Elections for the Wisconsin Assembly haven’t seen much drama for a decade. The decline in ticket splitting among voters across the state, combined with the rock-solid gerrymander drawn in 2011, meant that scarcely any seats changed hands between parties. The “least-change” map adopted in 2022 tipped a few more seats toward the GOP but mainly reaffirmed the electoral status quo.
The new state legislative maps drawn by Governor Evers and passed in early 2024 bear little resemblance to those used previously. Most Wisconsinites live in a new district. WPR reports that “at least 44 state representatives and senators will run in new districts.”
With so much up in the air, I wanted to calculate election statistics from some of Wisconsin’s previous, relatively un-gerrymandered maps. How many seats usually changed hands between the parties? How often did incumbents lose? How common were open seats?
First, here is a graph showing the seats won by each party in each November general election. I begin in 1972, because that was the first year when the Assembly had 99 members (before that, it had 100).
Democrats held a majority of the Assembly from the 1970 election until 1994. Then, Republicans controlled it until 2008. After the 2008 election, Democrats briefly controlled both chambers of the state legislature and the governor’s mansion. The Tea Party wave in 2010 flipped all chambers to Republican control. The balance of power in the Assembly has changed little since then.
The next series of graphs show selected election statistics for each general election to the Assembly.
The number of uncontested seats—where just 1 party fields a candidate—has bounced around. But it has generally been lower in the 2010s than the 1990s and 2000s.
Incumbents are rarely defeated. Under the maps in use from 2012-2020, a total of 8 incumbents lost to a non-incumbent challenger.
The number of open seats (with no incumbent running) has followed a natural rhythm. In most years, around 15 races feature no incumbent, but every decade or so the number of open seats jumps to around a quarter of the chamber.
The number of seats flipping between the parties has rarely been high, but it was especially low during the 2010s. This statistic can only be calculated when the district boundaries are used in sequential elections.
There were 396 general elections for an assembly seat from 2014 to 2020. Only 7 resulted in a flip. That’s a flip rate of 1.8%.
From 2004-2010, 35 seats flipped, a rate of 8.8%.
From 1994-2000, 17 seats flipped, a rate of 4.3%.
From 1986-1990, 16 seats flipped, a rate of 5.4%. (Both the 1982 and 1984 elections featured new districts).
From 1974-1980, 31 seats flipped, a rate of 7.8%.
Prior to 1972, the Wisconsin Assembly contained 100 seats. This graph shows the partisan composition of each legislature from 1885 through 1971. This data is slightly different than the figures shown above, because it shows party membership of legislators in December of each odd-numbered year. The data I discuss above shows the party composition of the winners in each even-numbered general election.
The Republican Party overwhelmingly dominated the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Wisconsin. Democrats held a majority after only 5 elections during the entire period from 1885 to 1971. During the 1920s, Republicans held almost all the seats in the Assembly and the Socialist Party typically won more seats than the Democrats.
Note: The graph titled “Wisconsin State Assembly General Elections, Selected Outcomes, 1972-2022” has been corrected to show that 26, not 25, seats were contested by 1 party in 2022.
The official census count occurs just once every ten years, and it’s out of date by the time it gets released.
The last census was officially conducted on April 1, 2020, so it missed essentially all the population changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. But each year, the U.S. Census Bureau also releases “intercensal” population estimates. These are based on carefully collected administrative records (births, deaths, tax returns, etc.), and they give us the best look at how our current population is changing. The estimates cover 12-month periods beginning on July 1. The latest data covers the year from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023.
The pandemic and its aftermath is still the big story in this data. Cities across the country shrank. Some, like Detroit, have begun to grow. Despite Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s well-publicized goal of “1 million Milwaukeeans,” the city’s population recovery has yet to begin.
The latest estimates show positive signs for Wisconsin, but continued struggles for Milwaukee, relative to our midwestern peers. Wisconsin has largely returned to pre-pandemic form, while Milwaukee County is continuing to shrink at twice the rate of the 2010s.
Wisconsin added 20,000 net new residents from July 2022 to July 2023, a growth rate of 0.35%, which is practically identical to the state’s average growth rate during the previous decade. That growth was nearly double the state’s increase of 11,000 in 2022, which came on the heels of a 17,000-person loss in the first year of the pandemic.
