On April 5, Wisconsinites voted in their spring local elections. There was no statewide candidate on the ballot. The last time that happened, in 2014, only 505,729 people voted. On April 5, 2022, it appears that number shot up by 86% to more than 940,000!
The Wisconsin America Votes team put together an analysis adding early county by county and race by race figures—which are still being finalized. The numbers are fascinating. The big picture is this: expect turnout, on both sides, to be WAY up this fall.
940,000 voters might not seem like much in a state where 3.28 million people voted in the 2020 presidential election. But local races get infinitely less media attention or engagement. The relevant comparison point is to previous spring elections.
2022’s number, with no statewide election, is close to the total number of voters in 2021 (946k), when we had an election for the head of the Department of Public Instruction. It’s higher than 2017’s DPI race and 2015’s state Supreme Court race. That’s extraordinary.
Generally, competitive elections drive turnout. Dane County, which had very few competitive races, had a big 33% drop in turnout from 2021 to 2022. Milwaukee, which had a mayoral race, had a 38% jump up.
23 counties were within 10% of 2021’s turnout, 33 were significantly down, and 15 were significantly up—with each group including rural, suburban, and more urban counties. But nearly everyone was way up from 2014.
A fascinating part of the story was voting by mail. 186,638 absentee voters sent in their ballots by mail. That’s less than in the early days of the pandemic. But it’s a huge jump from pre-pandemic levels—more than the 2018 or 2016 fall elections for Governor and President.
The great thing about absentee ballots is that people can request them anytime, not just in the final two weeks before the election. Which means we can engage folks to get out the vote this fall… right now. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.
(Psst! By the way, this includes you. If you’re a Wisconsin voter, you can request absentee ballots—for the full year! Go do that now: myvote.wi.gov/voteabsentee)
Republicans are going to turn out in November. It’s up to us to ensure that Democrats do, too. Join our volunteer operation and help call voters to ensure that they’re registered and get their absentee ballot requests on file: wisdems.org/volunteer
And, by becoming a monthly donor, you can help make sure we’ve got even more great organizers on our team to support our neighborhood door-knocking teams and virtual phone banks! Chip in now.
At least three elections this spring were tied. They came down to a literal coin flip.
We have to treat November’s races—to re-elect Governor Evers and Attorney General Kaul, to defeat Ron Johnson, to elect state legislators and members of Congress—as though they’re tied every step of the way. That’s how we’ll win.