Wisconsin has been the closest Midwestern state in each of the last two presidential elections. Trump likely needs to “WOW” the state’s voters to win again.
WOW is not only in all letters because it is an exclamation – it is also a political acronym for the suburban counties around Milwaukee: Washington, Ozaukee, and Waukesha. These three regularly supply the single largest group of votes for statewide GOP candidates.
Big win here, and the Republican has a real shot at victory.
Trump’s problem is that he has fallen in that county compared to the Republican norm before 2016. In 2012, Mitt Romney carried Ozaukee County by 31 points and defeated Waukesha by 34.
Trump’s winning margin in those places was lower in 2016: 19 points in Ozaukee and 27 in Waukesha. He lost the state in 2020 as his margin dropped again, to 21 points in Waukesha and just 12 points in Ozaukee.
Trump has seen similar declines in high-income and educated ZIP codes across the country. And in the WOW zone, half of the residents of both districts have at least a college degree and they rank No. 1 or No. 2 in terms of average household income.
Trump is closer than Romney to carrying the state because, as he has done across the country, he offset those losses with big gains among whites without college degrees.
This is clear when looking at a map of the 20 counties where Barack Obama and Donald Trump won twice. They are in the rural east of the state or in the manufacturing areas of Outagamie, Racine, and Kenosha counties.
Tiny Pepin County is a perfect example of this trend. Located on the border with Minnesota, it has not been the Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon’s landslide in 1972. It went from Obama’s 2-point lead against Romney to Trump’s 23-point support in 2016 and 26 points in 2020.
Trump could try to win the state by increasing the already high margin in that place, possibly by increasing the voter turnout. It might work, but that tactic failed in 2020 to compensate for the larger vote drop in WOW counties.
Democrats, for their part, will try to increase turnout in their base areas. While the Dems won only a few counties in Wisconsin today, the winners were dominated by racial minorities (Milwaukee, Menominee), union voters (Ashland, Bayfield, Douglas), or university and government employees (Eau Claire, La Crosse). , Portage, Madison and suburbs).
This place gives the Democratic majority a lopsided edge that gives it a fighting chance.
The Harris-Walz campaign will likely try to boost turnout among the state’s white student population in the region using abortion rights as a driving issue. A similar effort in the Madison area in 2020 resulted in a higher turnout than occurred statewide, significantly contributing to Biden’s margin of victory.
That leaves Trump with two options: increase his vote share with ethnic minorities or reverse some of his losses over the years with educated whites.
There is some evidence that he is picking up support among non-whites compared to 2020. A recent American Greatness/TIPP poll has Harris leading 65-30 among non-whites, while a New York Times/Siena poll shows Harris was up 70-17 with black voters and 60-38 with other minorities.
It’s not good, but Trump is losing non-whites by nearly 3-1, or 50 points, per exit poll in 2020. Non-whites make up about 13% of the 2020 electorate, so losing by 15 points would be a 0.6 percent victory for Biden. a 1.3 point loss for Harris – assuming all else remains equal.
This is a big assumption, and one Trump should not bank on. College-educated whites cast 30 percent of the state’s vote in 2020, so losing just 4 more points would wipe out gains from minority voters.
This means Trump needs to do more than rally his base and talk more to minorities. They need to figure out how to stop college-educated whites from continuing to the left, and the former prez has plenty of problems to concentrate on doing that.
A new Marquette Law poll shows the economy is the most important issue for college-educated voters, and Trump trails Harris by just 6 points when asked about his handling of the issue. Trump fared better with college voters on immigration policy, trailing Harris by just 2 points.
Trump is losing college-educated whites by 13 points in 2020. He will win in 2024 if he can use issues like this to maintain his margin, while maintaining his gains with non-whites.
Wisconsin could be key to the election. Trump will win if he does it while also flipping Arizona and Georgia. If he can do that, he’ll be back in the Oval Office despite everything that’s happened since he left.
Wow really.
