The 2020 Wisconsin Fall general election was held in the U.S. state of Wisconsin on November 3, 2020. All of Wisconsin's eight seats in the United States House of Representatives were up for election, as well as sixteen seats in the Wisconsin State Senate and all 99 seats in the Wisconsin State Assembly. Voters also chose ten electors to represent them in the Electoral College, which then participated in selecting the president of the United States. The 2020 Fall partisan primary was held on August 11, 2020.
In the Fall general election, the Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, won Wisconsin's ten electoral votes, defeating incumbent president Donald Trump. There was no change to the partisan makeup of Wisconsin's congressional delegation. Republicans gained two seats in the Wisconsin Senate; Democrats gained two seats in the Wisconsin Assembly.
The 2020 Wisconsin Spring election was held on April 7, 2020. This election featured a contested race for Wisconsin Supreme Court and the presidential preference primary for both major political parties, as well as various nonpartisan local and judicial offices. The date of this election and deadline to submit absentee ballots became a matter of controversy amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Wisconsin. The 2020 Wisconsin Spring primary was held on February 18, 2020.
Wisconsin Democrats celebrated the results of the April election with the victory of their preferred candidate in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, reducing the conservative majority on the court to 4–3. The Democrats' preferred candidate also won re-election on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.
In the Wisconsin Democratic presidential preference primary, Vice President Joe Biden won an overwhelming victory. This was the last primary of the 2020 Democratic nominating contest before Senator Bernie Sanders suspended his 2020 campaign. In the Wisconsin Republican presidential preference primary, incumbent president Donald Trump was unopposed. Wisconsin voters also approved an amendment to the Constitution of Wisconsin known popularly as Marsy's Law, intended to grant new rights to victims of crimes.
A special election was held on May 12, 2020, to fill the vacancy in Wisconsin's 7th congressional district. The Republican candidate won the special election, causing no change to the congressional delegation's partisan makeup. The primary for this election was held concurrently with the spring primary on February 18.
Election information
April election
Effects of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic
In Wisconsin, a swing state with a Democratic governor and a Republican legislature, an April 7 election for a state Supreme Court seat, the federal presidential primaries for both the Democratic and Republican parties, and several other judicial and local elections went ahead as scheduled.
Due to the pandemic, at least fifteen other U.S. states cancelled or postponed scheduled elections or primaries at the time of Wisconsin's election. With Wisconsin grappling with their own pandemic, state Democratic lawmakers made several attempts to postpone their election, but were prevented by other Republican legislators. Governor Tony Evers called the Wisconsin legislature into an April 4 special session, but the Republican-controlled Assembly and Senate graveled their sessions in and out within seventeen seconds. In a joint statement afterwards, Wisconsin's state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald criticized Evers for attempting to postpone the election, for not calling a special session earlier, and for reversing his previous position on keeping the election date intact.
Early in April, Evers publicly stated that he did not believe that he could postpone the election on his own. Nevertheless, after the legislature's inaction, the governor attempted to move the election by an executive order issued on April 6. Evers' effort was, however, blocked by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. On the same day, a separate effort to extend the deadline for mailing absentee ballots was blocked by the Supreme Court of the United States. The only major concession achieved was that absentee ballots postmarked by April 7 at 8 p.m. would be accepted until April 13. However, local media outlets reported that many voters had not received their requested absentee ballots by election day or, due to social distancing, were unable to satisfy a legal requirement that they obtain a witness's signature. Three tubs of ballots from Oshkosh and Appleton were found undelivered the next day, requiring voters who had requested a ballot to come in contact with others at a polling station or forfeit their vote.
The decision by Republican lawmakers to not alter the election in the face of the pandemic, such as to a mail-only vote, was sharply criticized by the editorial board of the local Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which had previously endorsed the Republican former governor Scott Walker. They called the election "the most undemocratic in the state's history," adding that it put "at risk everything we've gained from the past three weeks of staying home and keeping our distance." In a sub-headline, The New York Times stated that the election was "almost certain to be tarred as illegitimate." The newspaper contextualized the inability of Wisconsin's lawmakers to come to an agreement on altering the election as another chapter in the contentious recent political history of the state, which included "a decade of bitter partisan wrangling that saw [state Republicans] clinically attack and defang the state's Democratic institutions, starting with organized labor and continuing with voting laws making it far harder for poor and black residents of urban areas to vote." Republicans believed that holding the election on April 7, when Democratic-leaning urban areas were hard-hit by the pandemic, would help secure them political advantages like a continued 5–2 conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court (through the elected seat of Daniel Kelly).
When the election went ahead on April 7, access to easy in-person voting heavily depended on where voters were located. In smaller or more rural communities, which tended to be whiter and vote Republican, few issues were reported. In more urbanized areas, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure and consolidation of many polling places around the state despite the use of 2,400 National Guard members to combat a severe shortage in poll workers. The effects were felt most heavily in Milwaukee, Wisconsin's most populous city with the largest minority population and the center of the state's ongoing pandemic. The city's government was only able to open 5 of 180 polling stations after being short by nearly 1,000 poll workers. As a result, lengthy lines were reported, with some voters waiting for up to 2.5 hours and through rain showers. The lines disproportionately affected Milwaukee's large Hispanic and African-American population; the latter had already been disproportionately afflicted with the COVID-19 pandemic, forming nearly half of Wisconsin's documented cases and over half its deaths at the time the vote was conducted. However, by the time the election concluded, Milwaukee Election Commissioner Neil Albrecht stated that despite some of the problems, the in-person voting ran smoothly.
