The WOW Counties doesn't have much power as people think

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I've been thinking about this lately having been in Milwaukee this weekend.

If you color in all of WOW and Milwaukee County on DRA and then remove Milwaukee proper, the remaining area voted for Trump by 53.96-44.42. Yes this does include some Milwaukee County suburbs that are fairly D, especially the ones on the northeast side right by Lake Michigan, but there's no reason to just dismiss those when talking about state numbers. And this area in raw votes voted for Trump by just over 60k which is easily canceled out by Milwaukee proper. This is really not a reliable vote bank for the Republicans unless there's no other D strongholds in the state, which is obviously not true with Dane County existing.

Now if you remove the areas covered above and Dane County, the rest of the state voted for Trump 55.06-43.17, and by just under 247k raw votes. That is a pretty solid vote bank even if it just barely cancels out Dane County, but still, not enough in 2020 and it hasn't been enough for any Republican since 2016 aside from Ron Johnson quite narrowly (and I guess Hagedorn if you count the 2019 Supreme Court election although if you do there's more liberal victories since then than his one.)

Considering the margins in WOW keep decreasing, and Dane County keeps increasing in population...this could be trouble going forward. Republicans could counter it if they could wring more votes out of rural Wisconsin, but it's declining in population...remember they need to increase raw votes, not just the margins. Of course it's also possible that trends like WOW's margins decreasing won't continue indefinitely as Atlas tends to assume, but for now it's easy to see why Wisconsin Republicans act pretty nervous.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Democrats actually do really good in rural Wisconsin for the most part, except a few areas like Clark and Taylor counties and that whole area north of Green Bay.   It's how they keep the GOP margins down in the other areas and run up the score in Dane and Milwaukee that keeps them competitive in the state.

If rural Wisconsin voted like rural Missouri or rural Indiana they probably wouldn't be able to win much of anything. 

There's no county in all of Wisconsin that gave Trump 80% of the vote, and I think only 3 that gave him over 70%.   Meanwhile in places like Missouri and Indiana those kind of counties are everywhere. 

Dane/Milwaukee is a smaller chunk of the state than KC/St Louis is in MO but MO Dems can't win the state no matter how much they run up the score in KC/St Louis.

In fact, D did better in rural WI than any other midwestern state. Had Rural WI voted like MI or MN, WI would be like OH.

Not that much difference. If you go on DRA and remove all the counties that are considered urban in the Census, you get these numbers:
MN: Trump 61.97% Biden 35.9%
WI: Trump 60.47% Biden 37.98%

This is kind of subjective admittedly, for example one would probably argue the counties around Dane County are still generally rural despite the census designation, but even if you include them that just shows the key difference is the overall influence of Dane County.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Democrats actually do really good in rural Wisconsin for the most part, except a few areas like Clark and Taylor counties and that whole area north of Green Bay.   It's how they keep the GOP margins down in the other areas and run up the score in Dane and Milwaukee that keeps them competitive in the state.

If rural Wisconsin voted like rural Missouri or rural Indiana they probably wouldn't be able to win much of anything. 

There's no county in all of Wisconsin that gave Trump 80% of the vote, and I think only 3 that gave him over 70%.   Meanwhile in places like Missouri and Indiana those kind of counties are everywhere. 

Dane/Milwaukee is a smaller chunk of the state than KC/St Louis is in MO but MO Dems can't win the state no matter how much they run up the score in KC/St Louis.

In fact, D did better in rural WI than any other midwestern state. Had Rural WI voted like MI or MN, WI would be like OH.

Not that much difference. If you go on DRA and remove all the counties that are considered urban in the Census, you get these numbers:
MN: Trump 61.97% Biden 35.9%
WI: Trump 60.47% Biden 37.98%

This is kind of subjective admittedly, for example one would probably argue the counties around Dane County are still generally rural despite the census designation, but even if you include them that just shows the key difference is the overall influence of Dane County.

AP VoteCast shows WI rural white, which is 45% of the electorate, voted Trump 57-41. MN 61-38, MI 62-37. So if they voted like MN, Trump will win WI by 7%.

What? A 4 point swing in 45% of the electorate would equal a 1.8 swing overall. That would equal Trump by just under 3 points, not 7.