Craig Gilbert, a fellow with Marquette University Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education, predicted in a column that appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Republican legislators will maintain and potentially even grow their strong majorities in the State Assembly and State Senate in the 2022 election.
Gilbert’s analysis was based on data generated by John Johnson, a research fellow at the Marquette Law School’s Lubar Center, who looked at how the new legislative districts would have performed at the top of the ticket in the 2016 presidential, 2018 gubernatorial and 2020 presidential elections.
In his analysis, Gilbert found that, under the maps passed in 2011, 61 of the 99 Assembly districts tilted towards Republicans. However, the new maps have 63 districts that lean Republican. Similarly, the old maps had about 21 Senate seats tilt towards Republicans while the new ones have 23. Gilbert concluded that even though Democrats are competitive in statewide races, they [Democrats] “Democrats don’t have the faintest chance of winning control of either chamber under this map.”
Gilbert also notes that the number of competitive districts in the Legislature decreased under the new maps. Only 14 districts have partisan leans of less than 10 points, down from 21 under the old maps. Of the 33 Senate districts, only 7 have a partisan lean of less than 10 points, down from 8.
Gilbert attributes this change mainly to gerrymandering, although he says that it is not the sole reason. Other key factors include increasing partisanship in voting behavior and the decline of Democratic support in rural areas.
In addition to the Marquette analysis that Gilbert used, the redistricting website Plan Score has analyzed the new maps using top of the ticket election results from 2012-2020 and an algorithm that accounts for incumbency and other key factors. The results of Plan Score’s analysis finds a similar likely legislative election result and can be found illustrated below:
