Gilbert: As DNC meets, here is how the Democratic coalition has changed in Wisconsin

As Wisconsin Democrats gather in Chicago for their 2024 national convention, they represent a party whose makeup has changed in revealing ways over the past decade.

Consider some of the groups that make up a bigger share of this state’s Democratic voters than they did before Donald Trump was elected president in 2016:

Women. Secular voters. Liberals. Suburbanites. And white college grads.

Consider some of the groups that make up a smaller share of the party.

Men. Rural voters. Frequent churchgoers.  People without a four-year college degree. And conservatives.

These findings come from years of extensive polling in Wisconsin by the Marquette Law School.

Based on that polling, this column looked last month at the makeup of the state’s Republican voters and how it has changed.

Now we’ll turn to the state’s Democratic voters, how their demographic and political profile has changed, and how Democratic voters in Wisconsin differ from Democratic voters nationally, based on Marquette’s national and state polling.

Self-identified Democrats make up 29% of registered voters in Wisconsin; Republicans make up 30%, and independents 40%, according to the polling.

Nationally, Democrats make up 32% of registered voters, with Republicans at 31% and independents at 36%.

So, how does the Democratic coalition look different in Wisconsin than nationally?

Not surprisingly, given the state’s racial makeup, whites make up a far bigger share of Democrats in Wisconsin (83%) than they do of Democrats in the nation as a whole (50%).  Only 8% of Wisconsin Democrats are Black, compared to 23% nationally; and just 4% of Democrats in this state are Hispanic, compared to 18% nationally.

Whites without a college degree make up an unusually large share of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin. This is a segment of the electorate that has become more Republican in the Trump Era and is often described as Trump’s demographic base. This group also makes up more than half of all Wisconsin voters, more than in any top battleground state.

Because of Wisconsin’s population mix, these “blue-collar” white voters represent a far larger share of Democrats in Wisconsin (45%) than they do of Democrats nationwide (26%).

Democrats in Wisconsin stand out in some other ways, too.

Take gender.  A remarkable 65% of self-identified Democrats in Wisconsin are women, compared to 57% nationally.  In other words, women outnumber men almost 2 to 1 among this state’s solidly Democratic voters.

Why is the share of women even higher among Wisconsin Democrats than it is nationally? One explanation may be the state’s racial makeup.  Wisconsin is much whiter than the nation as a whole, and the partisan gender gap is much bigger among white voters than among Black voters.

Religion is another point of contrast.  The share of Democrats who are born-again Protestants is lower in Wisconsin (9%) than in the nation as a whole (15%). But the share of mainline Protestants and Catholics is higher.

Politically, self-described liberals make up a higher share of Democrats here (62%) than they do nationally (57%).

But there is a nuance here. Within the “liberal” category there is a subgroup of people who describe themselves as “very liberal.” And these very liberal voters make up a slightly lower share of Wisconsin Democrats (21%) than they do nationally (23%).

Polling is also a window into how the Democratic coalition in Wisconsin has changed over time.

To capture this, Marquette pollster Charles Franklin measured the present-day makeup of the party based on the combined 15 surveys Marquette has done in Wisconsin since the beginning of 2021. That represents a sample of roughly 3,600 self-identified Democratic voters.  (The numbers throughout this story refer to registered voters who identify with the Democratic Party, and do not include so-called “leaners,” meaning voters who describe themselves as independents but “lean” toward the party).

Franklin then compared those findings to earlier polling done from 2012 to 2014, roughly one decade earlier.

How the Wisconsin Democratic Party has changed among major voting groups

Here are some examples of how the party’s makeup has changed:

GENDER. Women are 65% of Democrats today, compared to 62% in 2012-14.

RACE AND EDUCATION. White college grads are a much bigger share of Wisconsin Democrats now (38%) than a decade ago (31%). Non-college whites are a slightly smaller share today (45%) than before (47%).  Black voters make up a somewhat smaller share of Democrats now (8%) than before (11%), though Blacks remain overwhelmingly Democratic. (Fewer than 1% of Republican voters in Wisconsin are Black).  The share of Democrats who are Hispanic hasn’t meaningfully changed over the decade and stands at 4%. (Hispanics make up 3% of Republicans in the state).

RELIGION. The share of Democrats in Wisconsin who belong to major religious groups is down across the board. Born again Protestants have gone from 15% of the party to just 9%. Mainline Protestants have gone from 29% to 26%. And Roman Catholics have dropped from 28% to 24%.  (Born-again Protestants are also a shrinking share of Republicans in Wisconsin, but Catholics are a rising share).

The flip side of this is that secular, non-religious voters are a dramatically larger share of Wisconsin Democrats today (33%) than they were a decade ago (17%).  In other words, they carry twice the weight within the party than they did before. This may be the single biggest change in the makeup of the state’s Democratic voters.

Similarly, non-churchgoers have grown from 17% of Wisconsin Democrats to 36%. (Non-churchgoers are also a growing share of Republicans in the state but represent a much lower share of the GOP at 12%).

IDEOLOGY.   Democrats in Wisconsin have moved to the left in how they identify themselves, just as Republicans have moved to the right.  People who call themselves “very liberal” make up 21% of Democrats in the state today, compared to 13% a decade ago. People who call themselves simply “liberal” have grown from 33% to 42% of Democrats. These two categories combined make up 62% of the state’s Democrats today, compared to 46% a decade ago.

GEOGRAPHY. Urban voters make up the same share of Democrats in the state today as before (39%). But the share of Democrats from the suburbs is up from 25% to 31% and the share from rural areas is down from 37% to 30%.

The party’s shifting geographic base can be seen not just in the polling but in the state’s voting patterns. We’ll use presidential voting to illustrate the point.

The share of the total Democratic vote in Wisconsin that comes from the state’s heavily rural towns has dropped from 28% in 2000 to 23% in 2020.

The share that comes from very blue and fast-growing Dane County has climbed sharply from 11% in 2000 to 16% in 2020. The share that comes from the suburban and historically Republican “WOW counties” outside Milwaukee has also increased from just under 8% in 2000 to just under 10% in 2020, as Democrats make inroads there.

The share of Democratic votes in Wisconsin that come from Milwaukee County is roughly unchanged at around 20%.

But the share that comes from outside the Milwaukee and Madison media markets — in other words, from northern, central and western Wisconsin — is down from 40% in 2000 to 36% in 2020.

To sum up these patterns and trends, the composition of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin has changed in some very striking ways over the years, and differs in some key respects from other states, reflecting Wisconsin’s distinct population mix.

White working-class voters remain a much bigger part of the Democratic coalition in Wisconsin than they do nationally, but not as big a part as they used to.  Rural voters remain an important part of the Democratic vote, but not as big a part as they used to.

This is a more secular and liberal party than it was a decade ago, with a more disproportionate share of women, and with growing shares of college-educated and suburban voters.

The November election will help tell us how powerful these trend lines continue to be, and whether replacing President Joe Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s nominee against Donald Trump will have a discernible impact on the makeup of the Democratic vote in Wisconsin.

Craig Gilbert provides Wisconsin political analysis as a fellow with Marquette University Law School's Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education. Prior to the fellowship, Gilbert reported on politics for 35 years at the Journal Sentinel, the last 25 in its Washington Bureau. His column continues that independent reporting tradition and goes through the established Journal Sentinel editing process.

Follow him on Twitter: @Wisvoter.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: How the Democratic Party coalition has changed in Wisconsin