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There’s one thing upon which Kamala Harris and Donald Trump readily agree: Wisconsin will play a vital role in who wins the election. In a July speech in Milwaukee, Harris asserted, “The path to the White House runs through Wisconsin.” Similarly, on Oct. 6, Trump, visiting the state for the fourth time in eight days, said, “If we win Wisconsin, we win the presidency.”
For Trump, especially, this was more than bombast. Wisconsin went for him in 2016, the only time in the last 40 years that a Republican presidential candidate captured the state. But the margin was razor thin. Trump beat Hillary Clinton by fewer than 23,000 votes, or 0.77%, only to lose to Joe Biden in 2020 by under 21,000 votes, or 0.63%. How Wisconsin will go in November is anybody’s guess.
States changing political stripes isn’t unique. Perhaps the best example: California, home to Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, now leans overwhelmingly Democratic. But rather than present a clear line of political evolution, the Badger State has a long history of political inconsistency, including some truly extreme swings.
Most of those swings reflected, and sometimes led, national trends. Wisconsin has proved uniquely susceptible to following the national wind — often in more exaggerated forms. As the country has become more polarized, this has meant more frequent lurches in the Badger State. Unlike states that have experienced dramatic demographic and economic changes that drove political shifts, Wisconsin remains relatively stable and homogeneous. Its stability on a number of fronts means that the state offers a unique window into the cause and effects of national trends and shifts.
Known as “America’s Dairyland,” Wisconsin had been a state for less than 40 years when Robert M. La Follette (1855-1925) began his political career there, serving three terms as governor and 19 years in the U.S. Senate. Wisconsin was not experiencing industrialization and urbanization to…
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