Only one thing stops Wisconsin from voting to Missouri's right...

[Biden his time]

Only one thing stops Wisconsin from voting to Missouri's right, and it's the abnormal Democratic strength throughout Wisconsin's small towns and rural areas.

Just take a look at this side-by-side comparison of Wisconsin's and Missouri's urban and rural areas voting patterns in the 2020 US Presidential election using numbers from the AP Vote-cast survey (whose data has been adjusted to the final results of the 2020 US Presidential election).

Image Link Wisconsin (Left Picture)
Image Link Missouri (Right Picture)

As you all can see, despite there being little difference between the voting patterns of Missouri and Wisconsin's urban areas and suburbs, there is a massive divergence in the small town and rural area categories, whereas Wisconsin's voted R+15 in 2020, Missouri's voted R+50.

In fact, if Wisconsin's small towns and rural areas also voted R+50, like Missouri's, the state as a whole would shockingly vote to the right of Missouri, and this is because Wisconsin's small towns and rural areas make up a larger proportion of the state's population than Missouri's (49% vs. 43%)

Of course, this pattern holds true all throughout the Upper Midwest, but nowhere is this more the case than it is in Wisconsin.


Here is a hypothetical map of Wisconsin where every county not predominantly urban or suburban has been shifted 35% to the right, to be more in line with Missouri-style voting. While not to be taken seriously, it does reveal interesting patterns.

WISCONSIN: R+16.4

Image Link

Map uses Wikipedia color scheme for presidential elections

[R] Republican Candidate - 57.3% ✔️
[D] Democratic Candidate - 41.0%


So what do you all think are the root causes of this pattern?*
And do you all expect this pattern to break in the future? How hard?

* TBH I know many of these, the second question's what I'm more interested in but I still am curious to hear answers for the first question

[Biden his time]

Wisconsin rurals will not vote like Missouri rurals anytime soon unless we're getting into 1972/1984 territory.

I expect most of the rural counties to top out at around 70% R, and the Driftless to stop at about 60%. The rural D counties in the north and around Madison will be competitive. And this will be largely canceled out by Milwaukee suburbs. IMO Wisconsin will remain competitive for a very long time, probably longer than Pennsylvania (which may become Titanium Lean D during the 2020s) and Michigan (which could move dramatically either right or left from here, it's impossible to say).

I did some research about exit polls. Rural WI is the least polarized among midwestern states. If they start to vote like MI or MN, the state is gone for Dem. I believe within a few circles, WI>MI>PA will happen.

Eventually, yes. And WI will very likely be a Lean R state in the near future, possibly by the end of the decade. All I'm saying is it's not likely to vote like Missouri. If it does vote like Missouri, it's more likely to be from Missouri moving left (which it is currently, at an absolutely glacial pace) than Wisconsin moving RGV 2020-level right.

I mean in 2000 if someone told you that rural Missouri would vote like rural Oklahoma, they would have completely laughed that possibility off but that is what ended up happening.  

Would they have?

The cultural difference between Missouri and Wisconsin is much bigger than the one between Missouri and Oklahoma.

Remember than Missouri's only a stone's throw away from Iowa, and Iowa's only a stone's thtow away from Wisconsin...

[Biden his time]

Missouri is as much of an anomaly here as Wisconsin is, if not more so. Its the most Republican state in the Country with a majority of people living in major Metro areas.

I respectfully disagree.

Just see this map showing "White Small Town and Rural" voters in the 2020 US Presidential election as per AP Votecast surveys:

Image Link

(No data for gray states)

Here are all the states where this demographic voted even farther to the right than Missouri

R+73 - LA
R+69 - AL
R+67 - MS
R+65 - TX
R+65 - GA
R+64 - OK
R+61 - UT
R+60 - AR
R+55 - SC
R+54 - WV
R+54 - TN
R+52 - MO

Possibly ND too, but not enough data is available

And you might be saying, well those are Southern states! Well, that's what people used to differentiate Missouri from Arkansas at one point. And going even farther, people used to say Tennessee being in the Upper South and South Carolina being Deep South differentiated the two. These days Tennessee votes to the right of South Carolina.

Not to mention there are plenty of other non-Southern states that are incredibly close to Missouri, for example NE and KY, both at R+48

I'd go so far as to say that Maine's likely to experience a similar shift. Regional politics IMHO are mattering less and less these days.

And in any case, Wisconsin definitely stands out on the map above, far more than does Missouri, it looks like Colorado even as the situation remains demographically unstable, especially considering the higher education which is more common among Colorado rural whites keeping them from somewhat Democratic isn't as common in Wisconsin.

