SHIFT-RIGHT, BACKSPACE

Wisconsin is the state that puts Trump in the White House—again. Sen. Tammy Baldwin hangs on for a narrow win. Unrigged maps have given the Legislature a reset to normal representation.

Wisconsin put Donald Trump in the White House in 2016—and Wisconsin put him back in the Oval Office in a 2024 election that also saw Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin squeak out a win for a third term—and featured races with new maps that will lead to a Legislature more in keeping with Wisconsin’s reputation as an equally-divided state.

Media outlets put Wisconsin in the Trump column at 4:32 am Wednesday, after a batch of ballots from Racine County were tabulated. The votes were enough to show that neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor Republican Senate challenger Eric Hovde could overcome deficits with the few remaining votes. Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes put Trump above the 270 required to win the Electoral College.

While Baldwin’s margin may be under the one percent threshold for a recount, she declared victory in her race for a third six-year term.

“The people of Wisconsin have chosen someone who always puts Wisconsin first, someone who shows up, listens, and works with everyone to get the job done,” Baldwin said in a statement. “And they rejected the billionaires and the special interests who want to come to our state, spread hate and division, and buy their way into power.”

The state’s congressional delegation in the US House will remain the same with six Republicans and two Democrats after US Rep. Derrick Van Orden held off a challenge from Rebecca Cooke in the 3rd District. Another incumbent Republican, US Rep. Bryan Steil, defeated Democratic challenger Peter Barca. And in an open contest in northeast Wisconsin’s 8th District, Trump-endorsed Republican Tony Wied defeated Dr. Kristin Lyerly.

While the general electorate seemed to shift toward the political right, voters hit the backspace key on Republican dominance of the Wisconsin Legislature. It will remain under Republican control, but neither the Senate nor the Assembly will see anything close to the GOP supermajority of the last session that came with gerrymandered maps. New legislative boundaries —made possible by a 2024 win in a Wisconsin Supreme Court race— created many newly-competitive contests.

Democrats won five closely-watched state Senate races. The race in the 8th District, in suburbs northwest of Milwaukee, smashed previous spending records, with more than $10 million raised and spent by the candidates and groups. Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin unseated Sen. Duey Stroebel, whose new district was not nearly as Republican-dominant as before.

Other Democratic victories were seen in the 14th District north of Madison, where Sarah Keyeski defeated Sen. Joan Ballweg; Brown County’s 30th District, with Jamie Wall winning an open seat; the Fox Valley’s 18th District, where Kristin Alfheim won an open seat;  and a hold for Sen. Brad Pfaff in the 32nd District in and around La Crosse. 

Even with a handful of state Assembly races still too close to call, Republicans will hold a majority in that 99-seat chamber—but it will only be by a handful of seats rather than the nearly two-thirds supermajority they enjoyed under maps they wrote for themselves.

The Wisconsin Constitution has been amended slightly, with voters deciding by a 70-30 margin to approve a change put on the ballot by legislative Republicans meant to restrict non-US citizens from voting, something that is already the law in the state. 

There were approximately 140 school referendum ballot questions around Wisconsin, most seeking approval to make up for a shortage of state aid in order to continue current operations. Civic Media reported the total value of the referendums was $4.2 billion in higher local property taxes, and that more than half had passed, with votes still being counted.