Population change can be broken down into two components — net migration and natural change (births minus deaths). The next graph shows why each state grew or shrank over the past three years. Wisconsin’s 2023 growth rate falls below Minnesota and Indiana but above Michigan and Iowa. Illinois is still shrinking badly.
Each state has followed a different trajectory.
Wisconsin had slightly more deaths than births in 2021 and 2022, before flipping to slightly more births in 2023. The bigger change has come from improving migration numbers. The state lost 16,000 net migrants in 2021 but gained 15,000 in 2022 and 19,000 in 2023.
Michigan has followed a similar trajectory as Wisconsin, but with more negative natural increase and slightly less migration.
Minnesota’s net migration has bounced around over the past few years, but its strong birth rates have kept it from shrinking much.
Iowa is close to flat—but slightly positive—in both natural change and net migration.
Illinois has maintained slightly positive natural change, but it gets hammered on net migration. A net of more than 100,000 people left the state in both 2021 and 2022. The outbound tide slowed to 43,000 in 2023, but Illinois remains the only state in this set to have negative net migration.
Indiana has attracted more than 20,000 net new residents in each of the past 3 years—some of them, doubtlessly, former Illinoisans.
Milwaukee County’s population fell by an estimated 1,800 during the 12-month period ending July 2023. That was an improvement over the previous two years, when the population fell by 6,200 and 14,300, respectively. Still, the county shrank by 0.2% in 2023, compared with an average annual decline of less than 0.1% throughout the 2010s.
The maps below show components of population change for each county.
The strongest position is in the top left map, which shows counties with more births than deaths and positive net migration. It includes the counties surrounding Indianapolis and the Twin Cities—though notably not any of those cities themselves. The growth emanating (though not shared by) the Twin Cities is so strong that it reaches as far as Eau Claire, Wis. Other areas in Wisconsin in this strong position include Dane and Marathon counties, the Fox Valley, and the greater La Crosse area.
Only a handful of counties have negative migration but enough of a positive birth rate to keep growing nonetheless. The largest in this category is Hennepin County, home to Minneapolis. In Wisconsin, they include Clark, Lafayette, and Trempealeau counties.
Many more counties have aging populations, resulting in negative natural change, but enough in-migration to create population growth. Broadly speaking, this includes a great swathe across northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Perhaps the remote work boom is finally creating the conditions for population growth across the Northwoods.
If the healthiest counties grow from births and migration, then the most troubled counties are shrinking for both reasons. These counties — which have more deaths than births and more leavers than comers — are found most commonly in rural Illinois and Iowa. In Wisconsin they include just Columbia, Crawford, Juneau, and Jackson counties.
Seven of the region’s largest 10 counties fall into the next category — where natural change is positive, but offset by out-migration. To put it reductively, people seem to have kids in these counties, then they leave. This status includes Milwaukee County; Cook, Kenosha, Lake, and DuPage counties in the Chicago metro; Wayne and Oakland counties in the Detroit metro; and Marion County (containing Indianapolis).
The final category, positive migration but an even larger negative natural change, occurs mainly in rural counties — particularly in Illinois.
The Census Bureau further estimates municipality population by tracking new housing unit construction and allocating the county-level population estimate into each town based on the average household size in the 2020 census. Based on this methodology, Milwaukee city’s population fell by 2,200 in 2023 to a new low of 561,400. The most significant growth came in Oak Creek, which likely added about 1,100 new residents. Most of the remaining municipalities are estimated to have shrunk slightly.
Milwaukee’s decline of 2,200 is an improvement over its loss of 2,900 in 2022 and pandemic-fueled drop of over 10,000 in 2021. But Milwaukee’s rate of decline in 2023 was still tied with Rockford, Ill., for the worst among the region’s 15 largest cities.
Milwaukee’s rate of change since the 2020 census is second-worst, trailing only Chicago. Madison, on the other hand, had the highest rate of growth in 2023 and the second highest since the pandemic (after Fort Wayne).
Most of the 15 largest municipalities in Wisconsin have shrunk since the 2020 census, with the exceptions of Madison, Eau Claire, and Janesville. But all of these cities do show signs of improvement in 2023. Eau Claire has shown particularly robust growth, passing Waukesha to become the state’s seventh largest city in the latest estimates.
