Democrats sweep Wisconsin races, Seize legislative chambers

Democrats now control every statewide office and both chambers of the Wisconsin Legislature for the first time in 16 years, after winning all four statewide races and flipping enough legislative seats to secure majorities in the State Senate and Assembly, Marquette Law School reported.

The party ran the table Tuesday, taking the governor’s office by 8 points, attorney general by 9, secretary of state by 5, and treasurer by 4. In Congress, Rebecca Cooke unseated incumbent Derrick Van Orden by 7 points, while Mitchell Berman defeated Bryan Steil by 4. But the biggest shift came down-ballot, where Democrats needed to flip just two of the 17 odd-numbered Senate districts to win a majority, and instead flipped three — two in the Milwaukee suburbs and one in the Driftless Area — to reach an 18-15 advantage. In the Assembly, where Democrats needed five flips to win control, they captured eight seats for a 53-seat majority, giving them unified control of state government.

Three Trump Districts Turn Blue in Northern Wisconsin

The most striking gains came in three northern Assembly districts that Donald Trump carried in 2024. In River Falls, along the Minnesota border, Kevin Knoke defeated incumbent Shannon Zimmerman by 7 points in a seat Zimmerman had won by 8.5 points two years earlier. In Menomonie, near Eau Claire, Jeremiah Frederickson beat Clint Moses by 7 points after Moses won the district by 7 in 2024. And in Wausau, John Kroll defeated incumbent Patrick Snyder by 8 points, reversing Snyder’s 6-point victory in 2024.

Wisconsin Democrats seize Legislature, tee up schools and healthcare agenda

These were not isolated pickups. Before the election, analysts identified 14 battleground districts — five in the Senate and nine in the Assembly — that would determine control of the chambers, and Democrats won 13 of them. The flipped Assembly seats spanned the state: two in the Milwaukee suburbs, two in the Fox Valley, one in the rural Driftless Area, and the three northern small-city districts. Every contested Assembly seat saw Democrats improve their margin relative to 2024, with the largest swing coming in the 21st district in Milwaukee County suburbs, where Oak Creek mayor Daniel Bukiewicz won an open seat by 25 points.

New Maps Created a Fairer Fight

The sweep was made possible by the 2024 redistricting, which created legislative districts that closely match Wisconsin’s actual political division. In 2024, the state voted for Donald Trump for president while reelecting Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin, producing a split result that the new maps reflected. Each candidate converted their narrow statewide victory into a majority of the vote in 50 of the state’s 99 Assembly districts.

Democrats take Senate, Assembly in Wisconsin

Despite those favorable maps, Democratic candidates in 2024 still only won 45 Assembly seats, trailing both Baldwin and presidential candidate Kamala Harris. This year, gubernatorial candidate David Crowley outperformed many of his party’s legislative candidates: 38 Assembly Democrats ran ahead of Crowley, while 52 won a smaller share of the vote than he did. Most incumbent Democrats did better than Crowley, though 14 still trailed him slightly. Yet the wave was large enough that even candidates who trailed Crowley still captured seats, as small incumbency advantages proved insufficient to save Republicans in marginal districts.

Democrats Improved Across Every Demographic Group

Using Census Bureau demographic statistics for the 99 Assembly districts, each holding about 1 percent of the state’s population, the analysis reveals a uniform swing across the state. Democrats improved in every income quartile, with Crowley performing about as well as Tony Evers did in 2018 in the poorest districts, while winning 50 percent of the two-party vote in the wealthiest fourth compared with Evers’ 43 percent eight years ago. By education, Crowley’s gains were largest in the most educated districts, up 8 points from 2018, while the least-educated areas saw a slight decline from Evers’ 2018 performance. The improvement was also higher in younger districts than in the oldest. Even in the state’s four majority-Black and one majority-Latino districts, all in Milwaukee, Crowley performed far better in this midterm than Evers did in his 2018 midterm race, reversing the presidential-year trend of declining Democratic support in non-white districts.

Democrats win Wisconsin trifecta for first time in 16 years

Midterm Turnout Falls as Trump Voters Stay Home

The Democratic victories came despite lower overall turnout. With nearly all votes counted, Wisconsin’s 2026 midterm turnout stood at approximately 2,650,000 voters, slightly below 2022 and 2018 levels and 776,000 fewer than the November 2024 presidential election. The missing voters appear to be mostly disillusioned Trump supporters who stayed home in the midterm, allowing Democrats to build winning coalitions in districts that had recently leaned Republican.

With control of the governor’s office and both legislative chambers, Democrats now hold the levers of state power in Wisconsin for the first time in 16 years, setting up a new political dynamic in a state that has been a national battleground for over a decade.