The shifts that have remade American politics in recent years can be seen and felt everywhere, but maybe no state tells the story as clearly as Wisconsin. This fall, the state features two elections that are going down to the wire — races for governor and senator — and if recent trends are to be believed, the nation’s sharp partisan divides are likely to be a driving force in both those votes.
It wasn’t always so. For decades, Wisconsin was a battleground, with voters that swung from election to election. It wasn’t uncommon for the state to vote one way in a presidential election and then swing back to vote for the other party when it came to the governor’s mansion. But look at elections over the past few decades in the state and familiar patterns emerge. National trends around race, education and urbanity among voters have made a large impact on Wisconsin’s statewide races. CONTINUED
Dante Chinni, NBC News
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