Wisconsin's Key Battlegrounds in Presidential Race

Wisconsin is a key swing state with a lot of local battlegrounds. NTD's Election Data Analyst Kevin Hogan is at the hub with more on this. Kevin, give us some insight into the showdown between Harris and Trump in the Badger State. Yes, well this matchup between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump in the key swing state of Wisconsin is extremely close. And why do I say that? Because here is the latest Wisconsin polling by Real Clear Polling Average. It has Harris up 48.3% to Trump's 48%. What does that mean? That means the difference is .3%. If the turnout's the same in 2020, that's about 10,000 votes. So the bottom line here is that every single vote in Wisconsin is going to matter. I repeat that. Every single vote in Wisconsin is going to matter. So now we look back into history to find out where some of these battlegrounds are. We see some Wisconsin swing counties. These are pivot counties. Look, they were blue in 2008 when they picked Obama twice, and then 2012, and then Trump. 2016, they pivoted to the Republican Party. You've got 206 pivot counties in the country. 23 of them are in Wisconsin, densely concentrated in western Wisconsin. Why do we look at these? Well, because ballot.gov says that these pivot counties have gone with the eventual winner of the presidential race three quarters of all elections going back to 1960. Really important here. Democrats love western Wisconsin and really investing a lot in there because they've made such gains with these white rural voters that they weren't able to get in similar counties in the country and in other parts of Wisconsin. Republicans like this area. Why? Well, as you can see, it is red. They have pivoted to the Republican Party. Now let's just take a couple. Forest County, for example, and a couple of these other ones. Racine, we're going to look at this. Look at this. Wisconsin swing counties. These are, again, pivot counties. Forest County, for example, you've got three and a quarter million votes in 2020 in Wisconsin. 5,000 votes. Not that much. But look, 46 points. That's how much Forest County swung from Obama's first run to Trump's second run in 2020. That is very significant. A lot of swing voters in that area. Very winnable. Now, Winnebago County, a lot more votes. Look, almost about 100,000 votes. Very significant considering the tight race. 16-point swing from Obama to Trump. Very significant. Double digits here. Same story with Racine County. About 100,000 votes. Double digit pivot to the Republicans from the Democrat Party. Now, are there any pivot counties that boomeranged and went from Obama, Democrat, to Trump, Republican, and then back to Democrats? That's what you're looking at right here. Wisconsin swing counties that have boomeranged from Democrat to Trump, Republican, back to Democrats when they picked Biden in 2020. Biden carried both of these, Door County and Sauk County, by about 1.5 percent margin. So, it's very, very close. I mean, just look at Door County. The margin was there was about 292 votes. I mean, that's extremely close. And according to Professor Barry Burden, he's the director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He says that these counties are not typically where campaigns will go to find votes. For example, Democrats will go near Milwaukee and Madison, the population centers, whereas Trump will go more to places like Waukesha County, for example. But there are a lot of swing voters here, very winnable areas. So, campaigns are doing everything they can to meet all the households in that area to get them to come out to support their candidates. Now, what about Sauk County? This is a predictor for the presidential race in Wisconsin. For example, it has gone with the eventual winner of the presidential race in the state since 1992. And why is that? Location and demographics. It has a location right next to Madison, which is very liberal, one of the most liberal cities in Wisconsin and in the country, for that matter. And it also has a lot of these white voters that don't have college degrees. Remember, that was what propelled Trump to the White House and allowed him to put up a good fight in 2020 when he lost to Biden. Door County, this is a national predictor somewhat. It has gone with the eventual winner of the presidential race across the country every election since 1996. Extremely important. Now, let's go back to western Wisconsin. What's near western Wisconsin? Minnesota. Who is from there? That is Governor Tim Walz. He's Vice President Kamala Harris's running mate. Now, there are hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters in western Wisconsin that are in media markets that are centered in Minnesota. So we ask, what will be the impact of the influence of those media organizations from the Walz home state of Minnesota on Wisconsin? Look, you've got the Minneapolis-St. Paul, the Twin Cities media market right here. And then you have Duluth-Superior media market above it. And now the Eau Claire-La Crosse, that is centered in Wisconsin, but there is reason to believe that part of that media market is influenced by media in Minnesota as well. So now, you take these Twin Cities media market. Look at this. Trump was carrying this by about 20 points in 2020, you know, a combined average. But he lost some of these counties up here. This is, for example, Superior, Wisconsin, little blue dots up in that area. Now, Democrats have lost these two combined by about 14 points in 2020. So what does that mean? That means that if Governor Walz was able to just step in, if that pick were able to shrink that deficit down about four points, well, then you've got about 9,000 votes. And remember, in a state that's decided by about 20,000 votes and where the polls are put in this race at about 10,000 vote margin, that could be extremely significant. All right, let's go back to eastern Wisconsin really quick and take a look at some more battlegrounds. This is the bow. This is Brown, Outagamie, and Winnebago counties. Trump carried this by about seven points in 2020. You can see they're all red because Trump carried it individually, but combined seven points. Very competitive. Now, look at this. This is the Fox Valley Population Center. It's Republican area for the most part. Ten percent of voters there. Very important to look at. Now, it's shifting blue. And why is that? Because Biden was able to make big inroads with those suburban voters. And it's called a U.S. political epicenter because it went blue for the first time since 15 years when it selected liberal Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasewicz because she was campaigning on bringing abortion access. And now we have another Wisconsin battleground. This is the wow just outside of Milwaukee. Trump carried it by a combined 24 points in 2020. And this is Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington counties. Where is this? This is the outer Milwaukee metro. It's predominantly Republican. Twelve percent of the vote. Can't neglect that. GOP margins eroding because, again, inroads with those suburban voters that Biden picked up. But what about the midterms? Does that tell us anything about here? Well, Republican incumbent Senator Ron Johnson was able to improve in 2022 on Trump's 2020 margins by about a few points. So it's showing a little bit of a rebound there. And that's what we have for our swing state wrap up.