Trump won 7 places in Dane County WI!
As promised, the Blaska Surveillance Vehicle ventured outside the distortion field of Madison WI to take soil samples of the presidential vote county-wide — in cities like Stoughton and Sun Prairie, villages like DeForest and Deerfield, and towns like Perry and Primrose.
In the previous thrilling episode, Ol’ Sparky, our Eisenhower-era clinking clanking clattering collection of caliginous junk, compiled the Trump/Vance vote directly against the Harris/Walz tally for the city of Madison. We ignored the six third-party candidates and write-ins as just so much noise. Trump’s vote in Madison under that method is 15.4%. It drops to 15.1% if we include all the rest of the candidates, as we do today in this survey. All told, those other seven ballot lines accounted for only 1.7% of the Dane county-wide vote. But for this go-around, we’re computing how the Republican presidential ticket fared against all comers.
(Percentages placed next to the yellow blotches represent city and village votes. For the rural towns, they float next to the town name in the middle of the square. A township is 36 square miles but the town vote includes only the area outside an incorporated village or city, if any.)
Better in the countryside
Observation #1: Outside the cities and villages, Trump’s numbers pick up. That corresponds to the national trend. Trump could do only 28.3% of business in the city of Sun Prairie. But in the surrounding town of Sun Prairie, he gets 42.4%. The city of Verona gives the Republican ticket only 24.6% but the surrounding town of Verona improves to 33.2%.
Observation #2: Dane County is home to an astounding 60 municipalities — cities, villages, and towns. In all but six of them, Trump/Vance beat the countywide percentage of 23.4%. But the city of Madison — where Trump got only 15.1% of the vote — accounts for 49% of the county’s population. Similarly, the city of Sun Prairie’s population is 39,419 but the surrounding town of the same name counts 2,376.
Observation #3: Another distinction shows between western Dane County and north and eastern Dane County — more Kammy in western Dane County, more Trumpy north and east of Mad Town. Trump actually prevails. The northeast sector is Jeff Wiegand’s county board district. He’s the only conservative on the 37-member Board of Supervisors. (You’ll see some Trump numbers in red for Republican even though they figure under 50 percent — that’s because Trump still beat Harris head to head.) Lest we get too much cowbell, the Town of York is home to just under 700 folks. Just one ward of Edgerton creeps into Dane County from its base in Rock County where only 79 voters cast ballots.
Platinum Subscriber Bonus observation #4: Now we turn sociological: Eastern Dane County tends to be no-nonsense big-farm country, whereas the hilly, driftless area west of Madison sees more affluent, back-to-the-land homesteaders. Mark Pocan lives out that way, for instance.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Dane County really is a microcosm of the national election. Rural and exurban voters went Republican; the cities voted Democrat. We think places like Sun Prairie, Waunakee, and Fitchburg should be fertile ground for Republican growth. There’s no intrinsic reason why those places could not be Madison’s Waukesha county. Better candidates and continued progressive perfidy can make that happen.
13 responses to “Go east, young Republican!”
Rutland has been fairly consistent with a 40/60 split over the decade or so I’ve been working elections.
I got a concussion reading this column – numbers hurt me, and I am without my interpreter, but I toughed it out anyway. I have a little experience with some of this. At one time I would have thought Mazo, Sun Prairie, and a few others like those outlying places would lean more “red”. But I literally saw corruption in the above-mentioned first town, and while living in Madison for 17 years, I saw demographics change radically (haa there’s a word!) in those places where farmland and rolling hills were replaced with “condos”, section 8 housing, and refugees from Madison proper in search of better schools, less crime, etc. etc., almost overnight. I still pray for Madison’s conversion. Only God can save boneheads.
NICE detailed statistical break-down, Blaska; thanks!
“A township is 36 square miles”
Not to quibble, but Mazomanie and Roxbury TWSPs beg to differ.
