If this comes to fruition then Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan will all be gone before Texas flips
I dont think its fair to lump Pennsylvania in with the other 2 given the state is not that similar to either of them and has various countervailing trends.
PA is similar to MI in terms of margins and more recent trends, actually, though not to WI. Both are anchored by a very large city (Philadelphia and Detroit; WI's largest city, Milwaukee, is much smaller than either of those two) and have stagnated in population (PA fell from 20 to 19 electoral votes; MI from 16 to 15 - WI held steady at 10), and both have rurals trending rightwards (actually, so does WI, but its rurals are still noticeably more moderate than those in MI and PA) but urban/suburban areas trending leftwards (PA has the Philadelphia suburbs; MI has Grand Rapids - WI doesn't really have any; the WOW counties have moved slightly leftwards but it's not a major shift at all, they're still safely red and that's about it).
I agree with this but WI does have Madison which is both growing and has gotten much bluer and has pretty much been keeping it on life support for being competitive. The issue for WI Dems is that Milwaukee is shrinking so Madison will likely become their biggest vote get in the state at some point, but if rurales continue to shift right it prolly won’t matter
The Madison suburbs, which are also populous and surprisingly liberal, have actually trended decently rightward in the Trump era, probably enough to mostly or fully cancel out Madison's leftward swing. To win in WI Democrats need to make inroads in WOW or at least keep the margin about the same (not expecting them to win anytime soon, but preferably keep the counties no more than 60-65% red), keep turnout reasonably high in urbans, and maybe try to win back some Obama/Trump voters.
Biden actually did like 2 points better than Obama in the current WI-02, which includes basically the entire Madison metro + rurals. On net the Madison metro has been a net to Dems; it’s been rural areas in WI-03 which are Democrats bigger problem; the whole east half of WI used to blue, now you just have a really blue Madison dot
Fair enough. And really, I think people underestimate Madison. Madison metro area is way more helpful to Democrats in WI than Milwaukee metro area - Milwaukee itself is very blue, but so is Madison, and while Madison has sprawling, blue-leaning suburbs, Milwaukee's WOW suburbs are solidly Republican and well to the right of the state (they even gave McCain north of 60% of the vote, and without them Clinton would have won WI quite decently in 2016).
I agree. The City of Milwaukee nets more for Dems than the city of Madison, but the Madison metro is much more helpful. It’s pretty amazing how R wow burbs are. I do wonder if we might begin to see a bit of spillover of Chicago that powers Racine and Kenosha a bit leftwards? Neither are very big or influential at the end of the day but every little thing helps. Also starting to get a little Minneapolis spillover but that’s negligible and prolly will be for a while
Wisconsin has so many interesting features. The Green Bay metro and WOW counties are bizarrely red, the Madison metro is unlike any other similar sized (and relatively sparse) metro in how liberal it is, and the southwest rurals are relatively left leaning compared to most other rural areas.
I actually think Kenosha is and will be trending right for a couple of reasons:
1) The outskirts are becoming a hub for disgruntled republicans who work in the Chicago suburbs
2) There are a few factories that have opened somewhat recently increasing the blue collar presence in the county
