With the release of census data for Wisconsin, we can also crunch population numbers by State Senate district – and to see potentially how redistricting could affect the various senators with recall campaigns mounted against them.
Without further ado, here’s the table – the eight rows highlighted in green are the eight recallable Republican senators.
As also shown in the data by Congressional district, there’s a shift from Milwaukee to Madison, population wise. The Milwaukee County based districts (3rd – 8th) are all quite underpopulated, while the Madison-based 16th, 26th, and 27th are now overpopulated. The MSP exurbs – now expanding into St. Croix County – have also grown, as shown in the overpopulation in the 10th (Harsdorf, R).
Will this affect the Recallable 8? I’m skeptical – it’s unlikely, IMO, that we’ll get anything friendly from an unfriendly trifecta. Likely, the relative stability means that not too much will have to change – most of the recallable eight have districts that were stable population wise. Harsdorf’s 10th will have to lose some – but that could be easily some Dem-leaning territory given to Robert Jauch’s 25th (D).
The Milwaukee County districts will need to expand outward…which could conveniently remove the Dem-leaning North Shore from Alberta “anything but” Darling’s 8th. Additionally, given that Milwaukee County is surrounded on three sides by heavily Republican suburbs, it’s pretty easy to slice that pizza. On the flip side, the growth in Dane County hasn’t reached a point yet where that would have to be sliced four ways.
So, unless we actually manage to recall Hopper, Darling, Kapanke, et al., the census numbers don’t necessarily indicate any help to come from Senate redistricting…especially not with an unfriendly legislature drawing the maps.