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In the past 20 years, have rural Wisconsin counties shifted red?

By Jacob Alabab-Moser
YES

Voting data from rural Wisconsin counties since 2004 show that those areas have trended to the right in the ensuing years.

In 2020, the state's small rural counties voted for Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush by an aggregate of five percentage points. In 2020, those same counties voted for Republican President Donald Trump by an aggregate of 20 percentage points. 

Data from elections leading up to 2020 — especially on the state and national levels — show how every two years, rural parts of the state have swung further to the right. Barack Obama won 59 of Wisconsin's 72 counties in 2008, compared to Hillary Clinton's 12 in 2016 and Joe Biden's 14 in 2020.

However, analysts say that statewide, the uptick in Republican votes in rural Wisconsin has been roughly offset in recent elections by decreasing vote shares in the suburban Waukesha and Ozaukee counties — and large Democratic margins in the urban Dane and Milwaukee counties.

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Some rural counties in Wisconsin are becoming more Republican, these maps published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel show
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Wisconsin Watch, the news arm of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, increases the quality and quantity of investigative reporting in Wisconsin, while training current and future investigative journalists. Its work fosters an informed citizenry and strengthens democracy.
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