Rural white voters in Wisconsin could decide America’s election
They are less enthusiastic about Donald Trump than their counterparts elsewhere
Image: Matthew Ludak
|Alma, Wisconsin
The last time Larry Jost, a sixth-generation Wisconsinite, even considered supporting a Republican was in primary school. “I had an ‘I like Ike’ pin just because I liked the rhyme,” he says. His town of Alma, with two main streets, is tucked along the Mississippi River between a dam and limestone bluffs. Every Wednesday morning he gathers in his wife’s art gallery with members of his book club, including a retired local judge, a carpenter and a farmer. Recently they discussed an anthology of short stories edited by Langston Hughes. “We’re the last Democrats in Buffalo County and that’s why we meet back here in Kevlar vests,” jokes one member.
Their species became endangered abruptly. In every presidential election between 1988 and 2012, Buffalo County voted for the Democratic candidate. But in 2016 Donald Trump won the county by 22 points and wrested Wisconsin from the Democrats while forging his electoral-college victory over Hillary Clinton. Mr Trump carried Buffalo easily again in 2020 as he lost Wisconsin to Joe Biden by a mere 20,000 votes out of more than 3m cast.
Vote margin, percentage points
Democrats’ edge in the national popular vote has been built on huge margins among minority voters to compensate for deficits among white voters, especially those outside of urban centres.
Mr Trump’s persistent appeal to rural white voters is foundational to his rise and resurrection. Rural areas have moved increasingly away from Democrats.
Mr Trump is keen to capitalise on his opponent’s weak polling with minority voters. But he will need his support among rural white voters to hold up as well.
Rural white Wisconsinites lean left of their peers elsewhere. Some local polls give Mr Biden a narrow lead in the state, and his path to re-election may depend on his winning over enough of this group.
Sources: Catalist; Edison; Marquette Law School Poll; National Election Pool, Roper Center; YouGov/The Economist
As Mr Trump opens formidable polling leads in Nevada, Arizona and Georgia—other swing states Mr Biden won in 2020—Wisconsin’s significance has grown. Mr Biden may need to win all of the demographically similar states formerly mislabelled as the Blue Wall: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Barring surprises elsewhere, if Mr Biden swept those three and won one of Nebraska’s split electoral votes, a likely prospect, he would be re-elected, barely.
The contest emerging in Wisconsin is striking in part because it complicates the story of Mr Trump’s success with rural white voters. They comprise a far greater share of Wisconsin’s electorate than of any other state rated by non-partisan analysts as a toss-up in 2024 (see chart). Yet Wisconsin’s rural white voters have remained decidedly less Republican than those in other swing states.
Wisconsin, rural population, 2023
Rural counties*
Rural white voters†, 2020
Share of total
votes cast, %
Republican margin,
percentage-points
Superior
40
80
WI
GA
30
60
MI
PA
PA
GA
Wausau
20
National
40
National
NV
MI
La Crosse
AZ
Mississippi
AZ
10
20
River
WI
NV
Lake
Michigan
Madison
Milwaukee
50 km
0
0
*90% or more of the population live in a rural zipcode †Defined by Catalist
Sources: Catalist; Jed Kolko; The Economist
Wisconsin, rural population, 2023
Rural counties*
Superior
Wausau
La Crosse
Mississippi
River
Lake
Michigan
Madison
Milwaukee
50 km
Rural white voters†, 2020
Share of total votes cast, %
0
40
10
20
30
WI
NV
AZ
GA
PA
National
MI
Republican margin, percentage-points
0
20
40
60
80
WI
AZ
GA
NV
PA
MI
*90% or more of the population live in a rural zipcode
†Defined by Catalist
Sources: Catalist; Jed Kolko; The Economist
Wisconsin, rural population, 2023
Rural counties*
Superior
Wausau
La Crosse
Mississippi
River
Lake
Michigan
Madison
Milwaukee
50 km
Rural white voters†, 2020
Share of total votes cast, %
0
40
10
20
30
WI
NV
AZ
GA
PA
National
MI
Republican margin, percentage-points
0
20
40
60
80
WI
AZ
GA
NV
PA
MI
*90% or more of the population live in a rural zipcode †Defined by Catalist
Sources: Catalist; Jed Kolko; The Economist
In 2020 Mr Biden lost the segment in Wisconsin by 24 points, compared with 43 points nationally. In Pennsylvania and Michigan Mr Trump won the rural-white vote by 44 points and 31 points, respectively. A recent survey by Marquette Law School showed Mr Biden improving slightly with Wisconsin’s rural voters over 2020, although this was more than offset by a decline among suburbanites.
Mr Jost and his book-club members, then, are perhaps not so anomalous: the state’s Democratic coalition relies significantly on rural white voters. Why is Wisconsin’s liberal vote in the countryside relatively resilient? The most obvious reason is the state’s long history as a bastion of agrarian progressive politics, exemplified by the career of Robert La Follette, a three-term governor and three-term senator early in the 20th century who championed progressive taxation and government investment in rural areas. He and his successors in Wisconsin politics, who eventually migrated to the Democratic Party, won backing from “agrarian progressives who actually thought government was a good thing because it brought them things like rural electrification and utilities and highways”, says Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That outlook has not vanished.
