Wisconsin Shifted Right in Tuesday’s Election, Not Enough for Hovde

Wisconsin, like most states, saw more Republican votes in Tuesday’s election. But a couple of Marquette researchers say there just weren't enough votes to carry Eric Hovde to victory.

MU polling director Charles Franklin, and research fellows John D. Johnson and Craig Gilbert all unveiled their election analysis on Friday.

“Former President Donald Trump won Wisconsin’s 2024 presidential election by just shy of 30,000 votes, after losing the state by 21,000 in 2000 and winning by 23,000 in 2016,” Johnson wrote in his piece on the state’s shift to the right. “Meanwhile, Sen. Tammy Baldwin won re-election by a similarly slim 29,000 votes. This, after Sen. Ron Johnson won his 2022 reelection campaign by 27,000 votes.”

Johnson released part of his analysis on Thursday. That piece looked at race and wealth in the 2024 vote, and showed more Black, and low income voters went for Trump this year.

His Friday piece focused exclusively on the slight shift Wisconsin saw toward Republicans.

“While other parts of the country (e.g., New York, New Jersey) saw big swings to the right, Wisconsin shifted more modestly. Trump eked out a win, but not by enough to pull Eric Hovde along with him,” Johnson added. “Republicans won most of the competitive seats in the State Assembly, likely keeping a comfortable nine-seat advantage. But Democrats swept all four State Senate targets, making them marginal favorites to win the chamber in 2026.”

Franklin focused on the changes in Wisconsin’s county-by-county vote.

“The Democratic net vote comes with huge margins in Dane and Milwaukee counties, followed by much smaller margins in 11 other counties,” Franklin noted. “The large Republican margins come from Waukesha and Washington. The many smaller Republican leaning counties collectively provide Republican strength, offsetting the fewer counties with Democratic majorities, despite the large margins in Dane and Milwaukee.”

Kamala Harris won just 13 counties in Wisconsin. President-elect Trump won Wisconsin’s 59 others.

Tammy Baldwin won 14 counties, while Eric Hovde won 58 others across the state.

“While Baldwin only narrowly outperformed [Kamala] Harris—winning by 0.9 percentage points while Harris lost by 0.9 percentage points—Baldwin outperformed the presidential ticket in all but four counties: Menominee, Ozaukee, Waukesha, and Washington.”

Franklin's research says Harris saw anywhere between a 1.5% and nearly 2% increase in her vote count in the WOW counties compared to President Biden in 2020.

You can find the research at the Marquette Law School Faculty Blog.