Tiffany, Hovde also do well in Marathon Co.
By Kevin O’Brien
Just as they did in 2016 and 2020, voters in western Marathon County showed overwhelming support for Republican Donald Trump in Tuesday’s election, preferring him over Democrat Kamala Harris by wide margins and helping him retake Wisconsin and the White House. Trump earned strong majorities in every local municipality and won nearly 60 percent of all the votes in Marathon County, where 46,684 ballots were cast for him compared to 31,721 for Harris. The former and now future president earned about 2,000 more votes in the county than he did in 2020, when he lost to Democrat Joe Biden despite a strong showing in rural areas like Marathon County.
Trump’s nearly 15,000-vote margin of victory in Marathon County is an improvement over past performances. In 2016, he beat Hilary Clinton by over 12,500 votes, and in 2020, he increased his lead to more than 13,800 over President Joe Biden.
Western Marathon County voters have fa-
See ELECTION RESULTS/ page 8
Donald Trump Election results
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vored the Republican candidate for president since 2012, when Mitt Romney lost the race nationwide and in Wisconsin, but carried the county over Democrat Barack Obama. In 2008, by contrast, Obama won a majority of votes in 16 of 21 municipalities in the western part of the county, helping him win Wisconsin and the presidency in his race with Republican John McCain.
Wisconsin was one of several “Blue Wall” states, including Michigan and Pennslyvania, that went for Trump on Tuesday night after voting for Biden in 2020. The Badger State’s 10 electoral college votes helped Trump surpass the 270 threshold he needed to earn a new term as president.
As of press time, Trump was leading Harris in both the Electoral College vote and the national popular vote.
In other major races, Congressman Tom Tiffany won a new two-year term in the U.S. House of Representatives, beating Democrat Kyle Kilbourn by 274,110 to 156,130. Tiffany won over 62 percent of the vote in Marathon County, amassing 48,487 votes compared to 29,088 for Kilbourn.
Marathon County voters were some of Tiffany’s biggest supporters in the race, providing the largest share of ballots in his favor across the 7th Congressional District. The only counties supporting Kilbourn were in the far north, including Douglas, Ashland and Bayfield.
The lone potential bright spot for Democrats was the race between Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Republican Eric Hovde, which was still too close to call at press time. Statewide, Baldwin had a razor thin lead of 49.4 percent, compared to 48.5 percent for Hovde.
On a local level, though, voters left no doubt that they favored Hovde over Baldwin, with over 57 percent of Marathon County’s ballots going to the Republican, compared to about 41 percent for the Democratic incumbent.
By far, the biggest winner on Tuesday’s ballot was a statewide referendum asking voters if the state constitution should be amended so that only U.S. citizens 18 and over can vote in national, state and local elections. Well over 80 percent of voters in local precincts voted in favor of the referendum, which passed with about 70 percent support statewide.
