A deep dive on the 2020 vote in Wisconsin

Nearly 1 year from the day that Wisconsin was the tipping point state in Joe Biden's victory, the Catalist data group released their updated analysis of what happened in our state in the 2020 election. And despite the thought that our red-blue divide is urban-rural and white-non-white, there are other factors at work. In particular, there is a big divide in among our state's white voters by education and gender.

First, here's how Catalist broke down the data nationwide, and then narrowed it in to Wisconsin.

Catalist’s national-level What Happened analysis for 2020 focuses on what we can glean from our voter file at the national level. But battleground states differ demographically and politically from the country as a whole. By supplementing our national analysis with reliable, state-level data we can shed light on these distinctions.

When comparing these results to our national What Happened analysis — and even comparing changes across years and groups — we caution readers that statistical analysis of smaller populations and subpopulations come with higher levels of uncertainty.

These uncertainties are larger at the state level. Catalist’s approach is a pooled model, meaning estimates are derived from national models, granular election results, survey data in states, demographic modeling, and other building blocks.

Noted, but combining who voted with registration information, and then seeing how an area voted can still give you a lot of insight, and that's what Catalist uses as the basis for their assessments.

White people are the overwhelming majority of voters in Wisconsin, and unlike the rest of America, they make up a similar proportion of the electorate as they did in Barack Obama's first election in 2008. But more of those white voters have college degrees compared to that time, although they are

And that growth of college-educated white voters has helped Democrats, as they have gained among voters with college educations starting with Trump's first election in 2016. But there is a significant drop in Dem support among white voters without degrees, and that has allowed elections to be closer than Barack Obama's 7-point win in 2012.

Interestingly, while Catalist notes that Dems do better with white, non-college voters than they do in the rest of the nation, but Biden did worse with those voters than Hillary Clinton did, while college-educated white people shifted more toward Dems in Wisconsin than in the rest of the country.

We estimate that white non-college voters in Wisconsin are more Democratic than they are nationally by 2 to 3 percentage points, a function of the many so-called “ancestral Democrats” in the state. Compared to 2016, white non-college voters comprised 1 point less of the electorate, down to 58% of Wisconsin voters. Meanwhile, 40% of white non-college voters cast ballots for Joe Biden, a half-point drop in support for the Democratic ticket in Wisconsin since 2016. Nationwide, Biden and Harris gained 1 point with this group. At the same time, white college-educated voters increased their share of the electorate by 1 point compared to 2016, comprising 31% of all Wisconsin voters. They also voted strongly for the Biden/Harris ticket, with two-way support at 61%, a 4 point increase since 2016 compared to a 3 point increase nationally. White college-educated voters in Wisconsin were 7 percentage points more supportive of Joe Biden than similar voters nationally, relatively unchanged from 2016.

It’s also useful to think of this as a change in electoral coalitions. While white non-college voters remain a significant part of the Democratic coalition, their share dropped significantly in Wisconsin over the last three presidential elections. In 2012, Barack Obama's winning coalition in Wisconsin was 56% white non-college while in 2016, when Democrats lost the state, that number fell to 49%, a 7 point drop. And in 2020, Joe Biden's coalition was just 46% white non-college, a further 3 point drop from four years prior.

Within the white vote, there is also a significant gender gap. White women were more likely to vote for Biden than white men were in Wisconsin, but it's worth noting that Trump actually did better with non-college white women than he did in 2016, while losing ground among the other 3 groups of white voters when cross-listed by gender and education.

Also notice the big jump in Dem support among men with college degrees, especially married men. Which would go along with big Dem gains in the suburbs, and it sure seems like a campaign against jackassery and in favor of pre-K, child care and K-12 education would be a way to cement those gains.

Moving over to racial information, in a state where race-baiting and maintaining some of the worst racial disparities in America is central to WisGOP strategy, it's no surprise that Dems get a large amount of the non-white vote, and those voters were a key part of the Biden-Harris victory. But Catalist notes that Black voters didn't have the surge in turnout and/or surge in diversity in suburbs that benefitted Dems in other states.

Black voters provided overwhelming support for the Biden-Harris ticket, at 90% in two-way vote share, yielding a margin of approximately 125,000 votes for Democrats, far exceeding the margin of victory in the state. While Black turnout increased by 1 point, turnout also increased more among other groups, causing Black voters’ share of the Wisconsin electorate to stay stable at around 5 percent. Nationally, Black turnout was up 5 points. The number of votes cast by Black voters increased in raw terms by 6.5% in Wisconsin but increased by about 14% nationwide.

At the same time, Democrats retained more of their high levels of support among Black voters in Wisconsin than in the rest of the country relative to 2016. Black support for the Democratic ticket fell by just 2 points in Wisconsin compared to 4 points nationally. These trends may be directly related. In our national report, we noted that the 2020 surge in Black voter turnout may have brought in less partisan first-time or infrequent voters, which reduced the overall margin for Democrats among an already very Democratic-leaning group. Wisconsin’s relatively lower boost in Black turnout could paradoxically have meant less change in overall Democratic vote share compared to other places with larger increases in Black voter turnout.

Also worth noting, while Dems have maintained their advantage among younger voters in the age of Trump, and increased it among younger white voters, Voters of Color weren't giving as many of their votes to Dems. (click on the graphic if you want a clearer picture).

This tells me that just saying "Trump/GOPs are bad" may not be enough. Dems need to show young voters (and voters of color especially) that they make things better and improve over what has been a dismal time in this country over most of those voters' lives. This means delivering real change which can take on many forms - from being more foreceful on voting rights, to seeing the rich and powerful be held as accountable as everyone else, to re-leveling the economy to actually work for more people, to legalizing marijuana.

Those young voters are not going to accept "it's hard to change things, so vote harder." And while demographics are slowly turning in Dems' favor in Wisconsin, it's going to take a forceful message and good results from having Dems in charge that'll make it more likely for them to win in Wisconsin in 2022 and 2024.

And if that isn't enough, perhaps scaring the hell out of white people who believe in masking, hate gerrymandering and want voters to decide elections instead of leaving it to crooked hacks at the Capitol (HINT!).

There's a lot to break down in that Catalist report on Wisconsin's vote in 2020, and I suggest you read the whole thing.