GOP failed to win the Swing Vote

Tuesday was a blue romp in Wisconsin. Democrat David Crowley beat (my friend) Republican Tom Tiffany by 8 points in the governor’s race, 1,440,989 votes to 1,227,673, in unofficial returns with all 72 counties reporting. Democrats also flipped both houses of the Legislature.

Yes, there were Republican voters who stayed home. But the bigger factor was independent voters, and they went heavy toward the Democrats.

In my opinion, we talk too much about which side will turn out more of their base and not enough about the roughly 10% of voters who actually decide races. Call them the swing voters.

Here’s a simple way to see it.

Start with about 2.66 million votes for governor. We know that about 45% of voters are Republicans, 45% are Democrats and 10% are swing voters. Give Tiffany 95% of the Republican vote and Crowley 98% of the Democratic vote. That’s consistent with polling. Then let the swing voters break 77-23 for Crowley.

Here’s what that produces:

Those totals are very close to the actual totals from Tuesday.

Now change one thing. Keep both party bases exactly where they were. Have the swing voters back the Republican 65-35, which is more like what they did in 2024. That moves them from a 54-point Democratic edge to a 30-point Republican edge.

Suddenly the 8-point Republican loss turns into a narrow win. The only thing that changed was the swing vote.

So yes, it was a wave, and some Republicans did sit it out. But the swing voters going hard to Crowley mattered more.

Both parties would be wise to learn from that. If they play too much to their extreme base, they risk alienating the 10% of voters who are not ideological in their voting. Those voters are transactional. High gas prices and open borders pushed them to the GOP in 2024. High gas prices, the Iran war and President Donald Trump’s failure to address affordability pushed them away from the GOP in 2026.

One more thing about Tuesday night.

The day before the election, I tried to get something out of the way. The city of Milwaukee’s absentee vote gets reported all at once, and it’s more than 80% Democratic. When the Democratic numbers jump the moment those absentees are reported, it isn’t a conspiracy or some form of fraud. It’s math.

Here’s the math I laid out. On Election Day morning, the publicly available report put the number of returned absentees at 58,149. I said they would break at least 80% Democratic (they have to  because the city is 80% Democratic), and I estimated the Democratic advantage in those ballots at between 33,000 and 42,000 votes. 

When Milwaukee’s central count dropped shortly after midnight, Crowley’s margin increased by approximately 42,300 vote – just a bit outside of the range that was forecast.

Therefore, if Tiffany was ahead by 20,000 votes and then suddenly down by 20,000 it would not have been some form of voodoo. As it turned out, Tiffany was already way behind.

Unfortunately there are still some who falsely claim Milwaukee waits until they see how many votes the Democrat needs and then “dumps” that number of ballots. Sorry, but that explanation is a hoax – the truth is it’s just math.