Waukesha County remains crucial
The suburban county was a critical piece of David Crowley's victory in the Democratic gubernatorial primary
The Recombobulation Area is a 19-time 21-TIME! Milwaukee Press Club award-winning opinion column and online publication founded by Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer.
This column is one part of Dan Shafer’s deep-dive mega-breakdown of the election results from Wisconsin’s Aug. 11 partisan primary. Read the full column with all 12 takeaways here.
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At David Crowley’s re-launch event at 3rd Street Market Hall, I noted a significant presence from an increasingly crucial component of the Democratic coalition in Wisconsin — Waukesha County Democrats. I talked with county party chair Matt Mareno and new Waukesha Mayor Alicia Halvensleben about why they were supporting Crowley, after having supported Sara Rodriguez — who grew up in Brookfield, and flipped an Assembly district that included part of Waukesha County — earlier in the race.
That support mattered in the final count. As J. Miles Coleman of Sabato’s Crystal Ball noted, Crowley’s margin in the state’s third-most-populous county was significant — he got 44% there to Hong’s 34%, his biggest lead of any county he carried.
Crowley also won Ozaukee and Sheboygan counties by similar double-digit margins, and while Hong won Eau Claire County by an impressive 13-point margin, that was the only one of Wisconsin’s 15 most populous counties where the state representative from Madison won by double digits.
Suburban counties were inevitably going to be a challenge for the democratic socialist, and it was Crowley who proved to be the candidate who could break through there, following Rodriguez’s dramatic exit from the race.
This could be a point in Crowley’s favor in the general election, too. Waukesha County has been trending blue in recent elections, and Tom Tiffany being from the northern part of the state — and not from the WOW counties, like so many Republicans in statewide races before him — could make this county more competitive than ever for Democrats in 2026.
ICYMI: Our recent coverage of the changing politics in Waukesha County:
Dan Shafer is an independent journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. He worked with Civic Media from 2024 to 2026. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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