After a brief recuperation, this blogger is ready to look at the November presidential election results. Much can be learned from a careful evaluation of the returns, with a focus on the three W.O.W. counties. For our analysis, we used official results reported by the Wisconsin Election Commission.
There were 368,910 presidential votes cast in the W.O.W. Counties. This represents 12.4% of total statewide vote. Waukesha is by far the 800-pound gorilla of the three counties, accounting for 64.4% of W.O.W. vote. Washington is 20.8% of W.O.W. vote, while Ozaukee is only 14.8%.
Trump received 224,747 votes from the W.O.W. area. This was 16.0% of his statewide vote.
Hillary gained 120,246 W.O.W. votes, constituting 8.7 % of her statewide vote.
Washington County went 67.4% for Trump. Waukesha voted 60.0% for Trump, while Ozaukee went 55.8% for Trump. Yet, none of the W.O.W. counties had the dubious achievement of being the most trumpian County in Wisconsin.
Ozaukee County can no longer be considered one of the deepest red counties in the state. Of the 72 counties, fully 39 others gave Trump a higher percentage of their vote.
Waukesha also can't be consisted a citadel of trumpism. Giving Trump 60.0% of its vote, Waukesha is only the 22nd trumpiest county in the state.
My own Washington County, I am ashamed to say, is the 3rd most Trump-loving county in Wisconsin, trailing only low-population Florence (71.5% Trump) and Taylor (69.5%). Still, Washington fell from being the top 2012 Republican vote percentage county to third place. We can now hold our heads a little higher.
The Libertarians were a larger factor this year than in the past. Gary Johnson received 3.7% of the presidential vote in the combined counties. The three gave Johnson an impressive 13,755 votes, far exceeding Johnson's 2012 W.O.W. vote share of 0.5% .
Trump greatly under-performed Romney's 2012 vote share in Waukesha County. Romney got 66.8% vs 60.0% for Trump. In Ozaukee, Romney received 64.6% of the vote vs 55.8 % for Trump. Romney slightly edged Trump in Washington County, 69.5% to 67.4%.
Romney gathered 1,407,966 votes statewide in 2012. This year, Trump got 1,405,284, a drop of 2,700 votes. Obama gathered 1,620,985 votes in 2012 votes in 2012, compared to Hillary's 1,382,536, a dramatic drop of 238,449. It looks like state Republicans held their collective noses and voted for Trump. Wisconsin Democratic voters did not turn-out in numbers similar to 2012, to the detriment of US world standing, your healthcare, your retirement, and our personal freedoms.
The W.O.W. county drop-off between 2012 and 2016 was pretty large. The 2012 turn-out was 378,415 in the three counties. But 2016 turn-out was 9505 fewer votes. And the drop-off was not spread uniformly between the two candidates. Trump got 28,893 fewer votes than Romney. Hillary got 858 fewer votes than Obama.
So, the story in W.O.W. counties is quite different from that of the rest of the state. Here, Trump actually greatly underperformed vs 2012 Romney. Hillary brought-in about as many votes as did the 2012 Obama. If the rest of Wisconsin had reflected the 3-county area with respect to Democratic turn-out and Trump underperformance, Hillary Clinton would have carried the state in a landslide.
Let's compare the presidential election with the next-highest profile one, the senatorial race between Johnson and Russ Feingold. In most years, there are many more votes cast for President than for down-ballot races. This year, there were 897 more W.O.W. votes cast for the Senate race than for President.
Ron Johnson greatly out-polled Trump in W.O.W.-land, gaining 28,021 more votes than the p*ssy-grabber. In contrast, Feingold received 10,477 fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, showing a typical drop-off for the down-ballot race.
The W.O.W. counties cannot be blamed for Donald Trump. Bucking the statewide trend, our Democrats turned-out and voted for Hillary in similar numbers as we did for Obama. Many of our Republicans rejected Trump, either opting for Gary Johnson, or simply not voting. Trump greatly under-performed in Waukesha, Washington, and Ozaukee counties compared to either Mitt Romney in 2012 or Ron Johnson this year.
If we want to find reasons for Hillary losing Wisconsin, and therefore the presidency, we need to look somewhere other than the W.O.W. counties.
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