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Comment by tfehring | Hacker News Reader

Southeastern Wisconsin as a whole only has 2.1 million [0] of the state's 5.7 million residents as of 2014. 600k of that is Milwaukee itself.

[0] https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/population/southeastern.htm

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It's not like everything outside of Madison/Milwaukee is deep red. The only deep red counties in Wisconsin are extremely sparse. Kenosha County, for example, is mostly rural but was split almost exactly down the middle on Clinton/Trump (fewer than 300 votes between the two), and that was a rather extraordinary swing to the right for that county

Parent's observation that the WOW counties determine the statewide offices and electoral college vote allocation is absolutely accurate.

WOW meaning Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington? Those counties make up a little over 10% of the state's population. I agree that they're important, and I agree that it makes sense to campaign there because they have higher population densities, higher voter turnouts, and more swing voters than the deep red exurban counties. But it's misleading to claim that they include the vast majority of Wisconsin's Republicans, as the GP comment did, or that they're the main factor in election outcomes. In 2016, for example, the 8 percentage point decrease in Milwaukee's turnout rate compared to 2012 was probably a bigger factor.

> But it's misleading to claim that they include the vast majority of Wisconsin's Republicans, as the GP comment did

Oh, I misinterpreted the parent post's comment. Yeah, that's not true.

2016 was strange across the ballot in Wisconsin. Clinton was not a Wisconsin-friendly Democrat. The 2018 and 2020 elections will be interesting to watch. In general, it's a good rule of of thumb that getting things just right in WOW is one path to victory. There are other paths, of course, depressed turnouts being one of them.

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