Note: I wrote this diary on another site about a year ago. While much of it still holds true today, it is obvious that COVID-19 has changed the dynamics and likely exacerbated the rural-urban divide.
Wow = The Counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington
WOW- The GOP Firewall for Trump in 2020?[
In 2017, many Democrats were looking for paths to regain foothold in our government. Many assumed that areas that voted Democratic in the past would be the path of least resistance. A string of special elections and the 2018 Midterm elections showed that trends coming from 2016 were indeed real.
However, there is one state which somewhat bucked that rule: Wisconsin. Special elections after Trump and the 2018 Midterm Elections and the 2020 Supreme Court special election largely has seen Wisconsin vote more like prior-2016 rather than 2016 election itself. Though in a modified sense. Western and Northern Wisconsin are not as reliably Democratic as before and WOW is not as insanely Republican as before.
In the past Wisconsin elections have been decided by rural Wisconsin. Milwaukee County and Dane County voted like most other central urban areas, the Milwaukee Suburban ring voted heavily Republican and elections have been decided by rural Wisconsin. While that was not as uncommon in other states in the past (such as Minnesota recently, Illinois in the semi-recent past, Missouri to a extent) it was heavily pronounced in Wisconsin.
Come 2016, many political nerds set into a state of shock when Trump won Wisconsin. Despite the GOP sweeping statewide offices, save one, in 2010 and 2014 and many close elections since 2000 it was seen as a titanium Democratic state.
On the surface a simple trend map from 2012 to 2016 shows Wisconsin followed the nation trends, with Wow, Dane and Milwaukee swinging to the Democrats and rest of the state swinging to the republicans
Although it is clear that poor Democratic voter turn out probably cost Hillary Clinton, this occurred while the driftless areas often gave underwhelming margins to Trump. Historically awful for a Democratic but pretty damn good considering how the rest of the rural Midwest swung to the GOP. In the same election we saw Ron Johnson pull a surprise win on the back of WOW while he was losing many of the driftless counties.
WOW was the blood red fire wall for the GOP in 2016 and was aided by the somewhat unexpected drop in rural Democratic support.
Now come in 2018 the driftless areas did pretty well for Democrats and aided them in winning every statewide office. Baldwin marched to a double digit victory and either winning or going above 40% in most rural counties. In WOW, Baldwin was only able to score above 40% in Ozaukee County.
The largest surprise for me when I saw the Wisconsin map that I thought Scott Walker would be leading. But it turns out Walker's drop in the WOW counties allowed Milwaukee and Dane to overcome the rest of the state.
While following trends of most other states Wisconsin still is [i]different[/i] from other states.
In WOW you have a bunch of wealthy whites who listen to talk radio all day. They can not stand the thought of public transportation. I have researched mass transit in WOW. It exists but extremely limited. No surprise that the county that I could find the most information about mass transportation about was Ozaukee County which is the most Democratic of the three.
But here is what WOW reminds me of which I know all too well.
Why are Utah, Davis and Weber counties so Republican despite growing diversity and those counties are even behaving like urban areas and have a surprisingly robust mass transit system?
Religious people. While that aspect is smaller in WOW as compared to the Mormon counties in Utah it is the largest factor as to why they are so Republican. Religion and talk radio play a large factor in day to day life in both WOW and the non-Salt Lake urban counties of Utah. These people with strong family and community support believe that everyone has equal chances due to their upbringing and are clueless to the conditions of the poor minority communities and how it creates an endless generational cycle of poverty.
The GOP firewall of Wisconsin is due to religion and lack of interest in the real world.
I was expecting 2016/2018 trends to continue in rural areas in 2020 and WOW only marginally away from Trump. It could be the firewall for Trump in Wisconsin in 2020. But if Trump loses in Wisconsin it will be because WOW drops off unexpectedly for him.
But with COVID 19 increasingly polarizing us along rural and urban lines could Biden win Wisconsin but winning historically blue rural counties and doing better than expected in WoW? We shall see!
