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Turnout | 72.3% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Elections in Wisconsin |
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The 2020 United States presidential election in Wisconsin was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated.[1] Wisconsin voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his running mate California Senator Kamala Harris. Wisconsin has 10 electoral votes in the Electoral College.[2]
The 2020 Democratic National Convention was scheduled to be held at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, but it was moved to the nearby Wisconsin Center due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[3][4]
Polls of Wisconsin in the lead-up to election day showed a clear Biden lead, averaging in the high single digits. Prior to election day, most news organizations considered that the state was leaning towards Biden. Wisconsin was ultimately won by Biden by a narrow 0.63% margin over Trump, a far closer margin than expected and the closest margin since 2004. Trump had won the state in 2016 by 0.77% against Hillary Clinton; however, Biden carried the state with a slightly larger margin than Al Gore or John Kerry did in either 2000 or 2004, respectively. Once again, Trump massively outperformed his polling average, which had Biden up 8.4 points in the state, but not enough to win the state. Trump held his own in counties in northern Wisconsin and in the WOW counties.[5]
Biden won the highest vote share for a Democrat in Waukesha County, at 38.8%, since Jimmy Carter in 1976.[6] Trump carried Brown County, which is Republican-leaning but competitive, though Biden won the city of Green Bay and improved on Clinton's margin in the county at large by about 3.7 points.[7] Biden won back Sauk County, a county in the driftless region of southwestern Wisconsin; Biden also flipped Door County, which has voted for the winning candidate in each election since 1980, save for 1992.
On November 18, Trump announced that he would request a recount in Milwaukee County and Dane County.[8][9] On November 29, both counties re-affirmed Biden's victory, giving him a net gain of 87 votes over Trump.[10]
With Ohio, Florida, and Iowa backing the losing candidate for the first time since 1960, 1992, and 2000 respectively, this election established Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania as the states with the longest bellwether streak still in effect today. The last time any of them voted against the winning candidate was 2004, when all three voted for losing Democrat John Kerry.
Wisconsin voted 3.8% more Republican than the nation in general. This is the first time since 2004 that Wisconsin did not vote for the same candidate as neighboring Iowa.