What Wisconsin Wants - The Views of College-Educated Women in the Milwaukee Suburbs

Wisconsin’s near total ban on abortion after the 2022 Dobbs decision and the prominence of the issue in the 2023 state Supreme Court elections, as well as continuing legal battles1, likely contribute to the sharp focus on this issue. [...] Then it was the issues that became more important.” - Waukesha Independent It is important to note that the attitudinal differences observed between suburban Milwaukee County and the WOW counties are likely due to the fact that the areas of Milwaukee County surveyed are significantly more Democratic and liberal than the WOW counties (60 percent compared to 29 percent) (Figure 9). [...] Figure 12 11 Vote Shifting The voting patterns of college-educated women in suburban Milwaukee certainly have an impact on the overall trends in the WOW counties over the last decade. [...] There is directional evidence in the data that the sharp decline among Republicans from the 2020 election to the 2022 gubernatorial contest comes from women who name abortion as a top issue and believe the Republican party in Wisconsin has gotten more extreme over the last 10 years. [...] 18 For suburban women not focused on the abortion issue, healthcare, taxes, and fiscal issues are the top concerns, and of those, fiscal issues will have the most impact on their votes for both president and the next governor of Wisconsin.