By comparing Wisconsin with this set of neighboring states, I hope to better place our demographic situation in context. The bright spots in Wisconsin extend well beyond Madison. Many regions surrounding smaller cities like Eau Claire, Wausau, and the Fox Valley are doing quite well. The rural Northwoods is attracting enough migration to offset the natural decline of its aging population. Our rural communities are in a much healthier place than those of Illinois or Iowa.
Still, even if Wisconsin’s outlook seems better than Illinois’, Milwaukee nonetheless appears to be on the same trajectory as Chicago. In both, the population has fallen by about 3% since the pandemic began. The culprit is the same. The birth rate in each city is positive, but more people choose to move away than to move in.
Existing drinking water sources are under increasing strain due to overuse, climate change and other threats. Water recycling, also known as water reuse, may play a significant role in creating the sustainable cities of the future. Millions of people around the country are already being asked to drink recycled water, either indirectly (through a process in which treated wastewater is discharged to an environmental buffer such as groundwater or surface water and is later taken into the water distribution system) or even directly (when treated wastewater is immediately discharged into the water distribution system without an environmental buffer). At an April 10 conference sponsored by the Law School’s Water Law and Policy Initiative, several experts discussed the history and future of such technologies, and whether they are likely to emerge in Wisconsin or remain limited to the more arid parts of the county.
Noted author and journalist Peter Annin opened the event with a summary of his new book, Purified: How Recycled Sewage is Transforming Our Water. Annin described a significant water crisis facing many parts of the country, leading also to trouble in the production of food and energy, sectors long intertwined with water. Annin cited only two realistic options for “new” water supply—desalination and water reuse. Reuse is the far more sustainable option, he said.
Annin covered numerous historical case studies involving efforts communities have made to introduce recycled water into their water supply portfolios. Some were successful (Orange County), others less so (San Diego, at least at first). But Annin explained that careful examination of the United States Drought Monitor reveals that water shortages are not only a problem in the arid West. As a result, water reuse projects have been implemented or at least attempted in the more humid parts of the country too—in Norfolk, Virginia and Tampa, Florida, among other places.
In reviewing the lessons learned from all these efforts, Annin identified several keys to successful implementation of water recycling projects, including effective strategies for communicating with the public, rigorous monitoring of the water produced, and reliable technologies to ensure public safety.
In Wisconsin, at least so far, such technologies are more a matter of interest than necessity. “Nobody recycles water because it’s cool,” said Theera Ratarasarn, a panelist reacting to Annin’s presentation who is Chief of the Public Water Engineering Section for the Drinking Water and Groundwater Program at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Instead, they do it because they have no other choice; it is a last resort. In Wisconsin, Ratarasarn said, “everywhere you look, you find water.” Thus, he said, it isn’t necessary to resort to water recycling. In fact, it would run afoul of a Wisconsin legal requirement that the public drinking water supply come from “the best available source practicable.” As a result, Wisconsin regulators are more concerned about other pressing issues like PFAS, lead, and nitrate pollution.
Another panelist, Rachel Havrelock, who is Professor of English and director of The Freshwater Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago, observed that most people are accustomed to “single-use water,” and this view drives our discomfort with water recycling. In fact, she said, water recycling more closely emulates nature and the multiple-use water cycle. In most places, she said, there is already de facto water reuse, with treated wastewater returned to surface water and soon thereafter reclaimed for drinking water treatment a short distance away. Havrelock’s team has proposed a separate water reuse-driven supply for agricultural and industrial purposes in Chicago and the surrounding areas. “We don’t need to drink recycled water here,” she said, but reuse can still make a big difference by reducing the load on the portion of the water supply that will be used for drinking. She cited a “groundwater emergency” in many parts of the Midwest. “Water reuse is part of climate change adaptation,” she concluded, and the “legal world is absolutely vital at this juncture” to regulate the practice.
Michael Duczynski, a research civil engineer with the United States Army Engineer Research and Development Center, confirmed that from the military perspective there are plenty of avenues for non-potable reuse. The military, he said, has large critical infrastructure needs at many of its installations around the world, including everything from cooling towers to data centers. The resilience of those installations—and of civilian communities— can be increased through water reuse options, he said. Duczynski described a new project through which the military is discerning the regulatory requirements for a spectrum of potential reuse applications spanning different levels of treatment, different end uses, and different jurisdictions. Employing some of these projects could save millions of gallons of water, he predicted.
Video of the full program is available here (click the “watch now” button).
