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Now that the results are in, we can reflect on how strongly Wisconsin’s political geography affected the 2024 Assembly election results. In brief, the political leans reflected in the 2020 presidential race correctly predicted the outcomes in all but four of the 2024 Assembly contests.
The grid below is a conceptual 2024 WI Assembly map (that’s Milwaukee on the right) showing political leans based on voting data from the 2020 presidential election. [Statistics provided by Dave’s Redistricting App.] Districts for which the lean is less than 52% are very lightly shaded, deeply shaded squares represent districts in which the lean is over 55%, and the medium shaded squares represent leans between 52% and 55%. District 94 with a 50.01% Democratic lean is left unshaded.
The political leans of 15 districts (bold and italicized) were dramatically changed from the 2022 Assembly map to the 2024 one. The leans of nine districts (13, 40, 42, 50, 52, 53, 62, 93, 96) switched from at least 52% Republican to at least 52% Democratic and District 73 went from extremely close to solidly blue. In addition, three solidly Republican districts in the 2022 map (26, 61, 89) were forecast to be extremely close in 2024. Bucking the general shift to the left, two districts (57, 84) were predicted to be solidly Republican in 2024 after being solidly Democratic and extremely close, respectively, in 2022. The four outlined districts (21, 51, 53, 61) are the ones for which the leans, all Democratic, did not predict the party winner.
Below is a companion grid showing the 2024 Assembly election results. The color code is the same as before.
Of the 15 districts whose leans were predicted to dramatically change from the 2022 map to the 2024 map, only districts 53 and 61 produced election results that did not match the new leans. District 53 with a 52.2% Democratic lean went to Republican Dean Kaufert (50.6%) who defeated Duane Shakoski. Republican incumbent Bob Donovan (51.6%) defeated challenger LuAnn Bird in District 61 which had a 50.9% Democratic lean. Two other districts did not follow Democratic leans. District 21 with a 52.4% Democratic lean went to Republican incumbent Jesse Rodriguez (51.4%) over David Marsteller. Republican incumbent Todd Novak (51.7%) defeated Elizabeth Grabe in District 51 which leaned 54.2% Democratic.
It seems that incumbency, Trump coattails, or the candidate’s themselves provided some help in overcoming a district’s Democratic lean. However, not all Republican incumbents who chose to run again in 2024 were victorious. Incumbent Amy Binsfeld lost to Democrat Jo Sheehan (51.5%) in District 26 (51.8% Democratic lean), Brienne Brown (51.3%) prevailed over Republican incumbent Scott Johnson in District 43 (54.9% Democratic lean) and Democrat Tara Johnson (51.0%) defeated incumbent Lauren Oldenburg in District 96 (55.6% Democratic lean). All incumbent Assembly Democrats won in 2024.
With the adoption of the 2024 map the Democrats gained 10 Assembly seats. The Assembly now is divided between 54 Republicans and 45 Democrats. That 54.5% Republican share is much more in line with Trump’s 50.5% WI vote share in 2024 than the 64.6% share that the Republicans had after the 2022 Assembly elections under the old map.
The leans associated with the 2020 presidential data remarkably predicted 97 out of 99 Assembly races in 2022. In 2024 with a new map 95 races went the way of the leans determined by the same data. Although incumbency, coattails, or personalities seem to have had some minor effects, political geography was the predominate force in determining the WI Assembly election outcomes. Map makers of the future most assuredly need to take this into consideration.
