67  Washburn

Washburn County (pop. 17,000) is located in northwestern Wisconsin. Its population is 93% white and much older than average. Relatively few adult residents have a college degree. The county was politically competitive during the 2000s, but it shifted to the right during the 2010s.

67.1 Demographics

67.2 County Election Results

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67.3 Municipality Election Results

Washburn County includes five communities with populations between 1,000 and 2,100. The are the cities of Spooner and Shell Lake and the towns of Minong, Evergreen, and Bashaw. Spooner and Shell Lake are politically competitive–occasionally voting for both parties during recent cycles. The remaining communities have voted more consistently Republican.

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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67.4 Supreme Court Election Results

Wisconsin’s Supreme Court has 7 justices, each of whom are elected to 10 year terms in statewide elections held in April. State law prohibits more than one Supreme Court election from being held in a single year. If a seat becomes vacant, the governor appoints a replacement who serves until the next year in which no court election is already scheduled. If more than two candidates achieve ballot access, a nonpartisan, top-two primary is held in February.

Court elections are formally nonpartisan, but candidates are usually supported by either liberals or conservatives. In recent years, it has become common for the Democratic and Republican parties to endorse and actively campaign on behalf of favored judicial candidates. The liberal and conservative labels indicated in the following graphs and tables are based on widely recognized tendencies, not any formal affiliation.

67.4.1 County Election Results

This graphic compares how presidential, gubernatorial, and court elections have trended over the past quarter century. Click the “Table” tab to see detailed results for the Supreme Court races.

67.4.2 Municipality Election Results

The following table shows the results of each Supreme Court election by municipality. The graphic visualizes the shifts over the past three court elections.

67.5 Appendix

67.5.1 Detailed County Results

67.5.2 Detailed Municipality Results