With the Wisconsin Senate’s Democratic caucus in the news recently, I thought I would look at its composition and, since the chamber flipped in 2010, what the “lost” seats looked like geographically/demographically.
Wisconsin has 8 Congressional districts and 33 Senate districts, each of which contains 3 Assembly districts. That works out to about 4 Senate districts per Congressional districts, and that’s how I’m going to loosely divide them up, although it will be rougher in places than others.
The Congressional districts: http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lts…
and the Senate districts:
http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lts…
Gwen Moore’s Milwaukee Congressional district corresponds to state Senate districts 3, 4, 6, and 7. All are Democratic-held, although Ballotpedia points out that District 7’s Chris Larson was one of a small handful of candidates to beat an incumbent state Senator in a primary. (District 7 snakes around covering coastal Milwaukee). A number of Assembly districts in these Senate districts are actually Republican-held, and some seem to be suburban, but I’m going to look at that in another diary.
Jim Sensenbrenner’s affluent suburban Milwaukee district can correspond to state Senate districts 5, 8, 33, and 20 (as well as some of 13). All are Republican-held, and District 5 flipped in 2010. From its appearance I guessed that it was a classic ritzy inner-ring suburban district, and so it appears to be (although one of its assembly districts is actually in Milwaukee proper). Check out the median income map: http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lrb…
Paul Ryan’s district in the southeast corner of the state can correspond to districts 11, 21, 22, and 28 (as well as some of 15). All are Republican-held except for District 22, more or less coterminous with Kenosha County. According to Wiki, it’s actually considered part of the Chicago metro area. District 21, right above it, flipped in 2010. It also appears affluent, although less so than District 22.
Tammy Baldwin’s Madison-area district can correspond to districts 15, 16, 26, and 27 (as well as some of 13 and 14). All are Democratic-held. Interesting note: District 26, covering Madison proper, is represented by Fred Risser. As per Ballotpedia, he is the longest-serving state legislator in the United States, having first been elected in 1963.
The northern, Green Bay-ish district formerly represented by Steve Kagen and now by Reid Riggle can correspond loosely to districts 1, 2, 30, and 12 (it also has some of 14, at least). 30 and 12 are Democratic (30 seems to correspond to the city of Green Bay, while 12 is very large and rural) while 1 and 2 are Republican–perhaps why it is such a swingy district.
Tom Petri’s district stretches, presumably, between the Milwaukee and Madison suburbs. It is the hardest to fit into Senate districts, covering parts of 9, 13, 14, 18, 19, and 20. Anyway, all are Republican, and none flipped in 2010.
Ron Kind represents a district with a reputation for a rare combination of ruralness and Democratic-friendlishness. I’m going to call it more or less Districts 17, 23, 31, and 32, it also has part of 10. Districts 31 is held by a Democrat, and Districts 10, 17, 23, and 32 by Republicans. Doesn’t make Kind’s district look like very friendly territory, but then District 23 just flipped in 2010. It contains some of Eau Claire, but I can’t tell too much interesting about it. I would be interested to know what explains the state/fed difference here.
Finally, Dave Obey’s old district, now represented by Sean Duffy, covers Districts 24, 25, and 29, as well as the rest of District 10 and some of Districts 23 and 12. This Congressional district, of course, flipped in 2010, and so did one of its parts, Senate District 29 (and 23). District 29 contains some wealthy areas, amusingly, they seem to correspond to the village of Rothschild(!). Districts 24 and 25 remain in the D fold; District 24 is represented by unsuccessful 2010 Congressional nominee Julie Lassa.
In short, the Wisconsin Senate Dem caucus seems to unsurprisingly mirror its Congressional delegation. Of its 14 seats, 8 more or less line up with the Milwaukee and Madison areas represented by Moore and Baldwin. Of the remaining 6, one is in Chicagoland, one covers Green Bay, one includes much of Eau Claire, and the remaining three include two large, Canada-bordering rural districts and Lassa’s 24th. Of note, only odd-numbered seats were up in 2010, so it is possible that 12 and 24, two of these last three, got spared by chance while the adjacent 23 and 29 flipped.
Anyway, I am always wondering where state-level Dems are, so I thought I would summarize it up for y’all. I welcome corrections and comments from more Wi-knowledgeable readers.
redistricting meeting on Friday. I hope the democrats show up for it. If not the committee might just pass the plan with no objections.
Okay kidding about that but one can imagine state senate redistricting could be brutal this year.
