Wisconsin has had a big year in politics. A look back at the main political news of 2024.

Wisconsin has been at the forefront of politics for most of this year.

WPR Capitol Bureau Chief Shawn Johnson joined “Morning Edition” host Alex Crowe to help us recap the political whirlwind of 2024.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Alex Crowe: President-elect Donald Trump won the state of Wisconsin, where President Joe Biden won in 2020. Can you help us understand where we saw some of these changes that helped Trump get the ‘State ?

Shawn Johnson: So when it comes to Trump’s numbers, I wouldn’t say there have been major changes where a certain pocket of the state that hadn’t previously supported him did, or vice versa.

I think what happened was he just surpassed what he had done in the past. It was still the same Trump model, with strong turnout in rural counties. He just increased it.

Kamala Harris actually had better numbers than Joe Biden in 46 counties. It’s just that Trump did better than his 2020 numbers in all 72 counties. He outperformed his own 2020 numbers by more than 87,000 votes, which was enough to get him across the finish line.

It looked like a landslide victory because of the size of the votes he got, but it was still less than 1 percent because we’re in Wisconsin.

AC: Wisconsin is often considered a purple state. U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, was re-elected to the U.S. Senate. How did this happen?

SJ: This is a really nice snapshot of purple Wisconsin where two very different candidates can win statewide.

I think you start with Tammy Baldwin being a terrific candidate, and she received about 4,500 more votes than Kamala Harris. Baldwin outperformed Harris in 57 counties.

Baldwin still has some support in these rural counties, even though they have become very Republican over the years.

Next, look at Baldwin’s Republican opponent, Eric Hovde. He received about 54,000 fewer votes than Trump. Trump outperformed Hovde in 70 counties. You add that up and you end up with a narrow Baldwin victory.

AC: The Republican National Convention was held last year in Milwaukee. You were there. Can you tell us a little about the energy and feeling you had when you were there?

SJ: Remember, this was a result of President Joe Biden’s poor performance in the debates. Biden has asked Democrats to pressure him to withdraw from the presidential race. He was still there when the Republican convention was held in Milwaukee.

Then the weekend before the convention, there was an assassination attempt on Trump, where a bullet grazed his ear. At the beginning, we asked ourselves: is this going to go ahead? How will it happen?

The convention took place. It was a very secure environment, given the miles of fencing and police everywhere, but the Republican Party really rallied around him at that convention. Some spoke of him in biblical terms.

And coming out of the convention, the conventional wisdom was that there was no way Trump could lose this election. Then Kamala Harris runs for office, and she has her convention in Chicago, and there comes a misconception that Harris can’t lose under any circumstances.

It was just one of those years where so many things happened with far-reaching consequences, and in the end, Trump came out on top.

AC: We’ve all been focused on this presidential election, but a lot has happened at the state level as well, including new legislative maps going into effect. Tell us a little about these maps and how they shaped last year’s elections..

SJ: This is a seismic shift in Wisconsin politics, as we have been operating under pretty much the same maps since 2011, when Republicans took control of state government after the census and drew maps that helped increase and consolidate their power for more than a decade.

Well, in 2023 we have a new state Supreme Court. They overturned the existing GOP maps and said, “Governor and Legislature, if you don’t draw new maps, we will take over for you.” » I think much to the surprise of many people, Democratic Governor Tony Evers and the Republican legislature actually agreed on the new maps drawn by Evers.

Republicans felt this was somehow their best option among the potential options before the court. They felt like they could compete on these cards.

And they did. If you look at the Assembly elections on a map, Republican Assembly candidates won 54. So it’s not a massive majority like they had before with 64 seats, but they still have a majority to the Assembly.

In the Senate, Democrats had something of a best-case scenario election. They overturned four seats. This prepares them very well for the 2026 elections, when they will have the chance to flip this House.