Wisconsin Democrats hunt five Assembly seats after the old maps died

Wisconsin Democrats are running the first Assembly campaign in a decade that is not pre-decided by the old Republican maps. The New York Times reported on 7 September that the party is five seats short of a majority in the 99-member House and two short in the Senate. Republicans sit at 54-45 in the Assembly and 18-15 in the Senate.

Those numbers exist because Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, forced a new cartography after years in which Republicans kept the legislature while losing almost every statewide office. The prior maps were a national example of a locked chamber. After the 2024 cycle, run on fairer lines, Democrats cut the gap to the present margin. The next election is the first real test of whether the new lines produce a Democratic trifecta, last seen after 2008.

Generic legislative polling compiled by Marquette has favoured Democrats. Money has not. Campaign finance reports cited by the Times put Republican fundraising at about $43 million, a two-to-one edge. Field work is the Democratic answer. State Representative Jenna Jacobson going door to door in Oregon, Wisconsin, is the picture the Times led with. It is also the method: walk the new districts until the five seats appear.

Where the five seats might be

Eight Assembly Republicans are retiring. Minority Leader Greta Neubauer has treated those open seats as the shortest path. Districts named in state political coverage include the 21st in Oak Creek, where Jessie Rodriguez is not running, and the 61st in Greenfield and Milwaukee, held by Bob Donovan. A Marquette Law faculty handicap in late summer rated 47 Assembly seats safe or leaning Democratic and 49 safe or leaning Republican, with three toss-ups. On that sheet Democrats must run the table in the toss-ups to take a one-seat majority.

The Senate math is tighter and slower. Democrats need two. Several Republican senators are also leaving. A Democratic nominee still has to beat Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany in a related federal race that state operatives are watching as a turnout engine. None of that is a majority. It is the list of places where a majority could be built.

What the dead maps were

After 2010, Republicans drew districts that survived a decade of statewide defeat. Courts later found maps unconstitutional in a separate action on detached territory, the so-called Swiss-cheese districts. The political fact for 2026 is simpler than the case law. The lines no longer do the work they did. Candidates have to.

Wisconsin remains a swing state at the presidential and gubernatorial level. The legislature was the office that did not swing. That exception is what Monday's reporting is about. Five Assembly seats and two Senate seats are the whole prize. The $43 million is the Republican theory of the race. The doors in Oregon, Wisconsin, are the Democratic theory. One of those theories will have a speaker in Madison when the next session opens.