How does Bush win Wisconsin?
Actual:
Clinton 41.13%
Bush: 36.78%
Perot: 21.51%
Split the Perot vote 61-39:
Bush: 49.90%
Clinton: 49.51%
If you look at Perot's support in Wisconsin 1992, it was extremely evenly spread across the state, but what is really telling is that his weakest counties were Dane, Milwaukee, Douglass, and the Menominee reservation - all highly Democrat areas. Giving Clinton 39 percent of the Perot vote is generous.
It's a Dukakis state. It makes no sense for a state to vote for a weak candidate over Bush at a time when he was fairly popular, and then vote for Bush at a time when he was much less popular over a much stronger candidate.
From the late-80s into the mid-90s, Democrat loyalty among Wisconsin rural voters fell like a stone. You still see some of it here and there, especially in the West and Northwest, but eastern rural voters have switched to becoming Republicans. Concerns over gun rights (hunting is huge around here) and moral issues have won out over the older, economic concerns. Reaganomics was very bad for Wisconsin, but by 1992 most people outside the big cities had forgotten about that.
