Wisconsin Legislative Almanac The Road to Election data for all 132 Wisconsin legislative districts By Joe Handrick @joeminocqua “Joe Handrick is the best Wisconsin political numbers guy in Legislative Wisconsin and the 2020 Almanac is a must-have for Almanac political junkies." The Road to ~~ Dan O’Donnell, Award-winning broadcaster Contents Introduction Page 1 How Districts Are Classified in This Almanac — Explaining the three multi-race composites State Assembly Page 2 The Big Picture—State Assembly Page 3 State Assembly—The Total and Likely Range of Seats That Can Be Won By Either Party Page 4—51 Assembly Republicans — Profiles of individual districts held by GOP Page 52 The Trump Effect, as seen in safe GOP seats Page 53 State Assembly — Safe DEM Seats Page 54—60 Assembly Democrats — Profiles of individual districts held by DEMs State Senate Page 61 The Big Picture — State Senate Page 62 State Senate — The Total and Likely Range of Seats That Can Be Won By Either Party Page 63—68 Senate Republicans — Profiles of individual districts held by GOP Page 69 State Senate — Safe Seats and ODD Numbered Seats (not up for re-election in 2020) Pages 70—72 Senate Democrats — Profiles of individual districts held by DEMs Summary Page 73 Summary — Pathways to Majority Page 1 How Districts Are Classified In This Almanac To the right are the color codes and percentages used throughout this Safe GOP 58% GOP and up Safe DEM 42% GOP and below Almanac. Unless otherwise noted, all Strong GOP 55—57% GOP Strong DEM 43—45% GOP percentages are expressed in terms of the Republican share of the vote. Lean GOP 53—54% GOP Lean DEM 46-—47% GOP There are 3 distinct multi-race composites given for each district: A Highly Competitive 48—52% Pre-2015 Composite, A Post-2015 Composite, and A Generic Composite. “How Republican (or Democrat) is District X?” Explaining the Three Multi-Race Composites In prior editions of this Almanac, we were able to assign each Assembly and Senate district a partisan composite number based on statewide elections over the prior decade. Even as the state would swing back and forth (for example, from the big Doyle DEM win in 2006 to the big Walker GOP win in 2010), the general pattern was relatively predictable: Dane and MKE counties would vote heavy for the DEMs, the WOW counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington) would go big for the GOP, and the Fox Valley and western Wisconsin would swing back and forth and choose the winner. This basic pattern still holds to some degree. The arrival of Donald Trump in 2016, however, has altered what a GOP statewide win or a DEM statewide win looks like. Trump’s victory in 2016 was different than anything we had seen before. Compared to past GOP victories, he did poorly in WOW (he still won in WOW, but not by the massive margins of the past). At the same time, Trump did exceptionally well in rural Wisconsin — both in GOP rural areas (such as Vilas county) but also in historically DEM rural areas (such as Ashland and Trempealeau counties). Meanwhile, the Fox Valley has continued to show a tendency to “swing” back and forth and MKE and Dane counties continue to be dark blue. The question in 2020 is whether this new pattern (GOP weaker in suburbs but stronger in rural areas) that we saw in 2016 and 2018 is a permanent re-alignment or will Wisconsin revert to historical patterns after Trump leaves the scene. Polling suggests the new pattern will hold in 2020. Because voting patterns changed so much in 2016, this Almanac provides three composite rankings — • Pre 2015 Composite: A composite built using statewide races from 2012 and 2014. • Post 2015 Composite: A composite of statewide races in the era of Trump — 2016 and 2018. • Generic Composite: A combination of State Treasurer and Secretary of State races from the entire decade. These generic races are the ones least influenced by the personalities of individual candidates and, therefore, are most reflective of the generic GOP/DEM makeup of a district. They do not, however, include any presidential year elections. Because Trump will likely be on the ballot in 2020, it is likely this new pattern will hold in the upcoming election, making the “Post 2015” composite of great use for the 2020 elections. 