Wisconsin Election Data Analysis

What Is This?

These pages are an analysis of the results of recent Wisconsin election data. The goal is to put useful information into the hands of average citizens interested in better understanding local and statewide elections. The hope is that with knowledge will come power, and that average citizens will become more involved in electing good leaders to office.

You can start with a comparison of county voting. That table lists all 72 of Wisconsin's counties, along with summary results for statewide and other races. Each county can then be clicked to follow through to a more detailed report for races taking place inside that county. If you prefer, you can just select your county below and jump right to the detailed report.

Finally, you can view a report of "targeted" races where statewide Democratic performance suggests the race should be competitive for Democratic candidates, but where they have not won.

Where did all these numbers come from?

The original data for 2004 is available in spreadsheet form from http://elections.state.wi.us/results_Election-11-2-04.html. Results for the 2002 elections are available in PDF form at http://elections.state.wi.us/sebpage109.html. We received spreadsheet versions of the 2002 data through a request to the State Elections Board. We made our best efforts to ensure 100% accuracy. If you find any potential errors, please e-mail .

These data were compiled into a relational database suitable for queries and report generation by , who also wrote the code to produce the reports. first suggested the idea for these reports and passed along data references. He and number of others gave helpful comments on the style and content of the reports.

Also, please note:

  1. Targeted Races
    A "targeted race" is define as one with a statewide Democratic performance of 50% or better, but a non-Democratic win. Results for 2002 and 2004 are listed for each race.


  2. Democratic Performance
    "Democratic Performance" numbers are the average Dem percentages in 2004 Presidential and US Senate, 2002 Governor, and 2002 Attorney General Races.