Steve Kornacki: The voter trends shaping the first big battleground state race of 2025

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

61% : The biggest county-level movement toward Trump was 6.5 points, while the biggest toward Harris and the Democrats was 1.9 points.
60% : On the Republican side, eight of the 10 counties where Trump improved his performance the most from the 2020 elections are in the southwestern part of the state, in what is called the "Driftless Area" (a nod to the unique topography that resulted from the lack of glacial coverage more than 10,000 years ago).
51% : The "WOW" counties of Washington, Ozaukee and Waukesha outside of Milwaukee have historically been the biggest vote bank in the state for Republican candidates, and all favored Trump by double digits last year.
42% : Still, Democrats see an opportunity to make further strides here and to cement them, with Republicans hoping to arrest their slide without Trump at the top of their ticket.
36% : Or is it more tentative and Trump-specific, offering Democrats a chance to stabilize and improve their performance without Trump on the ballot?
21% : Overall, Trump defeated Kamala Harris by 0.9 points, the narrowest spread of any battleground state.
17% : That represented a net shift of just 1.5 points from 2020, when Trump lost Wisconsin to Joe Biden by 0.6 points -- again, the smallest shift of any battleground.

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