Last month I decided to write an emergency article on Wisconsin redistricting despite CNalysis being in functional hibernation while we worked on the 3.0 version of our website and forecasts. Unexpectedly (at least from my point of view as a Virginian), the Wisconsin legislature passed Governor Evers’ maps in the midst of a court-ordered process involving redistricting experts in determining Wisconsin’s best path forward for fair maps. Out of all of the accepted submissions by the experts, Evers’ was the most Republican-leaning set of maps. Accepting that their gerrymanders were no longer viable, Wisconsin Republicans went ahead and co-signed on the Governors’ maps.
The Wisconsin Senate
When Republicans passed the new maps, they effectively protected their Senate majority for at least two more years. If the court process had played out, all 33 seats in Wisconsin would be up in 2024, giving Democrats a chance to create the first Democratic trifecta in Wisconsin since 2010. Now, only 16 seats will be up in 2024: six are solidly Republican, three are Toss-Ups, two are competitive but are favored to go to the Democrats, and five are solidly Democratic. Of the 17 seats up in 2026, five are held by Democrats, and twelve are held by Republicans. Given the number of Republican seats that are either not competitive this year or aren’t up until 2026, they are certain to hold at least 18 seats after the 2024 election.
Democrats are heavily favored to flip one seat stretching along the western shore of Lake Winnebago, SD-18, which is rated as Very Likely Democratic. They’re also moderately favored to hold SD-32 in La Crosse. The remaining seats are three Toss-Ups: SD-8 in the Milwaukee area, SD-30 in Green Bay, and SD-14 in Southern Wisconsin.
Out of the three, their easiest pickup is definitely SD-14, which voted for Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Tony Evers both in 2018 and 2022. Despite the district’s partisan lean, it’s a Toss-Up because of the assumption that one of two Republican incumbents will run for re-election in the district: Howard Marklein (who just won re-election in the old SD-17) or Joan Ballweg, who would have to move into the new SD-14 to run for re-election. If Marklein runs for re-election, he’d be a pretty strong contender to hold SD-14. However, if he wins that would leave SD-17 as an open seat and a special election would be called under the new lines, resulting in that seat most likely flipping as it’s also Democratic-leaning. The next best Democratic pickup out of the three Toss-Ups is up for debate. SD-8 is essentially an open seat, however, it’s slightly more Republican-leaning than SD-30.
The Wisconsin Assembly
Unlike the Senate, 100% of the seats in the Wisconsin Assembly are up in 2024. Republicans came close to winning a supermajority under the old maps, but will now have to fight for the majority for the first time since 2010.
The current Speaker of the chamber, Robin Vos, has acted as a ‘shadow Governor’ for eleven years leading conservative policies in the state and defending the Republican gerrymanders of the 2010s and early 2020s. He’s also been on Donald Trump’s hit list ever since 2020 as the former President has tried to further consolidate his power in the Republican party down to the state level. Vos has refused to bend the knee to Trump’s demands for Republicans to endorse his election denial conspiracy theories, and in 2022 came just 2.62% (or 260 votes) away from losing a primary challenge to a fringe Republican candidate who ran on Vos not supporting Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Vos will probably see another primary challenge this year as well, and with the new district he’ll be running in gaining a lot of unfamiliar territory to Vos, it’s quite possible that he sees himself lose his own seat before he sees the Republicans lose the majority.
That majority, by the way, is currently statistically favored to be held in the CNalysis forecast. The chamber is Lean Republican, with a 70% chance of going to the Republicans and a 30% chance of going to the Democrats. Readers should hopefully have a basic understanding of statistics and understand that 70% =/= 100% and 30% =/= 0% – upsets happen. In 2022, our final Pennsylvania House forecast gave Democrats almost exactly similar odds of flipping the chamber, yet they accomplished it by winning a majority by a single seat.
What is certain, however, is that Democrats will gain seats in the Wisconsin Assembly this year, no ifs, ands, or buts. 2 seats in the Dane County area are guaranteed pickups, as well as one in Northern Wisconsin, one in Racine, and another in Milwaukee, for a total of five guaranteed Democratic flips. Democrats won 35 seats in 2022, and will hold at least 32 seats after 2024. Republicans, meanwhile, have a much higher threshold, with a whopping 46 seats being Solid Republican – meaning that they only need to win 4 competitive seats to win a majority, and three seats are already in our Lean Republican column.
The Democrats, meanwhile, need to win a whopping eighteen seats that are competitive out of the 21 total competitive seats. This may not be as perilous as it may seem: eight are in the Very Likely Democratic column (two of which are flips), two are in the Likely Democratic column (one of which is a flip), three are in the Lean Democratic column (all of which are flips), and three are in the Tilt Democratic column (two of which are flips). That brings Democrats to 48 seats if they win every seat they’re favored in, with two seats in the Toss-Up column. One Toss-Up is in the town of Sheboygan, which was previously gerrymandered by being split in two under the old map, and the other is in Green Bay.
Cinyc9 of our GIS team crunched the Assembly data and found that 59 of the new Assembly districts voted for Republicans in 2022. However, five of these districts that have been identified as competitive in the Classic Forecast have precincts that were in districts that didn’t have a Democratic candidate, including ADs, 26, 40, 46, 54, and 85. Two more are also in our Solid Democratic column. If you’re trying to do the math of subtracting all of these seats from the count, that’d leave Republicans with winning just 52 seats in the Assembly in 2022. However, they would’ve almost certainly still won AD-85 as Governor Evers was the lone statewide Democrat to carry it in 2022, so it more likely would be 53. Keep in mind though that the Assembly obviously wasn’t in play then and there were much weaker Democratic campaigns running across the state in solidly Republican districts against incumbent Republicans, so this measurement is by no means perfect. Now that Democrats know they have a shot of winning the majority, you can expect a lot more money flowing into state legislative races in Wisconsin and for stronger candidates to emerge, especially from municipal government.
It’s worth noting that this forecast is, again, a first look and serves as a starting point. It takes into account what we already know about incumbents running or not running for re-election in each district. Should any more incumbents opt out of re-election in competitive districts, we will of course make appropriate changes. It’s expected that more Republicans, obviously, will retire from the Assembly than Democrats due to either being lumped together with fellow Republicans and don’t want to run in a primary with a fellow member, or they’ve been redistricted into a much bluer seat.
For example, if Republican incumbent Loren Oldenburg of Vernon County decided to retire that would prompt a rating change from Very Likely Democratic to Solid Democratic: it voted for Democratic candidates for the Assembly by 8.2% and usually votes for Democrats by double-digits in statewide contests. Oldenburg is in fact running for re-election though, so this again is just an example of how the loss of incumbency could affect a district.
As a forecaster, I’m extremely excited about the Assembly elections this year now that this new map is in place. Competition makes my job fun and interesting: in 2020 and 2022, I successfully predicted 98/99 seats in the chamber. I am happy to say that I think I’ll have my worst performance in the Wisconsin Assembly since CNalysis launched, though I’ll do my damndest to see if I can hold a 98 or score a perfect 99. We do have a sizable audience in the state and it’s my hope that our work will explode. Go Badgers and Packers, yeah?