It's no secret that Wisconsin's statewide votes are notorious for razor-thin margins, especially in the battleground state's presidential elections.
Which is why Tuesday's presidential primary should cause a little heartburn for both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Both candidates easily won their respective Wisconsin primaries, but also saw a portion of their base vote for a different candidate or option — eclipsing the margins by which they won their previous victories in the state.
"I would take seriously the idea that Biden and Trump have some problems in Wisconsin. But there is a lifetime ahead of us between now and the November election, and there's plenty of time for things to change," UW-La Crosse political science professor Anthony Chergosky said.
Wisconsin’s presidential primary was a purely symbolic vote as both Trump and Biden had already secured enough delegates to become their parties’ nominees.
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Biden, who is seeking his second term in office, received more than 511,000 votes, or 88.6%, in Tuesday's Democratic primary, according to unofficial results. But more than 48,000 voters, or 8.3%, chose the "uninstructed delegation" option — likely spurred by activists to signify opposition to the Biden administration's stance toward Israel over its handling of the war in Gaza.
Dean Phillips, a U.S. Representative from Minnesota who suspended his campaign in March, also received more than 17,000 votes, or 3.1%.
"It is telling that the Biden campaign is rushing the president to Madison less than a week after the Democratic primary," Matt Fisher, spokesperson for the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said in a statement regarding Biden's planned visit to the liberal stronghold on Monday — the president's third trip to the state so far this year. "With more than 11% of their primary voters choosing Dean Phillips or 'Uninstructed' at the ballot box, Biden's standing in his own party has never been weaker."
Yet Trump saw even more defections in the Republican primary. Trump — who brought in more than 476,000 votes, or 79.2%, in the GOP primary — lost more than 76,000 votes to former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race a month before Wisconsin's primary. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who all dropped out of the race before Haley, garnered about 35,000 votes combined, while nearly 13,000 voters selected the "uninstructed" option.
“If there had been 124,000 voters in the Democratic primary rejecting our nominee, I think Democrats’ hair would be on fire, and if Republicans aren’t hearing alarm bells I think their heads are in the sand," Democratic Party of Wisconsin chair Ben Wikler said.
Every vote counts
Wisconsin's presidential elections have some of the narrowest margins in the country, with the victor often decided by just tens of thousands of votes.
In 2020, Biden defeated Trump by 20,682 votes, while Trump won the state in 2016 by securing 22,748 more votes than Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton.
The "uninstructed" votes against Biden in Wisconsin and other states have gotten the campaign's attention.
On Thursday, Biden issued a stark warning to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that future U.S. support to Israel depends on the swift implementation of new steps to protect civilians and aid workers — a sharp break from his administration's steadfast support for Israel.
Kyle Johnson, political director for the state's uninstructed campaign Listen to Wisconsin, told WisPolitics.com earlier this week the group's focus was on sending a message to Biden, not to help Trump.
"We are not interested in at all getting Donald Trump elected," Johnson said. "And that's why we did what we're doing now, with uninstructed, because we want Joe Biden to get back into office, but we can't support a genocide and overlook a genocide to get him back into office."
Protest shows voters are 'engaged'
Although concerning to the Biden campaign, the "uninstructed" campaign in Wisconsin was less successful than in other states. In March, roughly 19% of Minnesota Democratic presidential primary voters selected the "uncommitted" option, while 13% of Democratic voters sent a similar message in Michigan's February primary. Primaries in several other states also included similar options, which received support ranging from 5% in Iowa to 29% in Hawaii.
“The good news is that people are staying engaged, that they do want to be heard and they’re not tuning out and giving up,” Wikler said. “I’d be much more concerned if people were giving up on the system entirely and refusing to be involved than if they’re going to vote and make very clear that they want their issues heard and they want to be involved in the process of creating change.”
Nowhere in the state was the "uninstructed" vote more prevalent than in Dane County, where 14.6% of voters selected the option on Tuesday's ballot.
"There are certainly a number of folks in Dane County who would like to see our direction in Gaza change a little bit or a lot," said Dane County Democratic Party chair Alexia Sabor.
