For two handful of electoral votes: The electoral battle in the state of Wisconsin

The real campaign for the US presidential election in November is taking place in the “swing states” and even small states are playing a key role. Claudia Franziska Brühwiler, professor of American political thought and culture, on the swing state of Wisconsin.

Für zwei Handvoll Elektoren: Im Swing State Wisconsin

Capitol Building und Park in Madison Wisconsin

“Green Bay will have a good team this year!” announced Donald J. Trump during his speech at the Republican Party Convention in Milwaukee. Trump actually prefers the world of wrestling and mixed martial arts to that of American football. This has been known since 2017 at the latest, when he called for a boycott of the National Football League (NFL) because individual players knelt during the national anthem in protest against police violence and systemic racism. Trump's optimistic season forecast for the “Green Bay Packers” was thus not to be understood as a late declaration of love to America's number one national sport, but to the voters of Wisconsin: “The Pack” is the NFL team of the Midwestern state and unites its 5.8 million inhabitants at least as strongly as the love of cheese and beer, for which the “Dairyland” is known thanks to its German heritage. Wisconsin accounts for just ten of the total of 538 electoral votes that will be at stake in the presidential election on November 5. However, these ten votes could make the decisive difference in a tight race, as Wisconsin is one of the so-called “swing states”.

Claudia Franziska Brühwiler, professor of American political thought and culture

Swing states - the real battlegrounds in the election campaign

In the USA, swing states are often referred to as “battleground states”, where the actual election battles take place. Instead of armed troops, these states are manned by campaign workers and party offices who constantly take the temperature of the population - every percentage shift in voter favour is registered, celebrated, or dramatized. At the same time, not only is more money spent on the swing states, but the candidates also travel to them conspicuously often and try to take up voter concerns. When the delegates from Ohio cheered their own state for several minutes at the Republican Party Convention out of enthusiasm for “their” vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance, their young senator said only half-ironically that they also needed to win Michigan. And, one might add, the other “battlegrounds” of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, it is no coincidence that the list of favourites for Kamala Harris' running mate includes the Democratic governors from North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Michigan plus a senator from Arizona.

The fact that comparatively small states such as Wisconsin and Arizona receive a disproportionate amount of attention and carry more weight than larger, but more predictable states for the parties, such as reliably Democratic California and Republican Texas, has led to criticism of the electoral system and the Electoral College. However, similar to the majority of the cantons in Switzerland, this also leads to a balance between highly populated and less populated regions, as well as between urban and rural regions. A look at the “swing states” also provides a better understanding of developments that are also present elsewhere, but are less noticeable and visible due to the size of the states.

Wisconsin's transformation from a blue to a purple state

Wisconsin is an example of this, as it has transformed itself from the former Democratic state of the “Rust Belt” to a purple state: For the first time since 1984, when Ronald Reagan won re-election in a landslide-victory, Wisconsin's citizens elected a Republican as president in 2016. Six years earlier, Republican Scott Walker defeated the then mayor of Milwaukee, Tom Barrett, in the race for the governor's seat. In contrast to his Democratic opponent, Walker had realized how much the state had changed: with the loss of jobs in manufacturing industries and the transformation of the agricultural economy, the Democrats were losing their most important voter groups. In rural Wisconsin in particular, the financial crisis of 2008 caused many voters to resent the benefits they saw state employees as enjoying. While the latter occupied the capitol in Madison in 2011 to protest that Governor Walker was cutting their wages and collective bargaining rights, the rest of the population supported him, both in the recall election of 2012 and in his re-election in2014.

Walker recognized the alienation of the working class and the rural population from the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, didn't take a closer look, relied solely on positive poll numbers and thus failed to visit the state even once as an official presidential candidate. However, the pendulum sometimes swings back again: in 2020, Joe Biden won a very narrow victory in Wisconsin by less than one percent over Donald Trump. In the 2018 midterm elections, Scott Walker also suffered a defeat against former teacher Tony Evers. However, the state has by no means turned Democratic blue again, as the dispute over a flag that Evers flies every year in June shows: While the “Progress Pride” flag flutters above the Capitol in Madison, the Democratic governor has vetoed more than a dozen bills by conservative legislators that were directed against LGBTQ concerns.

Wisconsin will also play a key role in November, as both sides have recognized. The Green Bay Packers already have Trump's vote - whether the “Cheeseheads” will return the favour won't be known until November 5. Kamala Harris will probably focus less on football, but she too will know how to avoid the mistakes of other Democrats. Her first stop before her election as the official presidential candidate is therefore - of course! - Wisconsin.

Claudia Franziska Brühwiler spent a one-month research stay at the Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). The stay was made possible by her winning the Walter Enggist 2023 Research Award.

Image: Adobe Stock / marchello74