{"id":31967,"date":"2026-10-13T11:49:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T16:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=31967"},"modified":"2026-10-13T12:03:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T17:03:23","slug":"a-closer-look-at-the-campus-vote-in-wisconsin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2026\/10\/a-closer-look-at-the-campus-vote-in-wisconsin\/","title":{"rendered":"A Closer Look at the Campus Vote in Wisconsin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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OnOne of the clearest contributors to Trump\u2019s 2024 presidential victory was his newfound support among young voters. Estimates vary, but all agree that, when considered by age, his support grew the most with voters under 30. According to Pew<\/a>, Trump\u2019s support grew by 4 percentage points among these voters; Catalist<\/a> put his improvement at 6 points. In Wisconsin, I\u2019ve calculated<\/a> that Trump\u2019s vote share grew by 3 percentage points in the youngest fifth of the state, while it grew just a single point in every older quintile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

College campus wards offer a useful way to measure a particular slice of the youth vote\u2014students who\u2019ve just entered the electorate. You might expect that Trump\u2019s improvement with young voters was limited to young people who don\u2019t<\/em> go to college, given the way educational polarization works in the rest of the electorate. But this isn\u2019t what the data show. Trump saw some particularly large gains on certain Wisconsin college campuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, across these campuses, Republican performance has cratered since Trump\u2019s 2024 election. In April 2025, the Republican-endorsed Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel received 13.6% in the same wards that gave Trump 31.2% earlier in the same school year. This was the lowest share of any conservative candidate for President, Governor, or State Supreme Court Justice since at least 2016. Then, in 2026, the Republican endorsee Maria Lazar set a new record low in college campus vote share for a conservative candidate, with 11.6%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turnout fell among college voters in these elections. The campus wards made up 0.91% of the electorate in November 2024, dipping to 0.78% in April 2025 and 0.55% in April 2026. This suggests two plausible interpretations of why conservative support fell so much in those elections. One is that many college voters changed their minds and voted for a liberal court candidate after casting a ballot for Trump in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other possibility is that Trump\u2019s college supporters simply didn\u2019t turn out for April elections in the same numbers as their liberal peers. Over the past 10 years, high-turnout elections have resulted in better Republican performances in campus wards, both overall and relative to the rest of the state. Republican reliance on low-propensity voters is notorious, but it\u2019s usually attributed to their strength with less-educated citizens who vote less frequently. The patterns on Wisconsin\u2019s college campuses suggest that, even among currently enrolled college students, those with Republican leanings are just less reliable voters than those with Democratic leanings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Most and Least Liberal Campuses<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campuses themselves vary a lot in their political disposition. Some match the stereotype of a leafy left-wing enclave, but others are actually proportionally home to more Republican voters than the rest of their host city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this analysis, I define campus wards as those where more than half the population was ages 18-22 in the 2020 census.[i]<\/a> This includes wards corresponding to 12 universities and one college. Three are private and the rest are members of the UW System. Altogether these wards contain about 1.1% of the state\u2019s total population. Because ward boundaries can change over time, I reallocated election results from old ward boundaries into the current ones based on validated voter records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking the average of the past 12 elections for President, Governor, and State Supreme Court Justice, the most liberal campuses are Lawrence University, UW-Madison, and UW-Milwaukee. Trump won between 12% and 22% in these campuses\u2019 wards in 2024. Lazar won 3%-8% in April 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On average, the most conservative campuses are UW-Platteville, UW-Whitewater, and UW-Green Bay. Here, Trump won 39%-47% in 2024 and Lazar 13%-22% in April 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump did especially well across many of these campuses, winning 50% of the vote in the wards around UW-La Crosse and more than 40% in the UW campuses at Oshkosh, River Falls, Whitewater, and Platteville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Several campuses\u2014even some very liberal ones\u2014are home to noticeably more conservatives than the rest of their home municipalities. This shouldn\u2019t be surprising. Many schools draw a wide mix of students from across the state, and those students reflect\u2014at least to some degree\u2014the political diversity of their homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A good example of this is the state\u2019s flagship university, UW-Madison. Among conservatives, Madison is a bit of a punchline. Lee Dreyfus called it \u201c30 square miles surrounded by reality\u201d in his 1978 gubernatorial campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In UW-Madison\u2019s campus wards, Trump received 21% of the vote in 2016, 18% in 2020, and 22% in 2024. But in the rest<\/em> of the City of Madison, Trump received 15%, 14%, and 15%, respectively. There are wards on the east side of Madison\u2019s isthmus where Trump received fewer than 1 in 20 votes in 2024. But across UW-Madison\u2019s student-occupied wards, more than 1 in 5 voted for Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This solid Trump-voting minority on UW-Madison\u2019s campus has done conservatives little good during April Supreme Court elections. Since 2020, Republican-endorsed Justice candidates have never gotten out of the single digits in the campus wards, actually lagging their performance in the rest of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

UW-La Crosse also stands out as a place with a noticeable (and growing) town-gown political divide. In La Crosse, the campus wards have grown much more conservative\u2014giving Trump 35% in 2016, 41% in 2020, and 50% in 2024. These wards have always been more conservative than the rest of the city (at least during presidential elections), but the gap has grown from 2 percentage points in 2016 to 14 in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The town-gown divide runs in the opposite direction in Appleton, home to Lawrence University, a private liberal arts school and the state\u2019s most Democratic campus. Here, Republican voters are less than half as common as in the rest of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Milwaukee is home to two campuses with somewhat different political personalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Voters in the UW-Milwaukee campus wards have grown much more Democratic over the past decade, and they are now less Republican than the city as a whole. Trump won 25% in these wards in 2016, dropping to 22% in 2020 and 19% in 2024. Meanwhile, Trump support in the rest of the city grew from 18% to 20% to 21% across his three campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Apart from April elections, voters in the Marquette campus wards have consistently voted more conservatively than voters in the rest of Milwaukee. In 2024, this gap surged. Trump won 27% in the Marquette wards in 2016, 23% in 2020, and 33% in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Implications for November 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The basic dynamic<\/a> in Wisconsin politics is that, while there are more Republicans than Democrats, Democrats dominate among the most reliable voters and Republicans depend on turning out people who only sometimes show up in November. This latter group apparently includes a large cohort of conservative-leaning but politically unengaged college students. To the extent that the past few elections hold any lessons, they might be this: potential conservative voters exist in meaningful numbers on Wisconsin\u2019s college campuses, but Republicans face an uphill battle turning them out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[i]<\/a> The census is officially conducted on April 1. By that date in 2020 many college students had been sent home in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Census Bureau went to considerable effort to count these students where they would\u2019ve<\/em> been under normal circumstances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OnOne of the clearest contributors to Trump\u2019s 2024 presidential victory was his newfound support among young voters. Estimates vary, but all agree that, when considered by age, his support grew the most with voters under 30. According to Pew, Trump\u2019s support grew by 4 percentage points among these voters; Catalist put his improvement at 6 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":207,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[413,349],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections","category-lubar-center","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/207"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31967"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31988,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31967\/revisions\/31988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}