The 36 sm TWSP is a fairly accurate Rule-Of-Thumb in the ~square counties in-n-around the Dane County quadrant; west (i.e. Crawford County) and north (i.e. Iron County) of here?
Fuggeddaboudit!
FWIW, Winter TWSP in Sawyer County is the largest (285.3 square miles/738.9 km2) and Pepin County’s Stockholm TWSP is the smallest (21.7 square miles/56.3 km2)
FUN FACT: The Gotch has had clients in both!
The Gotch
I am revising my response. Wikipedia differentiates between civil and survey townships. Mazo and Roxbury would be civil townships but I’ve never heard them called that and I was a friend of the late Jerry Derr, who was president of the WI Towns Assn. He called them Towns — a unit of government — whether or not the requisite 36 square miles of a survey township. So yes, I suppose when referencing just the physical entity and not the governmental entity, Black Earth would be a township and a Town. In any event, few survey townships are the ordained 36 square miles, at least her in Dane County. The Town of Sun Prairie has been eaten away by the City of Sun Prairie, as have the Towns of Cottage Grove, Cross Plains, and others. Which is why the Towns of Fitchburg and (recently) Windsor incorporated as villages. To protect their borders. I capitalize the unit of government when referring to an official entity. I am going to the city of Madison to talk to the City of Madison.
“Mazo and Roxbury are Towns — a unit of government — but not townships.”
Au contraire, Mazomanie is both a village and a 31 sm/80.3 square km TWSP/Township (AKA town); Roxbury is both a town and a TWSP.
“A township is a geographic measurement of six miles wide by six miles deep, divided into 36 sections.”
Demonstrably false; click on the links provided above for but a few examples, or explore the maps of the geographical areas of Winter (285.3 square miles/738.9 km2) and Stockholm (21.7 square miles/56.3 km2) TWSPs.
Then there’s this: “No, not all townships in Wisconsin are exactly 36 square miles. The size of townships in Wisconsin has been adjusted due to the curvature of the Earth and measurement error. These corrections are accumulated in the westernmost and/or northernmost parts of each township. As a result, township boundaries often don’t line up from one township to the next” (bolds mine)
But The Gotch has only been through ding nigh every TWSP of every last one of WESconsin’s 72 counties AND is a certified/(certifiable?) Plat Book Junky, so what would he know…
Anywho, if you want to see a mangled/slivered/sliced-n-diced TWSP, take a look at Blooming Grove.
The Gotch
Can we put some Section 8 housing in Shorewood Hills, please?
“Can we put some Section 8 housing in Shorewood Hills, please?”
They tried; hilarity ensued when suffocating White Lefty Guilt took a VACATION.
The Gotch
I got a concussion too when I read that Gaetz was a pick for attorney general. I hope you number crunchers are real happy now.
Watch where you’re going next time.
Gaetz good for the cannabis play.
yep, and for having sex with minors. He’ll be there long enough to kill the ethics probe of him and then move into Epstein’s old house. The Goobers On Parade can sure pick ’em.
The (say it with me) President-Elect Donald J. Trump Administration has made capable, diverse picks (Women [including Mega-Babe former democrat Tulsi Gabbard], Latino/Cubano, Indians, Veterans, etc.)
Makes you wonder if there just weren’t any Confused lezzies (Karine Jean-Pierre) Confused Shemales (Rachel [?] Levine), Confused Cross-Dressing Luggage Thievin’ Freaks (Sam Brinton), and Confused guys (?) who think they can breast feed (Pete ButtGiggle & wife [?]) available.
Heh! Gives despicable Lefty the sadz!
The Gotch
you’re out of your mind. your own party puked in their mouth when Gaetz got called for AG. I knew the trump WH would be a shit-show; just not so soon. am I right BINGO
Within hours Gaetz resigned from congress after getting the call. That will kill his ethics probe. Today is his lucky day. Dementia Dictator Don is already doing his dirty work.