But Sabor said she expects many of those voters to back Biden later this year when the choice is between Trump and the current president.
"Everybody recognizes that in November there is going to be a distinct contrast between two very different visions for the country, and they know that the situation in Palestine isn’t going to be better for Palestinians if Donald Trump is president," Sabor added.
Impact of war in Gaza
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who last year joined several members of Congress to publicly call for a cease-fire, said he's spent the last two weeks in Wisconsin, and the war in Gaza has been one of the biggest issues raised by residents in his 2nd Congressional District, which covers Dane, Iowa, Lafayette, Sauk and Green counties, as well as portions of Richland and Rock counties.
"I think right now people are also looking at the fact that there’s starvation and displacement of people in Gaza," said Pocan, D-Black Earth. "That’s an immediate concern that we can do something about immediately, even if we can’t necessarily directly impact the ceasefire conversation."
Pocan said there's no guarantee the more than 48,000 people who voted "uninstructed" in Tuesday's primary will vote for Biden in November and the campaign will need to make an effort to secure those votes.
"You don’t want to lose any of those folks either to a third-party candidate or to not voting, because that has other ripple effects for the U.S. Senate race, congressional races and state legislative races," Pocan said.
Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said in a statement the president "believes making your voice heard and participating in our democracy is fundamental to who we are as Americans."
"He shares the goal for an end to the violence and a just, lasting peace in the Middle East," Hitt continued. "He's working tirelessly to that end."
Ghost of Haley haunts Trump
Trump made his first trip to Wisconsin of the election cycle with a Tuesday rally in Green Bay before easily winning Wisconsin's Republican presidential primary that evening.
But while Biden lost thousands of votes to those protesting his handling of the war in Gaza, Trump saw more than 120,000 votes go to candidates who are no longer in the race. Nearly 13% of those votes went to Haley, who dropped out nearly a month before Wisconsin's primary.
Haley received votes from nearly 24% of voters in the Republican primary in Dane County and 16.7% in Milwaukee County. The suburban Milwaukee "WOW" counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington saw Haley receive 13.8%, 16.8% and 11.7% of the vote, respectively.
Chergosky said Haley voters, particularly affluent, college-educated suburbanites, continue to be problematic for Trump as he struggles to build on his established base in the state.
“I do think the Haley vote represents signs for trouble because this is not an isolated situation,” Chergosky said. “The sorts of folks who voted for Haley are the sorts of folks who have not been thrilled with the Trumpian turn of the Republican Party.”
In late March, the Biden campaign launched an ad seeking to draw support from Haley's backers.
At the same time, Chergosky said Trump's ongoing negative campaign against Biden also has the potential to win over more Trump-skeptical Republicans. Trump last week focused much of his attention at rallies in Wisconsin and Michigan on the Biden administration’s handling of the nation’s southern border — a topic Trump is expected to carry through to November.
"No amount of gaslighting from the Biden campaign can make voters forget Biden's Bloodbath he has brought all across America," Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
The Trump campaign, meanwhile, argues many Haley voters are simply Democrats taking advantage of the state's open primary and voting in the Republican ticket.
"At this point, Republicans are generally more enthusiastic about Trump than Democrats are about Biden, but Trump nonetheless failed to win over about one in five GOP primary voters," UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said. "Some of those individuals are probably independents or Democrats who were enticed by Haley's campaign, but he still has work to do bringing on board Republicans with higher levels of education and income, such as those in Dane and the WOW counties."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
See complete coverage, results from the April 2 Wisconsin elections
Results from Wisconsin's presidential primaries, state referendums and local elections.
With no major challengers remaining, Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican former President Donald Trump easily won their respective presidential primaries in Wisconsin on Tuesday.
Board Chair Patrick Miles fended off a well-funded and organized challenger in McFarland Trustee Ed Wreh.
Referendums in the McFarland and River Valley school districts failed.
Wisconsin is again expected to be a battleground state in November's presidential election, which will almost certainly be a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.