Similar problems with poll station closures and long lines were reported in Waukesha, where only one polling station was opened for a city of 70,000, and Green Bay, where only 17 poll workers out of 270 were able to work. Other cities were able to keep lines much shorter, including the state capital of Madison, which opened about two-thirds of its usual polling locations, and Appleton, which opened all of its usual 15.
Voters across the state were advised to maintain social distancing, wear face masks, and bring their own pens. Vos, the state Assembly Speaker, served as an election inspector for in-person voting on April 7. While wearing medical-like personal protective equipment of gloves, a mask, and full gown, he told reporters that it was "incredibly safe to go out" and vote, adding that voters faced "minimal exposure."
Turnout 1,551,711 valid ballots were cast.
This voter turnout is approximately 45.8% of eligible voters.
Turnout was also 34.3% of the voting age population, which is a decrease compared to the 47.4% voting age population turnout of the April 2016 elections.
Mail and absentee ballots April 2020 election As of April 21, 2020, Wisconsin reports that 1,239,611 absentee ballots were requested by voters, 1,282,097 absentee ballots were sent to voters, and 1,138,491 absentee ballots were returned by voters for the April 7 elections. It has not been reported how many absentee ballots were valid.
Approximately 71% of votes cast in the April election were absentee ballots, an unprecedented proportion of absentee votes in Wisconsin.
After reports of missing and undelivered absentee ballots, Wisconsin's Senators Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson, as well as the Milwaukee Election Commission, called for investigations.
Absentee ballots by county, April 2020 [unofficial]County Requested Sent Returned Adams 3282 3416 3157 Ashland 2494 2467 2141 Barron 6204 6506 5889 Bayfield 3613 3660 3468 Brown 53159 52220 45990 Buffalo 2086 2210 1971 Burnett 1985 2074 1827 Calumet 10367 11094 9643 Chippewa 12097 11844 11072 Clark 3371 3239 1968 Columbia 12333 12687 12046 Crawford 2568 2541 2358 Dane 174644 177774 156962 Dodge 15424 16683 15561 Door 9344 9294 6716 Douglas 7150 7085 6281 Dunn 6976 6946 5463 Eau Claire 22823 22723 19070 Florence 852 700 674 Fond du Lac 18873 19572 18233 Forest 1527 1503 1298 Grant 7620 7977 7132 Green 8013 7967 7413 Green Lake 3320 3302 3116 Iowa 4815 5472 5167 Iron 1444 1865 1748 Jackson 2562 2554 1900 Jefferson 17341 18196 16009 Juneau 3212 3141 2375 Kenosha 29198 29504 25889 Kewaunee 4023 3971 3622 La Crosse 23546 24678 21706 Lafayette 2671 2777 2633 Langlade 2816 2804 2597 Lincoln 4563 4544 3470 Manitowoc 14744 15186 14229 Marathon 23250 25070 22451 Marinette 6717 7658 7096 Marquette 2446 2377 2179 Menominee 112 74 57 Milwaukee 192572 200417 169122 Monroe 5810 5711 4813 Oconto 6519 6406 5985 Oneida 7641 8198 7278 Outagamie 40211 39975 35345 Ozaukee 29273 29163 26103 Pepin 990 928 434 Pierce 5311 6173 5680 Polk 4903 5346 4893 Portage 12508 14551 13312 Price 2672 2682 2577 Racine 44228 43895 38799 Richland 2906 2877 2667 Rock 28017 29371 26575 Rusk 1870 1832 1197 Sauk 12227 14438 12684 Sawyer 14893 14959 13724 Shawano 2248 2970 2747 Sheboygan 6394 6352 6006 St Croix 25564 25511 23686 Taylor 2778 2759 2523 Trempealeau 3802 3768 3501 Vernon 5007 5040 4113 Vilas 5410 5345 4972 Walworth 20109 21900 19899 Washburn 2828 2756 2520 Washington 35601 39354 37655 Waukesha 122564 128641 119185 Waupaca 9482 9326 8696 Waushara 3779 3772 3412 Winnebago 36436 38204 32618 Wood 11473 14122 13193 Total 1239611 1282097 1138491
November 2020 election To vote by mail in the November election, registered Wisconsin voters had to request a ballot by October 29, 2020. As of early October, some 1,315,431 voters had requested mail ballots.
Federal offices President
Incumbent president Donald Trump sought a second four-year term. In Wisconsin, voters chose electors for Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden.
Democratic primary
For its part in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Wisconsin's presidential preference primary was on the ballot for Wisconsin's spring general election, held on Tuesday, April 7, 2020. At the time of the Wisconsin primary, only Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders remained in the field of Democratic candidates. However, due to delays in vote-counting, Bernie Sanders had already withdrawn from the race by the time the vote totals were released. Joe Biden won a decisive victory in the state, capturing about 63% of the vote and winning every county.