13th Assembly District To the right is an example of how these three composites are presented Multi-Race Composites for each featured district in the Almanac. This particular seat is a Pre 2015 Post 2015 Generic suburban Milwaukee seat where GOP numbers fell dramatically later in the 59% 51% 55% decade. SAFE HIGHLY STRONG REPUBLICAN COMPETITIVE REPUBLICAN Page 2 The BIG Picture — State Assembly 99 Districts Sorted by the Post- # of Held by Held by Classification Seats GOP DEM 2015 Multi-Race Composite* Safe GOP 30 30 0 (58% and greater GOP) In the 2018 elections, Republicans won all 48 “Post-2015 Composite” Republican seats Strong GOP 12 12 0 (55% - 57% GOP) in the Wisconsin Assembly. Lean GOP 6 6 0 (53% - 54% GOP) Republicans won 14 of 16 highly Highly competitive swing districts. Competitive 16 14 2 (48% - 52%) Republicans also won a strong Lean DEM 1 0 1 (53% - 54% DEM) DEM seat bringing their total in the Assembly to 63 members. Strong DEM 5 1 4 (55% - 57% DEM) Democrats won 34 of 35 Safe DEM 29 0 29 (58% and greater DEM) Democrat seats and 2 highly competitive seats, for a total of 36 TOTAL 99 63 36 99 Districts Sorted by Pre –2015 99 Districts Sorted by Generic Multi-Race Composite* District Composite* # of # of Classification Seats Classification Seats Safe GOP 23 (58% and greater GOP) Safe GOP 29 (58% and greater GOP) Strong GOP 19 (55% - 57% GOP) Strong GOP 15 (55% - 57% GOP) Lean GOP 8 (53% - 54% GOP) Lean GOP 10 (53% - 54% GOP) Highly Highly Competitive 11 (48% - 52%) Competitive 10 (48% - 52%)) Lean DEM 3 (53% - 54% DEM) Lean DEM 0 (53% - 54% DEM) Strong DEM 7 (55% - 57% DEM) Strong DEM 6 (55% - 57% DEM) Safe DEM 28 (58% and greater DEM) Safe DEM 29 (58% and greater DEM) * SEE prior page for description of “Post-2015” , “Pre-2015”, and “Generic” multi-race composites. ASSEMBLY — The Total and Likely Range of... Page 3 ...Seats That Can be Won By Either Party While Democrats and many in the media continue to blame the Democrat’s legislative woes on redistricting, the greater prob- lem for Democrats is their inability to win in competitive districts. Although the map creates more Republican seats than Dem- ocrat seats (due to Democratic voter hyper-concentration), Democrats are capable of winning a majority of districts — they just have not been able to. On this page we use three methods to show the total range and likely range of seats that can be won by either party. Any seat that is not designated as “safe” can be won by either party. However, a win by the opposite party in a “strong” seat is rare and usually involves an abnormal circumstance (such as a scandal). Therefore, the “total range” employed in Method 2 (SEE below) groups the “strong” seats with the “safe” seats for purposes of defining a “total range” of winnable seats. Method 1: Based on statewide elections, 2012-2018 There have been 13 statewide races between 2012 and 2018 (not including the 2012 recall). There are 43 Assembly seats in which the GOP candidate won in all thirteen races and 34 seats in which the DEM candidate won in all thirteen. This leaves 22 districts that have been won by each of the parties in statewide races over the decade. Therefore, using this method: • The total possible GOP range in the Assembly is between 43 and 65 seats. Median = 54 seats. • The total possible DEM range in the Assembly is between 34 and 56 seats. Median = 45 seats. Method 2: Using the “Post 2015 Composite” as presented in this Almanac The GOP low end (Safe GOP plus Strong GOP) is 42 seats while the high end (add in Lean Republican, Highly Competitive and Lean DEM) is 65 seats. Meanwhile the DEM low end (Safe DEM plus Strong DEM) is 34 seats while the DEM high end is 57 seats. Therefore, using this method: • The total possible GOP range in the Assembly is between 42 and 65 seats. Median = 53.5 seats. • The total possible DEM range in the Assembly is between 34 and 57 seats. Median = 45.5 seats Method 3: Based on Districts Actually Won Currently the GOP holds an Assembly district (AD 51) that is only 45% Republican in the Post 2015 Composite. This demonstrates it is possible for either party to win any seat that is 45% or better for that party. If the Republicans won every seat equal to or better than 45% they could be at 65 seats. If the Democrats won every seat equal or better than 45% for their party, they could be at 61 seats. Therefore, using this method: • The total possible GOP range in the Assembly is between 38 and 65 districts. Median = 51.5 seats. • The total possible DEM range in the Assembly is between 34 and 61 districts. Median = 47.5 seats. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This Almanac is based on the partisan composite that is used in Method 2. Using this method, the TOTAL RANGE Total Range for the GOP is 42 to 65 seats and the Total Range for the Democrats is 34 to 57 seats. The likely range (taking into account incumbency) is, of course, much more narrow than the total LIKELY RANGE range.