For my next analysis, I will look at the Wisconsin legislative districts in the Green Bay suburbs, specifically two Assembly Districts (AD 4 and AD 88) and one Senate District (SD 30). In the WI legislature, each senate district is geographically comprised of three assembly districts.
First, I’ll go through the two assembly districts: AD 4 and AD 88. For reference, much of the core city of Green Bay is contained in AD 90, which is a solidly Democratic seat (and thus not of particular importance for this article) with AD 4 containing areas to the west and south and AD 88 containing areas to the east and south. It may be worthwhile to note that the University of WI – Green Bay is contained in AD 88.
At the presidential level, both of these districts swung about 6 points to the right between 2012 and 2016. Specifically, AD 4, went from supporting Romney by about 3 points to supporting Donald Trump by about 9 points, while AD 88, which is generally a tad more Dem leaning than AD 4, supported Romney by just around 1.5 points and went for Donald Trump (in 2016) by 7 points. It should be noted that Wisconsin itself experienced a slightly larger swing to the right in 2016 than these two districts did, as Barack Obama won Wisconsin by almost 7 points in 2012 and Trump narrowly won it by less than a percentage point in 2016. Trump’s actual share of the vote in 2016 wasn’t that much higher than Romney’s in either of these districts, so it’s possible that third-party voting (i.e. Jill Stein) contributed to the districts’ rightward swings. In 2020, both of these districts swung back towards the Dems, with Joe Biden only losing AD 4 by about 3 points, and AD 88 by a little more than 2 points, essentially matching (or almost matching) Obama’s 2012 margins, which is fairly impressive given Biden only narrowly won WI statewide (by less than a percentage point), unlike Obama. Biden underperformed his statewide margin in the districts by 3 to 4 points, which is also a slight improvement over the 2018 midterms, where the statewide Dems in WI did roughly 5 to 7 points worse in these districts than they did statewide.
The results for state assembly races in these districts are also worth discussing. In 2012, AD 88 featured a competitive race, in which the Republican won by about 5 points, and AD 4 was marginally competitive (with the Republican winning by around 10 points). The state assembly races were not particularly competitive for either of these districts in 2014 or 2016, but in 2018 the state legislative races were closer. In 2018, David Steffen, the Republican incumbent in AD 4 won by just under 10 points, and John Macco, the Republican incumbent in AD 88, won by just under 7 points. And in 2020, in contrast to a lot of other Republican held legislative seats across the U.S where Dem challengers did worse than in 2018, the Dem assembly candidates improved in both of these districts. Dem Kathy Hinkfuss lost to Steffen by about 6 points (easily the best Dem assembly performance under the district’s current boundaries) and Dem Kristin Lyerly lost to Macco by about 4.5 points, with both of the Dem candidates only underperforming Biden by about 2-3 points. Republican Mike Gallagher, who represents US CD 8, easily carried both of these districts in 2020, though this is likely a function of his significantly outperforming Trump overall in the congressional district. While both of these assembly districts still lean to the right of the state, the degree of their Republican lean seems to be somewhat shrinking (relative to the state), so it’s conceivable that winning these districts could be key to winning statewide in the future. (Of course, the districts won’t exist in the future under their current boundaries.) Perhaps under a fair map, parts of AD 4 and AD 88 could be combined into a Dem leaning district? (Essentially uncracking the Green Bay suburbs.)
Finally, SD 30, is geographically made up of AD 88, as well as the previously mentioned AD 90, and AD 89, which extends far to the north and is reliably Republican. Unlike AD 4 and AD 88, SD 32 is clearly trending away from the Democrats and voted further to the right of the state in 2016 than in 2012. SD 30 went from supporting Obama in 2012 by about 4.5 points (unlike the two Assembly districts) to supporting Trump by around 10.5 points in 2016 and by slightly lower margin of 8 points in 2020. Democrat Dave Hansen managed to survive re-election in 2016 (albeit by a narrow margin of less than 3 points) despite Trump’s decent margin in the district. Dave Hansen opted to not to run for 2020, which made the district even more vulnerable for Dems. SD 30 flipped to the Republicans this cycle with Eric Wimberger (who was the 2016 Republican challenger for this Senate District, as well) defeating Dem Jonathon Hansen (Dave’s nephew) by a little more than 9 points, actually outperforming Trump by a percentage point. It’s seems that the Dems would have likely lost this seat even had the incumbent run for re-election, given the trend of the district/polarization. Tammy Baldwin was the only statewide Dem to carry the district in 2018, and it doesn’t seem as though 2020 was really any better for Dems here. Tony Evers, who narrowly won statewide in 2018, outperformed Biden here by about 2 points. While the 2020 results for Dems don’t seem great here, it should be noted that there are six Obama 2012 – Trump 2016 State Senate districts (none of which voted for Biden) in WI and while this featured Trump’s second-best margin (of those six districts) in 2016, it had only his fourth-best margin in 2020, so it seems that the Dems have fallen even further or rebounded less in other parts of the state. (I’ll discuss those districts in future articles)
Thanks to Daily Kos Elections for the 2012 and 2016 Presidential Results), Eli (twitter handle @elium2) for all the 2018 statewide calculations, and Aaron Moriak (twitter handle @MaronAoriak) for all the 2020 statewide calculations.