So what should we look at as Wisconsin's votes come in?

I've read far too much 538 for my own good in the last few weeks, and I don't need to be going over polls any more. But I do want to talk about some key numbers to look for as the votes come in, and some benchmarks to compare them to. Remember that there are two dimensions to consider when analyzing Wisconsin election results - the percentages that parties pull in various parts of the state, and turnout in various parts of the state. The Journal-Sentinel's Craig Gilbert had a good breakdown of Wisconsin’s turnout in presidential elections in an article today, and he notes that Wisconsin is among the many states that have had huge amounts of votes already put in the bank.

As of Monday morning, the day before the election, 1,886,533 absentee ballots have been returned. That’s equal to 63% of this state’s total vote four years ago. Since we haven’t had a modern election in a pandemic, we’re in uncharted territory. Those numbers suggest (but don't guarantee) turnout will be higher than in 2016. Nor do they tell us who is going to win battleground Wisconsin. But they do underscore how much voting behavior has changed because of COVID-19. Far more than half the vote has been cast before Election Day. In some other states, early turnout has already exceeded the total vote in 2016…. The nearly 1.9 million absentee ballots cast in this election equals 51% of the state's registered voters. The counties with the highest share of registered voters who've already voted is a list of politically vital and populous southern Wisconsin counties where both parties heavily mobilize: Dane (63.6%), Ozaukee (63.1%), Waukesha (62.9%), Brown (58.5%), Washington (58.4%), Racine (56.8%), Milwaukee (56.4%) and Kenosha (56.3%).

To go along with that last paragraph, Gilbert also included this map, which compares the early vote totals (as of Sunday) with the total votes cast in 2016. And you can see that the highest-population areas of Wisconsin have been the ones with the highest percentage of absentees cast, led by Dane County's 80%. On the flip side, many rural counties didn't even have half or even a third of their 2016 totals in as of yesterday.

As for the statewide totals, the Wisconsin record turnout for a presidential election is 3,068,000 votes, which happened in the 2012 election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. If we exceed that, and end up with 3.1 million votes, that's still less than 1.25 million votes being cast today - less than 1/2 of all votes in the November 2018 elections (which I will also include when looking at share of turnout).

So how many people are actually voting today? If the Madison polling place I worked at this morning is any indication, there will be few if any lines of people waiting to vote and to cast ballots, which means that absentees will be getting processed sooner than a lot of people may have feared. For example, Madison is on target to largely be done processing absentees by the time polls close at 8pm (knocks on wood).

With more 2pm numbers in, we have at least 60% of our absentee ballots processed.#MadisonVotes2020 #vote #elections2020

— Madison WI Clerk (@MadisonWIClerk) November 3, 2020

And it makes day-of voting a whole lot easier, lessening a barrier that many run into on Election Day.

The places where those 3.1 million or so votes are coming from is also key. I've broken down the state of Wisconsin into 7 different areas to analyze that.

1. The City of Milwaukee
2. The rest of Milwaukee County outside of the City of Milwaukee
3. The Republican "WOW County" suburbs of Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington
4. The very blue Dane County
5. The 3 higher-population counties in the Fox Valley - Brown, Outagamie and Winnebago, or the "BOW Counties"
6. The key Obama-Trump counties of Racine and Kenosha in the SE corner of the state
7. The other 62 counties in the state, which make up a little less than 1/2 of the state's votes

And while the breakdown of vote share in these different areas is relatively stable across the presidential years of 2008, 2012, and 2016, and in the governor's race of 2018, you will notice that the City of Milwaukee took up less of the vote in the non-Obama elections of 2016 and 2018, and the WOW Counties and (especially) Dane County have become more of the electorate.

Narrowing it down to presidential years and the top 10 counties, you'll see that all of these areas had increased turnout in 2012, but all except Dane County had fewer votes in 2016, with the biggest dropoff coming in the very blue City of Milwaukee - a big reason behind Hillary Clinton's loss of 23,000 votes.

So for tonight, Biden obviously wants to restore that 40,000 vote dropoff that happened in the City of Milwaukee in 2016. But let's also see if Dane County continues to increase its turnout, and to see if all other areas rebound in the intense year of 2020.

Now let's look at the second dimension - how percentages in various places break down across the state. The 10 counties I've separated out from the rest of the state consistently make up 53-55% of Wisconsin's total vote, and let's note how those votes have broken in those 4 elections. We'll start with the big 4 counties around Milwaukee, and Madison-centered Dane County.For this, I will also include the 2018 Governor's election, where Tony Evers beat Scott Walker by just over 1%.

You'll see that the percentages the two major parties receive hasn't changed too much over those 4 elections. The exceptions are Obama's comparatively strong performance in the red-voting WOW Counties in 2008, and Dane County's pro-Dem bump by 4 points in 2018 helped put Evers over the top vs Walker.

Where the real changes in percentages have happened in these 4 elections were in the rest of the state. In 2012, Obama lost between 2-5 points in the 3 other portions of Wisconsin I've set aside (BOW Counties, Racine/Kenosha and everywhere else in the state), which is in line with him getting 56% in the statewide totals for 2008, and then 53% in 2012.

However, Hillary Clinton collapsed in these areas in 2016, failing to even pull 40% outstate, getting barely more than 41% in the BOW Counties, and less than 46% in Racine/Kenosha after Obama easily won those areas in both 2008 and 2012. Evers did better in 2018 in these places, but still lost all of them to Walker.

If Biden can fight Trump to a draw in the BOW and Racine/Kenosha and even pull 45% outstate, not only will Trump lose Wisconsin, he will lose decisively and in a way that often translates into downticket wins for Dems. And that can be done by a Democrat in a statewide election, even in polarized 2020. US Senator Tammy Baldwin had this map when she hammered Leah Vukmir by 11 in 2018.

So look to the BOW and Racine/Kenosha, as that will likely tell us if Trump can pull a repeat of his 2016 shocker (see Hillary 2016 totals), a decent-sized win (see Obama 2012), or a double-digit blowout (see Baldwin 2018). And let's see if the "suburban women/men with college degrees hating Trump" trend shows itself in a change in percentages in the WOW Counties or the MKE burbs. If so, it has huge implications at the state level.

Also, if we get the 3.1 million+ turnout that is seeming more likely by the day, that will likely sink Trump as well. As I've said before, no Republican in Wisconsin has ever gotten more than 1.48 million votes in an election, and that was George W. Bush in 2004, WHO LOST WISCONSIN. I don't think Donald Trump will get more votes than Dubya did, so if turnout reaches 3.1 milion, Joe Biden is going to win this state, and if we get to 3.2 million votes, it'll be by a healthy amount.

Working the polls was a very good experience today for me, partly because it got me away from the wall of worry that exists online, and let me see the wide variety of people that make my hometown of Madison great. Yes, that even includes the camo MAGA hat guy who I allowed ahead of me as I was trying to run absentees so he could get his vote in and go on his way. I think I'll try to maintain that "ignore a lot of stuff" strategy throiugh around 7 or 8pm tonight, and enjoy the last strands of this unseasonably warm day.