Milwaukee’s suburbs turned a bit more blue Tuesday, as Thiensville became the second Ozaukee County community to flip into the Democratic column.
But Democrats lost ground in their crucial stronghold of Milwaukee County, as Republicans continued to build a following in Wisconsin’s largest city.
None of those shifts was particularly large. But in a state where major contests are decided by tiny margins, every little bit counts.
Republican ex-President Donald Trump carried Wisconsin by about 30,000 votes to become only the second person to win two non-consecutive terms in the White House, 132 years after Grover Cleveland pulled off the same feat.
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This was the fifth time in the last seven presidential elections that Wisconsin was decided by less than one percentage point, a nationwide record for the most close races in the shortest period. And it was the third consecutive contest in which this state was the “tipping point” that boosted the winner past the required 270 electoral votes.
At the same time, Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin narrowly won a third term, barely outperforming Vice President Kamala Harris to continue a trend of Wisconsin’s incumbent senators drawing more votes than their parties’ top-of-the-ticket standard-bearers.
Voter turnout was extremely strong: 85.1% in Milwaukee, 89% in Milwaukee County overall, 94.6% in Ozaukee County and 95.7% in Washington County, all up from the already high levels of 2020 and 2016. Waukesha County turnout was just under 95%, but comparable 2016 and 2020 figures weren’t immediately available.
Because local turnout is a percentage of registered voters and the Wisconsin Election Commission calculates turnout as a percentage of the voting-age population, the state and local figures are not directly comparable. Estimated statewide turnout was 72.6% of residents over 18, down from 72.9% in 2020 but still one of the four highest turnouts in the past 76 years, behind only 73.2% in 2004 and 73% in 1960.
Harris won Thiensville by just nine votes, 1,099 to 1,090, in the latest sign of how suburban revulsion for Trump has weakened the GOP’s grip on its longtime bastions of Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties.
Over his past three races, Trump’s vote shares have slipped from 60% in 2016 to 59.6% in 2020 to 59% Tuesday in Waukesha County and from 55.8% to 55.2% to 54.4% in Ozaukee County. His 67.4% share in Washington County matched his 2016 performance against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but was down from 68.4% in 2020. Meanwhile, his Democratic opponents’ percentages grew each year in each county.
Cedarburg was the first Ozaukee County community to go blue, favoring President Joe Biden by 16 votes in 2020. Harris carried that city by 194 votes Tuesday.
But even as Democrats grew stronger in the “WOW counties,” their grip on Milwaukee County seemed to slip a little.
There Harris ran slightly behind Biden’s 2020 pace, with 67.9% to his 69.1%. Her 77.1% share in the city was down from Biden’s 78.7%, and she similarly dipped in the Milwaukee County suburbs, from 57.8% to 57.3%.
By contrast, Trump has improved his performance in the city and countywide with each consecutive race, even as his decline in the first-ring suburbs follows neighboring counties’ lead.
Trump’s Milwaukee vote share has risen from 18.4% to 19.6% to 20.8%, possibly reflecting Republican inroads with voters of color. That brought his countywide share up as well, from 28.6% to 29.3% to 29.6%, tempered by a drop in his suburban vote, from 41.5% to 40.5% to 39.6%.
Looking at margins of victory, Trump carried the WOW counties by a combined 21.8 percentage points, down from 23.2 points in 2020 and 28.3 points in 2016. Harris won in Milwaukee by 56.3 points, down from Biden’s 59.1 and Clinton’s 58.1; in the Milwaukee County suburbs by 17.7 points, up from 17.3 for Biden and 10 for Clinton; and in Milwaukee County overall by 38.3 points, down from Biden’s 39.8 but up from Clinton’s 36.9.
However, turnout in the city increased less than 1% from 2016 to 2020, in contrast to jumps of 16.7% in the WOW counties combined and 12% in the Milwaukee County suburbs in that time.
As a result, even though Harris carried the city by 6,640 fewer votes than Biden had, Democrats’ growing suburban strength allowed her to carry the four-county area by a total of 84,227 votes, or 9.4 points, down just 2,093 votes and 0.4 points from Biden’s margins. Her four-county vote share was 53.7%, compared with 54.1% for Biden and 50.5% for Clinton.
At the same time, Trump’s gains in the city helped him hold his share of the four-county vote to 44.3%, unchanged from 2020 and up one point from 2016.
Franklin, Oak Creek and Hales Corners remained the only red suburbs in Milwaukee County. Greenfield and Greendale, like Cedarburg, had flipped Democratic in 2020 and stayed that way Tuesday.
Baldwin ran ahead of Harris in the city and in Milwaukee County, a key factor in the incumbent senator’s victory over billionaire GOP challenger Eric Hovde. Milwaukee voted 78.2% for Baldwin to 19.4% for Hovde, while Baldwin carried the suburbs 58.3% to 39.5% and the county overall 68.9% to 28.8%.
However, that pattern didn’t hold in the WOW counties. Baldwin lost each of those three counties by a slightly wider margin than Harris did.
Statewide, this was the fourth straight election in which an incumbent senator outpolled a presidential or gubernatorial candidate of the same party. Baldwin previously ran ahead of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in 2018, while Republican Sen. Ron Johnson outperformed Trump in 2016 and Evers’ losing GOP challenger, construction CEO Tim Michels, in 2022.