A step to the right
Presidential vote margin by county, percentage points, sized by population
Rural counties*
The recent turn to anti-government populism dates to 2010, as the Tea Party wave crested. That year, Republicans flipped all three branches of the state’s government and Scott Walker became governor on a message demonising public employees and their pensions. Dozens of rural counties that had voted consistently for Democrats backed him. What Mr Walker planted, Mr Trump has reaped.
In addition to Wisconsin’s progressive traditions, other factors may limit Mr Trump’s vote, however. Wisconsin has small- to medium-sized state university campuses spread throughout its territory. (Mr Biden does best among younger and college-educated rural voters.) And because the state has a relatively balanced mix of suburban and rural populations, and of university graduates and non-college-educated voters, polarisation in recent years has been symmetrical. In four of the past six presidential elections, the winning candidate’s margin of victory has been less than one percentage point.
Top: Gary Herritz, of Hill Point, WI, is an ardent Donald Trump supporter whose main concern in the election is to see Mr Trump returned to the White House. Bottom: Jennifer Paul, of Hill Point, WI, cited the rise in the cost of living as her top political concern. She said she intended to vote for Mr Trump. Image: Matthew Ludak
Infamously to Democrats, Mrs Clinton did not visit Wisconsin once during her 2016 general-election campaign. Mr Biden and Kamala Harris have already visited it a combined eight times this year. They don’t often rally in rural areas but of the 46 offices the Biden campaign has opened in Wisconsin—more than in any other swing state—nearly half are in rural counties.
Republicans are betting that this outreach, a strong Democratic state party and emotive issues such as abortion rights and the insurrection of January 6th cannot compete with Mr Trump’s personal appeal to rural voters. His win in Wisconsin in 2016 was the first by a Republican in 32 years, and he achieved it with little campaign infrastructure. The Wisconsin Republican Party remains well-organised and “has gotten very good at turning out votes”, notes Mark Graul, a Republican strategist who ran George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign in the state.
Get out of town
“Which candidate is better on these issues?”
Wisconsin, percentage-point margin*
← Biden
Trump →
40
20
0
20
40
Immigration
Urban
Suburban
Rural
The economy
Foreign relations
Health care
Urban
Rural
Suburban
Abortion policy
*Poll of registered voters
Source: Marquette Law School Poll
Get out of town
“Which candidate is better on these issues?”
Wisconsin, percentage-point margin*
← Biden
Trump →
Immigration
40
20
0
20
40
Urban
Suburban
Rural
The economy
Foreign relations
Health care
Abortion policy
*Poll of registered voters
Source: Marquette Law School Poll
Get out of town
“Which candidate is better on these issues?”
Wisconsin, percentage-point margin*
← Biden
Trump →
40
20
0
20
40
Immigration
Urban
Suburban
Rural
The economy
Foreign relations
Health care
Urban
Rural
Suburban
Abortion policy
*Poll of registered voters
Source: Marquette Law School Poll
Mr Biden’s biggest problem is that he is seen as performing abysmally on the economy and immigration, the issues rural voters—and others—cite as most important. In the Wisconsin countryside, as in much of rural America, the problems are entrenched: declining populations, blighted main streets, dwindling access to health care and shuttered family farms. Charlene, a farmer in western Wisconsin who works a second job as a cleaner to supplement her family’s income, says she’ll be voting for Mr Trump because of his strength on the economy and health care. Her son struggled to afford care when he fell ill recently. Because of Republican resistance, Wisconsin remains one of ten states yet to expand Medicaid to cover those whose incomes fall just above the poverty line.
Top: Mark Weihing, photographed in Sauk County, WI, is a lifelong Republican but has become disillusioned with his party. He said he would not vote for Mr Trump in November but declined to say who he favoured. Bottom: Greg Snell, of Sauk City, WI, is a small-business owner who views Donald Trump as a “loud mouth bully.” He said he will vote for Joe Biden in November. Image: Matthew Ludak
Democrats tout their commitment to rural investment. For example, the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Mr Biden signed pledges to invest some $1.4bn in Wisconsin to deliver high-speed internet service to underserved areas, partly to tackle rural isolation from the information economy. But the process will be slow. Mr Biden can complain that he does not get credit for his economic achievements, but his technocratic policies and messages about preserving democratic norms do not resonate with rural voters who have “a tangible feeling that the political system is broken”, says Bill Hogseth, a community organiser in western Wisconsin.
The familiar meme of rural white rage can be overdrawn. Still, when rural voters hear Mr Trump say that Washington is a mess and they have a right to be angry, his words strike a chord, Mr Hogseth reports. “There’s a lot of anger here, and so when you have a candidate who’s willing to name that, it’s going to get some traction.” ■
