The political gulf between Milwaukee County and surrounding suburban counties got even bigger this year, Craig Gilbert reports in everybody's favorite newspaper.
While suburban counties voted somewhat more heavily Republican, Milwaukee County's Democratic vote spiked more sharply in the governor's race, which was the one used for measurement in the chart.
There may be a simple explanation for that: In Milwaukee County, voters knew both of the candidates very well, from watching them serve as mayor and county executive.
In our county, where the two were best-known, Tom Barrett got 61.5% of the vote.
However, Russ Feingold got an almost identical percentage against Ron Johnson, someone people of Wisconsin still don't know much about. But in the governor's race, with two long-time officials competing for an open seat, there was no "throw the bums out" vote (even if they aren't bums), which clearly helped Johnson.
Does anyone remember all of the noises the Walker camp made early in the campaign about how well he'd do in Milwaukee, and how he'd proven a Republican can win there? Turns out, and should be no surprise, that Republicans only win our county when it is non-partisan and they are not indentified as Republicans. Or when, like Sheriff David Clarke, they pretend to be Democrats.
In any case, color Milwaukee County dark blue.