biden, so I do believe that this is his best chance. But I also believe that it is going to be a tough win if he pulls it off.

[Tekken_Guy]

I agree with points 2,3 and 4.
However, as Arizona Iced Tea said, I think it's very possible that Driftless / Rural Areas shift further to the right.

To Illustrate this, I would compare two counties right across the border from each other: Allamakee County, Iowa and Crawford County, Wisconsin. These two counties have similar populations (13k to 17k), racial demographics (89% and 94% White) and Educational Levels (51.5% and 48% No College), yet there is a major gap in voting patterns, with Allamakee being Trump+29 and Crawford being Trump+8.

You are correct in that rural Wisconsin will never be as red as rural Alabama, but it might get close to being as red as Iowa or other comparable rural northern areas.


On the other hand, one possible plus for Biden is that Kenosha will probably not deviate like it did in 2020 because of the riots. Similar areas shifted to Biden by like 4%, but Kenosha swung right by 4% (And Racine had no swing). I suspect that if the protests/riots hadn't of occurred, Biden would have netted 10k more votes from these two counties and pushed his statewide margins above 1%. I think he may get many of those voters in 2024.

Yes, Trump might inch up a few points in some of these counties but I doubt it’ll have another massive rightward lurch like from 2012-2016. Who are all the Clinton/Biden voters ready to swing hard R in the Driftless area?

[Annatar]

I think WI will be close, there is an argument it is easier to flip for Trump though which is that there is more ground to gain among non college whites. In WI Trump won them by 11%, 55-44, in MI his margin was 17% and in PA it was 23%. Mathematically gaining with non college whites is the easiest in WI out of the 3 states.

Trump won non college whites by 17% in Iowa, if non college whites in Wisconsin become like those in Iowa, he will win the state.

https://www.foxnews.com/elections/2020/general-results/voter-analysis?state=IA

[walleye26]

I agree with points 2,3 and 4.
However, as Arizona Iced Tea said, I think it's very possible that Driftless / Rural Areas shift further to the right.

To Illustrate this, I would compare two counties right across the border from each other: Allamakee County, Iowa and Crawford County, Wisconsin. These two counties have similar populations (13k to 17k), racial demographics (89% and 94% White) and Educational Levels (51.5% and 48% No College), yet there is a major gap in voting patterns, with Allamakee being Trump+29 and Crawford being Trump+8.

You are correct in that rural Wisconsin will never be as red as rural Alabama, but it might get close to being as red as Iowa or other comparable rural northern areas.


On the other hand, one possible plus for Biden is that Kenosha will probably not deviate like it did in 2020 because of the riots. Similar areas shifted to Biden by like 4%, but Kenosha swung right by 4% (And Racine had no swing). I suspect that if the protests/riots hadn't of occurred, Biden would have netted 10k more votes from these two counties and pushed his statewide margins above 1%. I think he may get many of those voters in 2024.

Yes, Trump might inch up a few points in some of these counties but I doubt it’ll have another massive rightward lurch like from 2012-2016. Who are all the Clinton/Biden voters ready to swing hard R in the Driftless area?

I also do agree that parts of the Driftless area will shift more Republican. Let’s say that Richland, Crawford, Lafayette, Vernon, and Juneau all shift R+10. That would be more than cancelled out by a D+3 shift in Waukesha County, since Waukesha has 400,000 people but the counties I listed before only have barely 100,000. I also think the GOP can make some gains in Douglas County.

My general take is that WI Dems have a rural Wisconsin problem, but the WisGOP has an even bigger suburbs problem.

[mjba257]

Two things to consider:

1) Don't engage olawakandi. Let him post about his 303 fantasy while the rest of us focus on reality.

2). WI is a state third party votes could be a factor. Madison in particular is full of young lefties who are prone to protest voting. 48,000 people voted for "uninstructed" (the WI equivalent of "uncommitted" and that number is more than twice the margin Biden won the state in 2020.

3) You mention Waukesha as an area to watch. If you remember, this is the same place were the Christmas parade tragedy happened. And the reason the perpetrator was out on the street to begin with was because of leftwing bail "reform" policies championed by Democrats. The Trump campaign would be wise to remind the voters of this community of that fact. Could be really potent to Biden & Dems here.

[Sir Mohamed]

A solid and high-effort analysis.

However, I think you not only have to compare perentages and margins in various places, a lot also depends on turnout. Especially in close states. Even if Dems don't lose more ground in rural areas margin-wise, but there's a 3-4 pt. increase in turnout while urban turnout drops by 5-6% compared to 2020, it would be probably enough to flip even with population growth. I'm not saying this will happen, just something to keep in mind.

[Oregon Eagle Politics]

Of course he will it's a 303 map

Doubt it. Having 0 states flip in either direction would be unprecedented.

That doesn't mean it can't happen.

It could, but I don't think it's wise to bet against "the crowd" that at least one state will surprise in either direction.

[Cyrusman]

I think WI is the most friendly swing state to Biden, mainly due to how white it is. Its filled with a bunch of white liberals and non religious whites. You don't have a lot of working class minorities to counter the white trends.
This may be a hot take, but I think MI is much more friendlier to Trump in 2024 than WI.

[Tekken_Guy]

I think WI is the most friendly swing state to Biden, mainly due to how white it is. Its filled with a bunch of white liberals and non religious whites. You don't have a lot of working class minorities to counter the white trends.
This may be a hot take, but I think MI is much more friendlier to Trump in 2024 than WI.

Michigan is also filed with white liberals and non-religious whites. I also think the working class minority trends are vastly overstated.