Voters in November will choose the next president of the United States, with the end result expected to be either a second term for President Joe Biden or a return to the White House for former President Donald Trump. Every vote matters, but the electoral results in a handful of key swing states will play major roles in determining the ultimate outcome.
What exactly is a swing state? There’s a literal, by-the-book – or dictionary – definition: “A U.S. state in which Republican and Democratic candidates have similar levels of support and which is considered to play a key role in the outcome of presidential elections.”
Yet there are still nuances at play, and though the group of swing states each presidential cycle is often similar, variations can occur due to factors like changing demographics, voter turnout and other circumstances. Georgia, for example, is now a swing state on the heels of Biden surprisingly carrying it in 2020, in large part due to the support of Black voters. He was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win there in almost three decades.
Wisconsin, meanwhile, was once considered a dependably blue Rust Belt state. But it became a big-time battleground after Trump eked out a victory there in 2016. Biden flipped the script with his own narrow victory there over Trump in 2020.
Wisconsin’s importance in the 2024 race is underscored by Biden including it on his post-State of the Union barnstorming slate in early March and by Republicans choosing Milwaukee as the site of their nominating convention in July. Trump on April 2 traveled to the state for the first time since 2022 – a visit coinciding with its presidential primaries – and Biden went back to the Badger State a week later.
Wisconsin, which was No. 17 in the most recent Best States rankings from U.S. News, counts for 10 electoral votes – placing it roughly in the middle of the pack among all U.S. states but belying the crucial role it could play in the race for the White House.
Here’s everything you need to know about Wisconsin as a 2024 battleground.
U.S. News in January handicapped Wisconsin as a “toss-up” in the 2024 presidential election, a fitting description for a state where four of the past six White House contests were decided by less than a point. The winner in the state also has gone on to win the White House in the past four presidential elections.
The state is on the radar of both campaigns, but perhaps more so for Biden as he seeks to hold tight to the “blue wall” of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that helped him triumph over Trump four years ago, and as Trump has been forced to grapple with legal issues in various courtrooms.
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In 2020, Biden spent more time in Wisconsin than former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton did in 2016, and it was the location of his first official domestic trip as president in February 2021. He visited several times in 2023, and in January, made a speech at a bridge linking Wisconsin and Minnesota to promote his administration’s infrastructure efforts. His trip to Milwaukee on March 13 featured an announcement aimed at reconnecting communities across the country cut off from critical community services by transportation projects – efforts tied in part to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law he touted during his State of the Union address. On April 8, he discussed his actions to provide student loan debt relief during a trip to the state capital of Madison. The president was scheduled to return to the swing state on May 8 with a visit to Racine, where he was expected to highlight a decision by Microsoft to build a multibillion-dollar data center there.
Trump’s Green Bay rally on April 2, on the other hand, marked his first visit to the Badger State since 2022, and as of that day his campaign had yet to name any state party leaders or organizers, according to The Associated Press. Trump returned to the state on May 1 with a visit to Waukesha, the seat of a key 2024 battleground county of the same name. The visit marked Trump’s first rally since the start of his criminal hush-money trial in New York. The former president fought to overturn his 2020 defeat in Wisconsin and ended up losing multiple lawsuits. His backers also sought to force a recall election of the state’s top elected Republican, who rebuffed efforts to decertify Biden’s win in 2020 and did not back a plan to impeach the state’s top elections official.
Biden carried Wisconsin in 2020 – making Trump’s win there in 2016 an outlier over the past several decades. But the margin was under 1 percentage point in both elections.
About 4 in 5 Wisconsinites (80.1%) are white, according to July 2023 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau. The next-largest groups by race or ethnicity are the Hispanic (7.6%) and Black or African American populations (6.6%).
The state’s relative lack of diversity means white working-class voters are a key group for both candidates there. They were crucial supporters of Trump in 2016, though Biden made some inroads with the bloc more broadly on his way to victory in 2020.
Another important group – ringing true across the country for both Biden and Trump – is independent voters. While Wisconsin does not register voters by political party, past survey data illustrates how its electorate has been fairly evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with a notable independent population in between. The group helped Trump win the state in 2016, and helped Biden take the reins in 2020.
The state of the economy and abortion rights both stand out as key issues for Wisconsin voters. A Marquette Law School Poll in the fall of last year found that a plurality of registered voters (37%) viewed the national economy as “poor,” while 36% viewed it as “not so good” and only 24% said things were “good.” At the same time, 48% of voters also said their family was “living comfortably.”
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When it comes to abortion, 38% of respondents considered it “one of the most important issues” and 42% said the issue was “somewhat important.” Independents were less likely to describe it as “one of the most important issues.” A majority (57%) of registered voters also opposed the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
More recently, a February survey from Emerson College Polling and The Hill showed the economy was the top issue for nearly a third (31%) of Wisconsin voters. That was followed by threats to democracy (13%), immigration (11%), health care (10%), education (7%), housing affordability (7%), crime (7%) and abortion access (7%).
The economy: In his State of the Union address, Biden spoke of America’s “comeback” – one that he said includes “building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down.”
“I inherited an economy that was on the brink,” he said, also touting hundreds of thousands of new manufacturing jobs created and calling America “the manufacturing capital of the world.” “Now our economy is the envy of the world.”
Trump has indicated on his social media platform that recent stock market gains should be credited to him, and that “EVERYTHING ELSE IS TERRIBLE.” During his April 2 visit to Green Bay, he blamed Biden for high prices and inflation and referenced the closure of a Master Lock factory in Milwaukee. "With your vote we will throw out Bidenomics and we will reinstate MAGAnomics," he said.
Abortion: Biden also addressed abortion rights in his address to Congress, saying if Americans send him “a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you, I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again.”
Trump has taken a range of stances on abortion over the years – including calling himself “the most pro-life president” in U.S. history – and reportedly said in private recently that he supports a 16-week national ban on abortion.
Threats to democracy: Biden has made threats to democracy a focus of his campaign, referencing the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt in 2021 during his most recent State of the Union address and saying “democracy must be defended.”
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Trump has repeated false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. In February, he said he had once told another country’s leader that he’d encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to a NATO member country who did not meet the alliance’s defense spending guidelines.
Results from Emerson College Polling/The Hill surveys released on April 30 – which covered seven swing states – showed Trump with a 47% to 45% lead over Biden in a head-to-head matchup in the Badger State, with 8% of voters there undecided. With other candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. included, Trump’s advantage over Biden grew to 5 percentage points.
A CBS News/YouGov poll released in late April found Trump with a 1-point lead (50% to 49%) in a head-to-head matchup with Biden in Wisconsin. With Green Party candidate Jill Stein included, Trump’s advantage changed to 48% to 44%.
In March, Wall Street Journal polling found Biden with a 3-point lead over Trump in a race with third-party and independent candidates included. The two were tied in a head-to-head matchup.
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