Swing areas voted for Trump, but not enough
Craig Gilbert
Four years ago, Donald Trump won 536 communities in Wisconsin that voted for Barack Obama in 2012.
These “Obama-Trump communities” were crucial to Trump’s 2016 victory. The vote swings were stunning and massive.
This year, Trump won almost all of them again.
But it wasn’t enough to carry Wisconsin because of the ground he lost elsewhere in the state to Democrat Joe Biden — especially in the suburbs of Milwaukee and Madison.
Had Wisconsin voted narrowly for Trump instead of narrowly against him, his show of strength in these small swingy Obama-Trump communities would have been a huge political story.
But even in defeat, it’s a significant development. It’s one reason the election turned out to be so close (and closer than polls suggested in Wisconsin).
It’s also a loud signal about the state’s shifting political map and broad rural realignment toward the GOP.
While Biden’s victory was fueled by gains in the suburbs, Democrats failed to reverse their losses in the countryside. That failure was especially acute in western Wisconsin, where the party
See VOTES, Page 16A
had done well in the past.
Just as he did in 2016, Trump carried western Wisconsin’s Third Congressional District, represented by longtime Democratic incumbent, Ron Kind. Trump won the district by a slightly larger margin (4.7 points) than he did four years earlier.)
In fact, it was the only congressional district in Wisconsin where Trump’s point margin improved from 2016 to 2020. Kind himself barely survived a Republican challenge.
Western Wisconsin is home to the vast majority of the state’s ObamaTrump communities.
These are small, overwhelmingly white cities, towns and villages. They represent almost 30% of the state’s municipalities, but because of their size, account for less than 15% of the statewide vote. The median Obama-Trump community cast just 420 votes this fall.
In 2012, Obama won these municipalities collectively by 9 points. In 2016, Trump won them by 12 points — a 21point swing.
In the 2018 mid-terms, they delivered a mixed verdict. Almost a quarter of Wisconsin’s Obama-Trump communities voted Democratic for governor and Senate. About 40% of them voted Democratic for Senate but Republican for
But even in defeat, it’s a significant development.
governor. And a third voted Republican in both races. That heightened questions about which way they might swing in 2020.
The answer last month was pretty clear.
Trump won 509 of these 536 localities, according to a Journal Sentinel analysis of certified election returns posted this week. Biden carried just 26, and one community was tied.
Trump’s combined point margin in the Obama-Trump communities (12.2 points) was almost identical to 2016. But because turnout rose, Trump’s vote margin (his net advantage) grew from a little over 48,000 votes last time to more than 56,000 this time.
Trump improved on his 2016 performance in about two-thirds of these communities and did worse in about one-third (either winning them by less or losing them outright).
Trump also won 21 of the 23 “ObamaTrump counties” in Wisconsin. Only Sauk and Door swung back to the Democrats. (Trump won Sauk, northwest of Madison, by 109 votes in 2016 and lost it by 615 votes in 2020).
Trump won most of these ObamaTrump
counties by larger margins as well. In fact, they accounted for 16 of the 20 counties where Trump saw his biggest gains in the state. He won Lafayette County by 9 points in 2016 and 14 in 2020. He won Richland County by 6 points in 2016 and 10 in 2020. He won Adams by 22 in 2016 and 26 in 2020.
Many of these Obama-Trump counties and communities are part of western Wisconsin’s Driftless Area, a mostly rural region with a history of election swings and split-ticket voting.
Is it surprising that Trump did so well in these places?
Not in one sense: he had already carried them once before.
But these are also places that voted Democratic for president in 2012. Many had been doing so habitually. Many had a history of election swings. Many voted for Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin in 2018. Trump’s performance in these places in 2016 was so historically unusual it was natural to wonder whether some of them might swing back toward the Democrats in a meaningful way. Yet few did, and many became a little more pro-Trump.
That’s one reason to think these shifts toward the GOP may be lasting. Another is that these shifts mirror a broad national pattern of small, rural white communities trending Republican.
Not every Obama-Trump community got better for Trump. The ones where he lost ground included some of the larger and more densely populated communities on this list, and some of the few in eastern Wisconsin.
In the city of Fond du Lac, the most populous Obama-Trump community, Trump won again, but by a smaller margin (8 points instead of 11 points). He won the city of Neenah by 1 point in 2016 but lost it by 6 in 2020. He won the village of Allouez in Brown County by one point in 2016 but lost it by 8 in 2020. He won the very purple city of Reedsburg in Sauk County, but by 5 points instead of 8. He lost Chippewa Falls by a point in 2020 after winning it by a point in 2016.
Yet across northern and western Wisconsin, there were dozens of small localities where Trump’s winning margins improved by double digits.
In the end, Trump netted even more support from the state’s 500-plus Obama-Trump communities than he did four years earlier.
Rural voting power limited
But the numeric voting power of these communities was limited; the total votes cast by these 536 municipalities — about 452,000 — was slightly less than the number cast by the state’s biggest county, Milwaukee.
And the votes Trump gained in these communities compared to 2016 — a net increase in his margin of about 8,000 votes — was far outweighed by the ground he lost in the suburbs of Milwaukee alone.