Marquette researchers break down Wisconsin election results

Wisconsin truly split its ticket once again.

That’s what John Johnson, a research fellow with the Marquette Law School Lubar Center for Public Policy Research, found in the wake of the Nov. 5 election — and of Donald Trump’s surprising sweep of seven battleground states, including Wisconsin.

Johnson joined Charles Franklin, professor of law and public policy and director of the Marquette Law School Poll, and fellow Lubar Center research fellow Craig Gilbert in undertaking a post-mortem analysis of state election data.

President-elect Donald Trump bounced back from his 2020 loss in Wisconsin to score a win by just under 30,000 votes, Johnson observed. In comparison, he lost the state by 21,000 votes in 2020 and won by 23,000 ballots in 2016, Johnson wrote in his analysis. 

Sen. Tammy Baldwin won re-election by a slim 29,000 votes, Johnson wrote, after Sen. Ron Johnson won his 2022 reelection campaign by 27,000 votes.

In other words, Johnson wrote, Wisconsin remains truly split down the middle. And while the pendulum registered the slightest of slight swings to the right in the Badger state, it was less profound than in much of the country.

“While other parts of the country (e.g., New York, New Jersey) saw big swings to the right, Wisconsin shifted more modestly,” Johnson wrote. “Trump eked out a win, but not by enough to pull Eric Hovde along with him. Republicans won most of the competitive seats in the state Assembly, likely keeping a comfortable nine-seat advantage. But Democrats swept all four state Senate targets, making them marginal favorites to win the chamber in 2026.”

But what the 2024 Republican swing lacked in magnitude it made up in its breadth across Wisconsin, Johnson wrote. 

“Communities of all kinds moved toward the Republicans,” he wrote. “Trump improved over 2020 in all but four of the state’s counties. Trump increased his vote share since 2020 in 70 percent of the state’s municipalities and 62 percent of its wards.”

The split in the divided electorate was evident in education status, Johnson reported.

“The least college-educated places vote more for Trump and the most educated places have shifted toward the Democrats,” he wrote. “That was the trend between 2016 and 2020 anyway.”

A big part of why Trump won this time was because he continued to make gains among voters with the lowest levels of college education, while Harris only matched Biden’s performance in the most educated wards, Johnson explained.

“Still, the net gap has expanded from 22 points separating how the most and least-educated wards voted in 2016 to 33 points in 2020 and 36 points in 2024,” he wrote.

Nationwide, young people shifted significantly toward Trump, even though they remained predominately Democratic, and Johnson found the same trend at work in Wisconsin.

“Young people are more liberal and old people more conservative, but in recent years these differences haven’t grown much — at least at the ward level,” he wrote. “The oldest wards moved toward Trump by about 1 point in 2024, similar to the state average. Notably, the youngest set of wards, while still very Democratic, shifted 3 points toward Trump.”

The other big movement toward Trump nationally was among black and Hispanic voters. Johnson’s breakdown of 2020 census block data aggregated into ward boundaries — Wisconsin doesn’t collect race in its voter registration data — suggest some movement of black voters toward Trump and significantly more so among Hispanic voters.

“By my count, there are 153 majority black wards, 53 majority Hispanic/Latino wards, and 3,063 majority (non-Hispanic) white wards,” he wrote. “Taken as a whole, the majority white wards lean slightly Republican. Trump’s 2024 vote share fell halfway between his 2016 and 2020 performance. Baldwin’s vote share fell 9 points from 2018, but improved by 2 points over Mandela Barnes’ 2022 senate run.”

In majority black wards, Johnson pointed out, the Democratic vote share remained very high but slipped by 1-3 points in each of the past elections.

“The big change is in the relatively small set of majority Hispanic wards,” he wrote. “The Democratic margin of victory fell from 61 points in 2016 to 52 in 2020 and 42 in 2024.”

Those trends were consistent with trends in other cities and in other survey data, Johnson wrote.

In his breakdown, Franklin observed that the Democratic net vote came with huge margins in Dane and Milwaukee counties — no surprise there — followed by much smaller margins in 11 other counties. 

“The large Republican margins come from Waukesha and Washington,” Franklin wrote. “The many smaller Republican leaning counties collectively provide Republican strength, offsetting the fewer counties with Democratic majorities, despite the large margins in Dane and Milwaukee.”

Franklin noted that Harris improved over Biden’s 2020 margin in only four counties, Washington, Ozaukee, Waukesha and Door, and did worse than Biden in Eau Claire, Dane and La Crosse, usually Democratic strongholds.

To put that into perspective, in the Senate race, Franklin reported, Baldwin won 14 counties, including Sauk, which Trump carried, while Hovde won 58.

“While Baldwin only narrowly outperformed Harris — winning by 0.9 percentage points while Harris lost by 0.9 percentage points — Baldwin outperformed the presidential ticket in all but four counties: Menominee, Ozaukee, Waukesha, and Washington,” Franklin wrote.

Gilbert observed that Trump took Wisconsin by scoring broad gains, and by stemming Republican bleeding in suburbs. Gilbert also found that, while the shift to the right was slight, it was uniform.

“In one key respect, the 2024 presidential election in Wisconsin was like most presidential elections in Wisconsin,” Gilbert wrote. “The state’s 72 counties overwhelmingly shifted in the same partisan direction — in this case, toward the Republicans.”

Handrick analysis

In addition to the Marquette analysis, former Northwoods Rep. Joe Handrick, who expertly analyzes election trends and data in Wisconsin, made some points on his X account, and he had an important insight into Hovde’s loss to Baldwin.

As others have reported, GOP Senate candidates in battleground states underperformed Trump — a flip in and of itself. That was true of Hovde, too, Handrick reported, but the reason was unique.

“One commonality in these races is the GOP senate candidate lagged behind Trump,” Handrick posted on X. “In some (Lake in AZ) it is because the senate candidate was bad. In others (Hovde) the GOP candidate was good, but 3rd parties played a spoiler role. Hovde trailed Trump by less than most others.”

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.