Wisconsin, From Blue State to Red: How and Why

Despite the political "earthquake" which broke out in a state senate election yesterday, Wisconsin has indeed gone from blue to red over the last eight years. The transition during Presidential elections was steady although gradual, starting in Election 2000. Al Gore barely carried Wisconsin that year, and neither major candidate broke the 50% margin.

The state was slowly going closer to a Republican statewide majority until 2008, when Obama won the state by 52% and then won the state a second time. He had offered a fairly populist brand in his first election win, and Romney could not provide a working man's option in 2012, so many working white voters stayed home.

Starting in 2010, Republicans took over major levers of power in the state, then enacted sweeping collective bargaining reforms. These Big Labor blows have protected working Wisconsinites while enhancing business prowess and potential. President Trump's pro-growth, populist agenda has ushered in a renewal of manufacturing and trade jobs, too.

Republicans have done an amazing overhaul in this once stubbornly Democratic state.

The red state no one saw coming

MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. — Dawn Damico had never voted in a presidential election before, never felt sufficiently drawn to a candidate to pledge her political support. Until Tuesday.

The 52-year-old owner of a chocolate shop and grandmother of six said she voted for Donald Trump, helping push a pivotal and traditionally Democratic state into the Republican column and deliver an astounding victory for the GOP nominee.

This dynamic has not gotten enough treatment. People who had never voted before, voted. That change in the voting records made a big shift for Trump, and explains one of the reasons why the press and the pollsters got Election 2016 so wrong.

“Because I think he will be doing different things than the rest of them,” Damico said. “I’m a small-business owner and I’m tired of all the big people complaining about this and that. Let’s see how they would live doing what we do.”

How about that? This small business owner did not look at President Trump as some corporate bigwig who had no idea what she was going through. That's part of Trump's very populist appeal!

Clinton herself never campaigned here during the general election, and Trump deluged the airwaves with television advertising, which may have helped him secure the victory margin of less than 30,000 votes, state political analysts said. And, according to the Wisconsin State Journal, Trump made at least five visits to the state in the final three months of the campaign.

In this state dotted with silos, dairy farms, and Green Bay Packers memorabilia, analysts point to several factors that helped turn Wisconsin from blue to red: the middle-class anxiety felt across the Rust Belt, low enthusiasm among usually reliable Democrats, and the years-long trend line toward electing Republicans in state.

Wisconsin voters felt cared for. Clinton did not care about working people to begin with, and her disdain for revisiting this state assuredly pushed it into the GOP column for the first time in over 30 years.

Pretty impressive, I must say.

Trump carried the state by 1 percentage point, the third-narrowest margin in the country behind New Hampshire, which voted narrowly for Clinton, and Michigan, which also switched from blue to red. It was a remarkable turnaround for Wisconsin, which was almost universally forecast as a Clinton state by pollsters and strategists who missed an undercurrent of Trump support.

Polls are polls, and they often rely on retrospective results rather than prospective possibilities.

“He speaks for the parts of the country that everybody else kind of forgot,” said a 57-year-old landscaper at a bar in Menomonee Falls, who asked not to be named. “I don’t agree with everything he does or says or the people who have lined up with him, but it’s nice to know that someone will not just let this whole thing go away.”

The forgotten men and women of this country no longer felt forgotten.

Wisconsin voters also dealt a surprise defeat to former US senator Russ Feingold, who lost a rematch with incumbent Senator Ron Johnson, despite polls showing Feingold with a healthy lead. That outcome helped Republicans retain control of the Senate, dousing Democratic hopes to retake the chamber they lost two years ago.

Senate incumbent Ron Johnson did not run away from Trump, even when times got tough, and some bad words slipped out of his mouth. I had a strange feeling about this US Senate race, in that I anticipated that he would outshine the polling, which had consistently listed him as behind Feingold. How right I was.

Jeff Mayers, president of WisPolitics.com, a non-partisan political site, said that, despite the vaunted Democratic turnout machine, Clinton’s campaign failed to get backers to the polls.

“The short answer is Democrats didn’t turn out in the numbers they did the last two cycles, and it was the lowest turnout in Wisconsin since 1996,” Mayers said. “Bottom line is, she didn’t inherit the Obama coalition.”

Another reason. Obama's magical coalition relied on his own populist rhetoric. Of course, Obama was a sellout to Wall Street from day one, and Democratic voters across the country felt that pain.

Trump lavished attention and money on Wisconsin. While he was heavily outspentin most swing states, the Center for Public Integrity found that Trump and his allies funded about 60 percent of the roughly 10,000 ads aired here between June 12 and Nov. 6. The onslaught began in September, and Clinton and her backers stayed off the air until Oct. 29.

Yep. The lesson here? Don't take any states for granted. Republicans are learning this lesson again, since they just lost a state senate seat in a reliably red area.

Damico and others said the dissolution of the manufacturing industry and the Democratic Party’s focus on appealing to younger, more diverse Americans had driven middle-class white voters like here to revolt.

YES!

Here's another interesting report from a voter:

“I’m a big Second Amendment guy, and this was important to me,” said a man who identified himself as “Chip.” He said he supported Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the primary but Trump in the general.

Remember, Bernie Sanders had been a staunch supporter for the Second Amendment during his tenure in the House of Representatives, and his support for gun rights continued and harmed his primary bid somewhat against gun-grabbing Crooked Hillary.

Final Reflection

Politics makes a difference. Voting is crucial. All it takes is one wave election for a shift in a state from one party to another. Colorado Republicans witnessed the same overwhelming takeover in their beloved Colorful State. Democrats have ruined Colorado, bringing in pot, gun control, a naked attempt to impose a single-payer government-run healthcare system.

Conservatives need to understand that politics is a process. Principles do not win at the ballot box because they are good principles. It takes a good, strong political ground game to ensure those wins. Republicans worked extra hard over the entire Walker administration, from his victory in 2010 to the present day. Walker hopes for a third term as governor. Let's hope that Trump-mentum makes it possible, and that Republican and Democratic voters will recognize that GOP leadership ensures a better run state, more money in one's pockets, and a better future for their children and grandchildren.