The latest pop estimates are out & they show some interesting regional variation across the midwest. Here's a look at municipality-level changes since the pandemic. I think these maps are my favorites. They show *why* each county grew or shrank in the year ending July 1, 2023.

I took a closer look at the gap between Tony Evers and Mandela Barnes in the 2022 election, in a blog post that would've been way more timely 5 months ago.

Main takeaway: nothing about Barnes' performance seems unusual when you compare it to other Dems.

law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/20… The (extremely high) correlation between the Senate race & each other statewide race is almost identical. The intercept shifts a bit, w/all the Dem incumbents doing at least a bit better than Barnes.

Barnes did almost identically well to the Dem in the open race for Treasurer.

Here's my look at the SCOWIS race in the Milwaukee metro. I'm on vacation, so this will be short!

Protasiewicz won the metro by 12.1 points, when liberals won it by just 2.6 in the primary.

rpubs.com/jdjohn215/SCOW… She improved over the liberal performance in all 4 counties.

- Milwaukee, 73% up from 68%
- Ozaukee, 48% up from 44%
- Waukesha, 42% up from 36%
- Washington, 34% up from 29%

There's so much coverage about vaccination rates as a function of party ID, but that can't be the whole story.

Milwaukee Cnty: Biden +30, 60% vaccinated
Ozaukee Cnty: Trump +12, 70% vaccinated

1/4 I ran a regression using the following to predict (adult) vaccination rates
-2020 vote
-census response rate
-social capital
-poverty rate
-COVID death rate

Here are the scatter plots and coefficients. (Covariates are z-score standardized) 2/4

I've been thinking about this NYT exploration of research into political geography. One pitfall of the "bubble" framing is that it can suggest a kind of symmetry between Rep & Dem areas that doesn't exist. nytimes.com/interactive/20… For instance, I grew up in rural Bardolph, IL with only 19% Democrats. Now I live in a part of Milwaukee where just 4% of my neighbors are Republican. Both of these are counted as "bubbles" but it's a difference between 1-in-5 and 1-in-25 neighbors belonging to the out-party.

quick thread on MFD ambulance response times. MFD is facing real challenges to deliver prompt service. @milwaukeenns has documented the challenges caused by the closing of Station 17 on the south side. milwaukeenns.org/2021/02/05/the… 1/x Private EMS contractors support MFD by taking care of less critical calls. @compujeramey recently wrote about how the company covering the northwest side has cancelled their contract. 2/x urbanmilwaukee.com/2021/04/28/cit…

Is Wisconsin's white working class Trump's base? It's not that simple. Part of the problem is in the term "working class." Often, people say the "working class" is people without a bachelor's degree, but I think any good definition of "working class" has to include income. This is a crosstab @RonBrownstein often writes about. Trump wins big with non-college white men and ties with their bachelor's degree-having counterparts. Women are much different. Trump loses by 6 with non-college & 20 with college educated. But wait! income matters too...

Here is something more fun to come out of the mostly gloomy analysis of Milwaukee property ownership I wrote with @MikeGousha. A poster of common Milwaukee architectural styles. A big screen is needed for optimum viewing. high rez version here indd.adobe.com/view/c2ac507f-…

A short thread on gender, party ID, and the Wisconsin primary. The gender balance of the parties in Wisconsin is different than during recent past presidential elections. A significant number of men have changed their partisanship, shifting from the Democrats to the GOP. In 2012-16 men split 48% R to 42% D. In 2017-20, 53R/36D. The party ID split of Wisconsin women has not systematically changed. This means that:

(1) The relative size of the Wisconsin Democratic party has shrunk.
(2) The Democratic party is now proportionally more female.