Craig Gilbert

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The tiny village of Steuben near the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers can claim a distinction all its own in the seismic presidential race of 2016.

It swung more sharply in a Republican direction than any place in Wisconsin.

Its polar opposite was the well-to-do Milwaukee suburb of Whitefish Bay, which shifted further in a Democratic direction than anywhere in the state.

What happened in these two communities at different ends of Wisconsin highlights the social and geographic divides — urban vs. rural, college vs. non-college — that shaped the Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton election.

It also underscores how Trump’s candidacy scrambled the political map.

Trump performed historically well for a Republican nominee in some communities, and historically badly in others.

Sometimes both things occurred within the same county — in places dominated by the same party.

In the higher income village of Elm Grove in ultra-red Waukesha County, Trump had the worst performance for a GOP presidential candidate in at least 60 years.

But in the more blue-collar village of Lannon nearby, he had the best Republican performance in 60 years.

What kinds of places swung the hardest toward Trump’s Republican Party?

What kinds of places swung the hardest against it?

To answer those questions, we compared the 2012 and 2016 presidential vote in every city, town and village in Wisconsin (using the unofficial returns that are now subject to a recount).

The state as a whole got redder in 2016. Wisconsin chose Trump by seven-tenths of a point over Clinton after backing Democrat Barack Obama by 6.9 points over Republican Mitt Romney in 2012.

But Wisconsin’s 1,851 municipalities didn’t swing in unison.

While Trump did much better than Romney in the vast majority of places, he did substantially worse in some.

And those differences followed striking patterns.

Trump dramatically outperformed Romney in smaller, rural and blue-collar communities. He won more than 500 cities, towns and villages that voted for Obama in 2012. He won 190 of them by at least 20 points. These “Obama-Trump communities” were located overwhelmingly in northern, western and central Wisconsin. Their median population was less than 800.

By contrast, Trump did much worse than Romney in the state’s most educated and affluent communities, largely concentrated in metropolitan Milwaukee.

The 10 communities that saw the sharpest drop in the GOP share of the vote from 2012 to 2016 constitute many of the state’s wealthiest places: Whitefish Bay (median household income of $103,000), Fox Point ($107,000) and River Hills ($176,000) in Milwaukee County; Bayside ($104,000) in Milwaukee and Ozaukee counties; Elm Grove ($119,000), Lac La Belle ($166,000) and Chenequa ($153,000) in Waukesha County; and Maple Bluff ($129,000) in Dane County.

Some of these are blue communities that became much bluer with Trump at the top of the GOP ticket. In Bayside, Obama won by 11 points, but Clinton won by 34.

Some are red places that became a lot less red. In Elm Grove, Romney won by 36 but Trump by 13. In Mequon in Ozaukee County, Romney won by 31 points and Trump by 11. River Hills, Wisconsin’s wealthiest place, voted Democratic for the first time in at least 90 years.

And some are purple places that turned blue. In Milwaukee County, Romney lost Wauwatosa by 1 while Trump lost it by 22. Romney lost Whitefish Bay by 4, but Trump lost it by 33.

Red or blue, what these communities have in common are high levels of income or education or both, and proximity to a sizable city. College education, population density and metropolitan location are all characteristics of places where Trump underperformed in this election. In the Milwaukee County village of Shorewood, the state’s most densely populated municipality, Clinton won by 60 points while Obama won by 45.

Trump did worse than Romney in 15 of the 19 communities in Democratic Milwaukee County (he won just five of them: Greenfield, Greendale, Oak Creek, Franklin and Hales Corners). And he did worse than Romney in 33 of the 37 communities in Republican Waukesha County (even though he won them all).

Rural inroads

Trump’s weakness in metropolitan Milwaukee and Madison almost cost him the state.

But his inroads were so dramatic in less populous parts of Wisconsin that he squeaked out his party’s first presidential win here in 32 years.

Trump did better than Romney in about 90% of the state’s 1,851 municipalities.

That includes such cities as Green Bay, Kenosha, Racine and Janesville. He lost all four, but by smaller margins than Romney.

The biggest swings toward Trump came in communities of under 1,000 people, however.

The village of Steuben in southwestern Wisconsin had the biggest shift. After giving Obama a 38-point win four years ago, it gave Trump a 35-point win this year — a swing of 73 points.

Steuben cast just 51 votes Nov. 8, and small groups of voters are susceptible to big swings.

But huge shifts in the same direction occurred in scores of small communities across Wisconsin.

In the town of Argonne 30 minutes south of the Michigan border, Trump won by 43 points. Four years earlier, Obama won it by 15.

In the village of Downing, 60 miles east of the Twin Cities, Trump won by 51 points. Obama carried it by 10.

Not far from Steuben in southwestern Wisconsin, the village of Wauzeka gave Trump the highest percentage (55%) it has given any Republican since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.

If you add up all the communities in Wisconsin of less than 2,000 people, Trump won them collectively by 24 points and nearly 150,000 votes. Romney won those same communities by 4 points and fewer than 30,000 votes.

Enduring trends?

One huge question that will be answered in the years to come is whether these shifts are enduring partisan trends, or a byproduct of these particular candidates (Trump and Clinton) and this political moment.

Take Trump’s huge gains among rural voters in Wisconsin, which are consistent with some broader trends and patterns. The rural vote has long been a Republican strength. The party’s gains in 2016 reflect a growing urban-rural divide in America. And in Wisconsin, it’s a segment of the electorate that GOP Gov. Scott Walker dominated in his three winning races.

But those gains were also amplified by Trump’s unique candidacy and populist message, as well as Clinton’s unpopularity with rural voters, which was clear in the 2016 polling. Trump outperformed his own party’s Senate candidate, incumbent Ron Johnson, in most rural places, and his rural support went far beyond that of any GOP nominee in recent decades. It extended to reliably Democratic counties and to hundreds of communities that voted twice for Obama.

The same question can be posed of the erosion of GOP support in the Milwaukee suburbs. Much of it was a Trump phenomenon, driven by his tone and rhetoric, criticism from conservative radio hosts in the region, and his clashes with GOP leaders. The fact that Trump lagged behind Johnson throughout metropolitan Milwaukee suggests the GOP isn’t losing its dominance in places like Waukesha and Washington counties.

At the same time, the party’s longer-term slippage on Milwaukee’s North Shore and in parts of Ozaukee and Waukesha reflects a broader political trend — the growing gap between college-educated and blue-collar voters.

In the end, the Trump-Clinton election followed some deeply entrenched political patterns in Wisconsin and completely disrupted others.

Now the Trump presidency will determine whether the political map that he scrambled will be rearranged again four years from now.