Wisconsin: The State That Polls Got ‘Wrong’ In 2016

Like Michigan and Pennsylvania, the Rust Belt state of Wisconsin completely broke everyone’s expectations when it voted for Donald Trump by a margin of 0.77 percent, or 22,748 votes, in 2016. In fact, the Badger State was the only state that ended up having a vote result outside of the margin of error of polling data. Clinton led by 6.5 percent on Election Day here, based on Real Clear Politics’ polling average. Though many are worried about another upset here again, as we’ll see, this year’s election is nothing like 2016’s.

For years, Wisconsin had been considered a Democratic stronghold. Since 1984, it had never voted for a Republican president. However, like Michigan, Barack Obama’s success in the Rust Belt masked just how competitive Wisconsin actually is. Though Obama carried the state by 14 percent and seven percent in 2008 and 2012 respectively, prior to that, Al Gore and John Kerry only won Wisconsin over George W. Bush by margins of 0.22 percent and 0.38 percent in 2000 and 2004 respectively. As we’ll discuss later, Wisconsin has been and still is, super competitive on the statewide level for many years.

Once again, Democratic complacency resulted in Hillary Clinton barely focusing on this state in 2016. In fact, Clinton never even held a single campaign in the state four years ago, and Trump heavily outspent her in this entire region. Had she visited Wisconsin and Michigan, the outcome of the 2016 election might have been very, very different.

Let’s take a look at some geography and demographics of Wisconsin.

Map of Wisconsin.

AN interesting thing about Wisconsin’s geography is that, unlike other suburbs in the Rust Belt, the Milwaukee suburbs continue to remain solid for the Republicans. The only counties which are really solid for the Democrats are Milwaukee and Dane counties, which contain the cities of Milwaukee and Madison respectively. In 2016, most of the rest of the counties voted for Trump.

A large part as to why Republicans generally do so well in Milwaukee’s suburbs is largely due to a lack of diversity. The suburbs there are generally quite white, unlike, for example, Chicago’s suburbs, which are very diverse.

That isn’t to say that the rest of the state never votes Democratic, though. In the 2018 midterms, Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) won reelection to another term in the U.S. Senate, and she did carry practically the entire southwestern part of the state, Brown County (Green Bay), and did extremely well in the northernmost three counties of the state. Tony Evers (D) also defeated then-incumbent governor Scott Walker (R), and won most of the aforementioned regions, too.

In fact, the Democrats did extremely well in the 2018 midterms, considering the aggressive Republican gerrymander that has persisted since 2010. The Democrats won all statewide races, unseating three incumbent Republicans. Unfortunately, the state legislature and the state’s U.S. House districts have been gerrymandered to excessively favor Republicans, so Democrats didn’t find themselves any luck there (both chambers are still rated as safe Republican this year, and no U.S. House seats are expected to change hands). One thing the Democrats did win was the nonpartisan Wisconsin Supreme Court election, where the Democrats’ preferred candidate won over the Republicans’ preferred candidates, decreasing the Republican majority in that court down to 4-3. These Supreme Court elections, as well as the governorship, are increasingly the only way the Democrats can keep a check on the Republican legislature, having been shut out of it by gerrymandering.

Because Republicans do so well here in red wave years, Wisconsin’s other senator, Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who was elected (and reelected) in the red wave years of 2010 and 2016, continues to be a Republican.

Looking at the U.S. House level, it seems as though the Democrats will not be able to win a majority of the state’s delegations to the House. An aggressive Republican gerrymander, coupled with the state’s lack of a bipartisan/nonpartisan committee to draw districts likely means that races in the state will be very solid. Of the three seats Democrats hold in the state, the Democratic candidate won by margins of 100, 19, and 50 percent respectively—a clear example of Republican lawmakers packing Democrats into the same district.

Moving to the presidential election, Wisconsin is currently favored to go to Joe Biden. This is partially due to Biden no longer being complacent in the state—his campaign has made six campaign stops in the state, four of them in the Milwaukee metropolitan area, while the Trump campaign has rallied here seven times, spread out across the state, but mostly in Republican areas. This data is according to The Chicago Tribune‘s rally tracker.

In addition, Biden has a massive spending lead in the state: he has outspent Trump in all of the state’s major media markets, with a five to one lead in Milwaukee’s media market, according to The New York Times. The Associated Press reports that Biden has spent over $25 million in ad money in this state.

Biden leads Trump in ad buying in Wisconsin’s media markets.

That seems to have allowed Biden to lead strong in polls of the state. Wisconsin has probably been the most-polled state of this election, so the polling average will likely give us a good idea of how the state will vote next week.

Biden maintains a strong lead in Wisconsin polls.

Biden currently leads by 7.1 in the state’s polling average and already has a majority of the vote share, and Trump hasn’t even come close to Biden’s numbers since Biden’s numbers took off in mid-April.

There is one poll, from ABC News/The Washington Post (an A+ rated pollster), showing Biden up in this state by a whopping 17 percentage points (not a typo)! Now, obviously, that is a clear outlier, but the fact that such a well-reputable pollster would have such an outlying result in this state is clearly unprecedented. However, another poll from Marquette Law School (A/B rated), a very well-reputed Wisconsin pollster, shows Biden up by five, so that balances the averages out a bit. Also, the fact that polls from highly-rated pollsters are showing such huge differences indicates that pollsters aren’t herding data like they were doing four years ago, which is good.

Currently, FiveThirtyEight’s forecast gives Joe Biden an 89 percent chance of winning the state, which is more solid than Montana is for Trump. Other pundit forecasters, like The Cook Political Report, Inside Elections, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Politico, CNN, and 270towin rate this race as lean Democratic. The Economist, Niskanen Center, and FiveThirtyEight rates this race as likely Democratic. The Newshacker Blog projection rates this state as lean Democratic.

Biden seems to have locked down the entire Rust Belt region, and the “Blue Wall” seems to have been rebuilt. Ignoring the results of all other states, if only Wisconsin gets called for Biden, he will have a 95 percent chance of winning reelection.

Biden is almost certain to win if he wins Wisconsin.

However, the state is almost certainly not going to be called on election night, as the state will need a while to count mail-in ballots. All eyes will be on the Sun Belt swing states, which count votes much quicker.

Nationally, 81.4 million Americans have cast their ballots, or 59 percent of the 2016 election turnout. In Wisconsin, 1.6 million people, or 55 percent of the 2016 election turnout, almost on par with the nationwide average.

If you haven’t voted yet, make sure you think of a plan to do so, and vote on Election Day. If you’re voting absentee, use a ballot drop box. It is too late to mail ballots via the U.S. Postal Service. Learn more about voting here.

This is the last post in our swing state series. Make sure to check out all the other states we have covered: Arizona, Montana, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Maine and Nebraska’s second districts, Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Virginia, Alabama, Alaska, and Maine, and Michigan.

Make sure to subscribe and stay tuned for the pre-election predictions, which will be coming out in the next few days. Check out the 2020 election coverage page for more on the election.

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