The neighboring states of Wisconsin and Minnesota are an instructive place to examine the recent transformation of electoral geography in the United States. Both states saw a comparatively modest “red shift” from the presidential election of 2020 to that of 2024. In Wisconsin, Donald Trump went from 48.82% of the vote to 49.64%, which was enough to turn the state from “blue” to “red.” In Minnesota, Trump lost both contests, but his vote count increased from 45.28% to 46.87%. Intriguingly, in Wisconsin Kamala Harris did better in rural agricultural counties than she did in Minnesota, while Trump did better in suburban counties than he did in Minnesota.
Wisconsin is best regarded as a “deep purple” state, its electorate evenly divided, at least at the presidential level. Minnesota remains “blue,” but of a relatively light hue. Both standings mark a major change from earlier periods. Minnesota was once the most reliably Democratic-voting state in the nation; in 1984, it was the only state to award its electoral votes to Walter Mondale rather than Ronald Reagan. A century ago, Wisconsin was unquestionably the most liberal state in the country. In 1924, it decisively rejected the conservative candidates nominated by both the Democratic and Republican parties, John Davis and Calvin Coolidge respectively, giving Coolidge only 37.1% of its vote and Davis a mere 8.1%. Instead, Wisconsinites favored their own left-leaning Progressive-Party candidate, Robert La Follette, giving him 54% of their vote. La Follette also did well in Minnesota, especially in its rural counties, coming in second place with 42.26%. Nationally, La Follette took only 16.6% percent of the vote.
As recently as the 1990s, both Minnesota and Wisconsin were strongly “blue,” with most counties, whether metropolitan or rural, supporting Democrat Bill Clinton over Republican Bob Dole (see the map below). To be sure, the relatively strong showing of the third-party candidate Ross Perot skewed the 1996 contest. But as Perot took votes from both major parties, the basic pattern still holds. As can be seen on the map, there were few “landslide” counties in either state in 1996. Dole did best in the WOW counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington) in the Milwaukee metro area, which had long been some of the country’s strongest suburban Republican redoubts. In Minnesota, Clinton’s best showing was not in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and Saint Paul) metro area, but rather in Saint Louis County in the northeast. Saint Louis contains the port city of Duluth, as well as most of the iron-mining communities of the Mesabi Range, which had long been labor-oriented Democratic strongholds.
By 2012, the electoral maps of Wisconsin and Minnesota had “red-shifted” considerably, even though both states voted decisively for Democrat Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney, and by virtually identical margins (see the map below). In this election, most rural counties in Minnesota supported the Republican candidate. A cluster of Democratic-voting agricultural counties stand out in southeastern Minnesota, part of a larger still-blue rural zone that extended into southwestern Wisconsin, eastern Iowa, and northwestern Illinois. In in 2012 Wisconsin, in contrast, rural counties were relatively equally divided between the two parties. Note that the dark-blue zone that is demographically centered on Minnesota’s Saint Louis County extended also into far northern Wisconsin, another long-standing Democratic stronghold. The port city of Superior in Douglas County, Wisconsin is part of the Duluth metro area and has a similar economic and political history to that of Duluth itself. It is also significant that by this election the counties containing Minneapolis and Saint Paul had shifted to a darker shade of blue than in 1996. The same was true of Wisconsin’s Dane County, home to both the state capital and the flagship university, both located in Madison. In contrast, the WOW counties of the Milwaukee suburbs had shifted further into the red.
In 2024, the shift to the Republican Party in Minnesota’s agricultural counties was almost complete (see the map below). Ironically, the state’s Democratic Party is officially designated the “Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL),” even though it now receives little backing from farmers and faces declining support from workers. By area, the largest remaining blue zone in Minnesota is in the far northeast, a sparsely settled, heavily forested region with one second-tier city (Duluth; metropolitan population 280,000). It is noteworthy, however, that this area has moved to a lighter shade of blue, as in common in areas that have experienced industrial decline. The exception in far northeast is Cook County (population 5,600), which has blue-shifted in recent elections. Cook’s exceptional standing is linked to its tourism-dependent economy, which connects it to metropolitan zones. As the Wikipedia article on Cook County notes: “The county was one of the rare white-majority rural counties to have its margin increase for Joe Biden in 2020 relative to Barack Obama’s 2012 margin, with 65 percent of voters choosing the Democratic nominee. In both 2016 and 2020, it was the largest county by area in the contiguous states where Trump lost every precinct …”
Although Kamala Harris lost Wisconsin 2024 while winning Minnesota, the former state had a significantly higher percentage of “blue” counties than the latter (13 out of 72 vs. 9 out of 87). This seeming discrepancy is easily explained by the fact that the population of Minnesota is highly concentrated in the Twin Cities metro area, whereas that of Wisconsin is more widely dispersed (see the paired maps below). More striking is the continuing shift in both states of agricultural counties into the Republican camp; compare the hues of most counties on the 2012 and 2024 maps.
The remaining Democratic-voting counties in Minnesota all fall into a few categories. Not surprisingly, Hennepin (Minneapolis) and Ramsey (Saint Paul) are dark blue, while their eastern suburban counties are light blue. Other blue counties in Minnesota include Olmsted, which contains the city of Rochester and its highly regarded Mayo Clinic, and Clay, which contains the city of Moorhead, part of the Fargo-Moorhead metropolitan area. (Intriguingly, across the border in North Dakota the county containing the larger city of Fargo gave a plurality of its votes to Trump). The only other blue counties on the Minnesota map are the non-agricultural trio in the northeast, characterized by tourism-dependent economies and long histories of labor activism.
The 2024 Democratic-voting counties of Wisconsin are more diverse. Three counties containing secondary cities – La Crosse, Eau Claire, and Rock – gave a majority of their votes to Harris, as did the two most heavily urban counties, Milwaukee, and Dane. Several northern tourism-dependent counties are also in the blue category, including Door in the northeast. Light-blue Portage County has a minor city (Stevens Point, population 26,000) as well as a significant. university. The bluest county, Menominee, is 84 percent Native America. More intriguing are two blue rural counties in southern Wisconsin, Iowa and Green, which are probably influenced by their proximity to dark-blue Dane County. Finally, it is important to note that the formerly deep-red, affluent WOW suburban counties adjacent to Milwaukee have undergone a significant blue shift since 2012, although they remain in the Republican camp. The Republican Party transition to right-wing populism has gained it many votes in rural areas and even in strongly Democratic urban cores, but it has cost the party votes in affluent, highly educated suburban areas.