14  Columbia

Columbia County (pop. 58,000) is located just north of Dane County, and it is officially part of the Madison Metropolitan Statistical Area. While economically and geographically connected, the two counties nonetheless feel quite different culturally and politically. More than a fifth of Dane County residents have an advanced degree, compared to just 7% in Columbia. Politically, Columbia is very competitive. Trump narrowly won the county in both 2016 and 2020, but Tony Evers also carried the county in both his campaigns for governor. In 2022, the county closely matched the overall state result, by giving Democrat Tony Evers a 4-point victory in the race for governor and Republican Ron Johnson a nearly 2-point victory in the US Senate race.

14.1 Demographics

14.2 county election results

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14.3 municipality election results

Reflecting the overall competitive nature of the county, most of the municipalities in Columbia have voted for Democrats in some years and Republicans in others. The most reliably Democratic communities include the cities of Lodi and Portage and the villages of Rio and Poynette. The most Republican places include the villages of Randolph and Firesland and the towns of Courtland and Randolph.

This map shows the location of each municipality in the county, as it existed in 2022.

These dot plots show the most recent election results in each municipality.

To more clearly illustrate recent changes in municipality voting trends, these scatterplots compare the most recent vote for president and senator with the shift from that office’s previous election.

These maps show show every election result since 2000 in each municipality.

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14.4 Appendix

14.4.1 detailed county results

14.4.2 detailed municipality results