Wisconsin has had a big political year. A look back at the top political news of 2024.

Wisconsin has been front and center in the political world for much of this year.

WPR Capitol Hill bureau chief Sean Johnson also joined Morning Edition host Alex Crow to give us an overview of the political whirlwind of 2024.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

ALEX CROW: President-elect Donald Trump won Wisconsin, a state that President Joe Biden won in 2020. Can you analyze some of these changes that helped Trump win the state?

Sean Johnson: So when it comes to Trump’s numbers, I wouldn’t say look, some of the states that didn’t support him before have made big changes, and vice versa. .

I think what happened is he just surpassed what he had done in the past. It was still the same Trump model, with big turnout in rural counties. He sped it up even more.

In fact, Kamala Harris had better numbers than Joe Biden in 46 counties. It’s just that Trump did better in all 72 counties than he did in 2020. He surpassed his 2020 vote total by more than 87,000 votes, which was enough to cross the finish line.

It felt like a landslide victory due to the large number of votes received, but since this is Wisconsin, it was still within 1%.

AC: Wisconsin is often thought of as a purple state. Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin was re-elected to the Senate. How did that happen in the end?

SJ: This is a really great snapshot of purple Wisconsin, when two very different candidates were able to win at the statewide level.

I think I’ll start by saying that Tammy Baldwin was a formidable candidate, and she got about 4,500 more votes than Kamala Harris. Baldwin topped Harris in 57 counties.

Although these rural counties have long been heavily Republican, Baldwin still enjoys some support.

Next, we turn our attention to Baldwin’s Republican opponent, Eric Hovde. He received about 54,000 fewer votes than Trump. Mr. Trump beat Mr. Hovde in 70 counties. That adds up to a narrow victory for Baldwin.

AC: The Republican National Convention was held in Milwaukee last year. you were there Can you tell me a little bit about the energy and feel you had when you were there?

SJ: Remember, this comes from President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance. Biden encouraged Democrats to withdraw from the presidential race. He was still attending the Republican convention when it was held in Milwaukee.

Then, the weekend before the convention, there was an assassination attempt on President Trump, with a bullet grazing his ear. At first, there were questions like, “Will this work?” What will happen?

The tournament was actually held. It was a very safe environment, just fencing and police everywhere, but the Republicans rallied around him at this convention. Some spoke of him in Biblical terms.

And after the convention, the conventional wisdom was that there was no way Trump would lose this election. Then Kamala Harris entered the race, she held her convention in Chicago, and the conventional wisdom was that there was no way Harris could lose.

It was just one year in which a lot of things happened with significant consequences, and it was Trump who ultimately came out on top.

AC: We’ve all been paying attention to this presidential election, but a lot has happened at the state level as well, especially with new legal maps taking effect. Tell us a little bit about these maps and how they shaped last year’s election.

SJ: This was a seismic shift in Wisconsin politics. That’s because Wisconsin has operated under nearly the same map since 2011, when Republicans took control of state government after the census and drew maps that helped expand and solidify Republican power for more than a decade. is.

Well, in 2023 we have a new state supreme court. They flipped the existing Republican map and said, “Governor and Congress, if you don’t draw a new map, we’re going to take over for you.” I think, to the surprise of many, Democratic Governor Tony Evers and the Republican Legislature actually agreed on the new map drawn by Evers.

The calculation among Republicans was that this was the best option among the potential options being considered by the court. They felt they could compete under these maps.

And they did. Looking at the House races on a map, House Republican candidates won 54 seats. So, while it’s not the supermajority of 64 seats it used to be, it still has a majority in parliament.

In the Senate, Democrats ran a sort of best-case scenario election. They flipped 4 seats. This sets them up very well for the 2026 elections, when they will have a chance to flip the chamber.