While looking at the Congressional districts can be helpful, I think looking at the actual districts would be better. Here are two Excel spreadsheets that point out the partisan nature of all Assembly seats and the Senate seats that were up last year. Since 3 Assembly seats correspond with a Senate seats, you can fill in the gaps using the Assembly seats. These spreadsheets aggregate the results of the 08 presidential, 06 gov, 04 pres, and 02 ag (ag is used because the gov race was three way so it messes up the two party preferred). So it is a bit old and does not include the 10 gov, but is still offers a pretty detailed look at the partisan nature of the seats. Actually having only the Senate seats from last year is helpful because these were the seats that brought in the Dem majority in 06 and brought them out last year as no seats changed hands in 08. So here are the spreadsheets.
Assembly:
http://app.blastnewsletters.co…
Senate:
http://app.blastnewsletters.co…
Here are the 2010 election results:
http://gab.wi.gov/sites/defaul…
Here is my somewhat limited analysis of the Senate seats:
The seats that were targeted all of last year were 5, 21, 23, and 31. These were the seats the Dems gained in 06 that brought them the majority.
5 is a largely suburban Milwaukee seats. I would say this is the most marginal district in the state due the fact that the main population centers, West Allis and Wauwatosa, are incredibly swingy, but do not swing wildly. So these are areas Obama won with maybe 52/53 percent of the vote, but that Walker won with 52/53 percent. So last year, these areas just swung toward Vukmir. This area does contain parts of Milwaukee, but this is counterbalanced by a large chunk of very GOP Waukesha county. In fact the Democrat, Jim Sullivan, won the Milwaukee County portion of the district by 1,000 votes but lost the Waukesha county portion by 4,000. So basically, this District is in GOP hands because at the 2000 redistricting this district went from being completely within MKE county to shedding some parts and heading into uber Republican Elm Grove and Brookfield.
21 is much more polarized. It contains heavily Dem (and in some parts heavily African-American) city of Racine and then heavily Republican parts of Racine County. I think this was a victim of the enthusiasm gap as victory meant getting out the base in Racine and that simply did not occur this year. This the rural and suburban parts of the district overwhelmed the urban parts, leading to victory for Van Wangaard.
23 and 31 are pretty similar. The both contain parts of the city of Eau Claire and then rural territory. The difference between the two districts is the the rural parts of the 31 are more Democratic than the rural parts of 23. The partisan difference can be seen in the spreadsheet. 31 contains more the West and Southwestern rural areas that are still pretty Democratic. That made all the difference. Thus while the Dem in 23 fell to Moulton, Vinehout in 31 barely held on by a few hundred votes. In fact it is the fact than Vinehout pulled out such a close victory that denied Republicans the 20th seat and have given Democrats the ability to utilize what seems to be their last remaining tactic, which is leaving the state and leaving the GOP without a quorum.
The 29th was quite the surprise. This seat was held by former Senate Majority leader Russ Decker who held the seat since the 90s I believe. As indicated in the spreadsheet this is a pretty marginal district, but this was in very few people’s radar screens as he was the Majority leader and held it for so many years. This district is like 23 and 31, with Wausau mixed in with rural areas. I think Decker lost both because of the swing against the Dems in the rurals, the same the befell the 23rd, and since he was the Majority leader a lot of the problems could have been associated with him in the same way Doyle was so tarred and feathered. There might have been doubts as to whether he was campaigning hard enough in his own backyard (which is the same reason the Speaker Mike Sheridan lost). But, again the rurals just swung terribly against the Dems last year. However, unlike other states, it is the rural parts that are the swingy areas as the rurals voted quite heavily for Obama. It is the MKE suburbs where the GOP base in the state lies.
As for 2012, I think we just have to see what results from redistricting. There were many close races for the GOP in 08, but I doubt the climate will be as favorable in 2012, even if the enthusiasm gap is erased which as this past week indicates it clearly is gone. With the GOP having the trifecta, I just have to feel they will try to beef up their incumbents. The problem though is that many incumbents are in pretty Democratic areas, such as Kapanke, or are in the Fox Valley, which has been trending Dem.
As for defense, I think the only concern in 12. 24, Lassa’s seat, is actually pretty Dem. As you can tell by the spreadsheet, its constituent Assembly districts are all pretty Democratic and even this year, the district’s population base, Portage County and Stevens Point, still supported Barrett and Feingold. The 12th is more worrisome. Its constituent Assembly districts are all pretty marginal and are all held by Republicans. I would agree that if Holperin were up last year he probably would have lost. They contain rural parts of the NE Wisconsin which have traditionally been Republican. So we just have to see how 2012 shapes up in Wisconsin (I still am waiting to hear what Kohl’s plans are) and perhaps more importantly, see what the end result of redistricting is.
I might have left out some details, but I like to think I know a lot about Wisconsin politics so I can try and answer some more questions.
except by water. It borders the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which is often mistaken for Canada.