The real issue for Wisconsin is if its White Small Town and Rural voters vote even like those do in Iowa, Michigan, or Minnesota, the Wisconsin Democratic Party would be in trouble.

So Wisconsin the the next Iowa which is the next Missouri, then which state is the next Wisconsin?

Northern New England and Upstate NY IMHO
You have to leave the Midwest to find a similar place where higher education isn't common and rural whites vote very Democratic (and that similarly swung hard to Trump in 2016).

(I would call Wisconsin "Wississippi" after it become redder than Mississipi )

Lol, one day you may be able to

[Biden his time]

-SNIP-

Missouri is easily the most Republican state in the Country where a majority of people live in major Metros (as its combined segment of the St. Louis and Kansas City Metros total just over half of the states population).

Yeah, that's a fact
I wasn't disputing that.
However it's irrelevant to the statement right before it that is the subject of this thread

I was disputing the idea that the true anomaly in terms of rural white partisan lean is Missouri (and in the Midwest nearly all rural folks are white) and not Wisconsin.

Wisconsin is the anomaly.

[Biden his time]

-SNIP-

could you share the link for the data source?

Yeah man no problem

https://web.archive.org/web/20210101091744/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/ap-polls-wisconsin.html

For Wisconsin

Change the state name (and use dashes for spaces) to get data from any other state.

The archive will automatically correct itself to the nearest one taken

Maybe if you got access to thr NYT though you could skip the middleman and just use that website

[Biden his time]

-SNIP-

could you share the link for the data source?

Yeah man no problem

https://web.archive.org/web/20210101091744/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/ap-polls-wisconsin.html

For Wisconsin

Change the state name (and use dashes for spaces) to get data from any other state.

The archive will automatically correct itself to the nearest one taken

Maybe if you got access to thr NYT though you could skip the middleman and just use that website

Thanks! How would you compare the quality of A.P. VoteCast and CNN/FOX exit polls?

Well, I think it's alright
It's weighted against the actual election result so I'll stick with that, seems to be the best source out there and also provides interesting data for some of the issues, demographics etc.

FOX is the same exact one as New York Times, I think I should use that website in the future honestly if they keep these paywalls up high

CNN I don't know the differences but I personally don't like because they're missing a lot of states.

[Biden his time]

-SNIP-

could you share the link for the data source?

Yeah man no problem

https://web.archive.org/web/20210101091744/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/ap-polls-wisconsin.html

For Wisconsin

Change the state name (and use dashes for spaces) to get data from any other state.

The archive will automatically correct itself to the nearest one taken

Maybe if you got access to thr NYT though you could skip the middleman and just use that website

Thanks! How would you compare the quality of A.P. VoteCast and CNN/FOX exit polls?

Well, I think it's alright
It's weighted against the actual election result so I'll stick with that, seems to be the best source out there and also provides interesting data for some of the issues, demographics etc.

FOX is the same exact one as New York Times, I think I should use that website in the future honestly if they keep these paywalls up high

CNN I don't know the differences but I personally don't like because they're missing a lot of states.

I did all my analysis with FOX, and didn't notice it's source are the same with AP. Actually there are some slight differences. For example, FOX combined smalltown and rural.

Just found the original data file in case someone is interested https://data.world/associatedpress/ap-votecast

That's actually great, especially the sheets, thanks man

Next time I make one of these maps I don't have to go through 50 different web pages 🤣

[Biden his time]

How large would the swings be if Rural Frost Belt Whites voted like they did in Missouri:

Darker red is a larger swing towards the Republican Party, increments of 5% (Margin)


Here's how those states would've voted in the 2020 US Presidential election assuming all else remained the same except with the above change in the rural White vote:

R+31.71 - MAINE
R+31.57 - NEW HAMPSHIRE
R+26.17 - VERMONT
R+24.10 - IOWA
R+22.20 - INDIANA
R+15.29 - WISCONSIN
R+11.80 - OHIO
R+7.00 - PENNSYLVANIA
R+6.77 - MICHIGAN
R+3.02 - MINNESOTA
D+12.15 - ILLINOIS
D+16.61 - NEW YORK


Mainly shows that there really isn't that much more room to fall for Dems in Ohio and Downstate Illinois, and any collapse in Rural Minnesota won't put the state out of reach, especially considering growth in MSP.

However, they should be worried certainly about Wisconsin and Upstate New England.