WISCONSIN — Wisconsin has become one of the nation’s few swing states, electing both Republicans and Democrats in statewide elections. But the number of true swing counties in the state that pivot back and forth between red and blue is shrinking.
In 2016, the Midwest “Blue Wall” that presidential candidates often leaned on crumbled, in part because Wisconsin turned purple. In 2020, after voting for Barack Obama twice, then Donald Trump, it cemented its status as a swing state when it voted for Joe Biden.
“It's true that Wisconsin voted for Democratic presidential candidates, and so did Sauk County for many years,” said Professor Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “And Wisconsin did go blue in nearly every one of those elections, aside from 2016, but often by very small margins.”
Blue candidates’ thin margins of victory in the state have been consistent. Al Gore won the state by just over 5,000 votes in 2000.
“So it continues to be really on a knife edge that both parties see as winnable,” Burden said.
Biden reclaimed the state for Democrats by about 20,000 votes, the same as Trump’s margin of victory in 2016. In Sauk County, the Trump/Biden face off was just as close. Of the county’s more than 36,000 votes cast in the 2020 Presidential Election, Biden picked up around 18,000 votes, narrowly beating Trump in the county by around 600 votes.
“We've had two presidential elections here decided by about 20,000 votes. Even a relatively small county like Sauk could be consequential,” Burden continued.
Sauk was one of 23 counties to flip between voting for Obama twice, then Trump. During the last cycle, Sauk and Door were the only remaining counties to pivot back to the Democrat in the running, cementing their bellwether statuses.
“These swing counties like Sauk County and Door County are different from the kind of base counties that the parties depend on, places like Dane County for the Democrats or Waukesha County for Republicans,” said Burden. “Sauk County doesn't have a lot of voters, but they're very winnable. And so both parties, I think, view it as a place to spend some time, run ads, do some door-knocking and try to win over some folks in a narrow statewide election.”
The demographic makeup of Sauk is also an indicator of why it’s one of the more predictive counties in the state. It’s largely white, with fewer college graduates — traits of Trump voters, according to Burden and Pew Research Center data. But it’s also close to Madison, one of the most liberal cities in Wisconsin and the U.S.
“It does have these kind of tourism arts-oriented communities that tend to have more Democratic voters,” said Burden. “And you can look at the maps of Wisconsin, over time, you can see that Madison, which is the sort of heart of the Democratic Party in the state, has expanded its reach and the blue areas and have begun to reach out to the edges of the county and then into neighboring communities where people really identify, I think, with the Madison media market and the culture of that city — which is much more Democratic.”