The Badger State was part of the so-called “Blue Wall” that Harris needed in order to take the presidency.
Former President Donald Trump is projected to have won the critical swing state of Wisconsin, ending Harris’ path to the presidency after a night that saw her hopes of a barnstorming victory vanish into thin air.
Trump very narrowly lost Wisconsin to Joe Biden in 2020 having bested Hillary Clinton there in 2016, and as in several other of the last election’s swing states, he mounted a legal campaign to try and delegitimise the result with a view to overturning it.
The Harris campaign targeted Wisconsin heavily, holding packed rallies in major cities while Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, targeted small-town and blue-collar areas with a message of down-to-earth Midwestern values.
However, the theory that Trump could be defeated by running up large majorities among black voters in Milwaukee and suburban women furious at the overturning of abortion rights was not borne out in exit polls nationwide.
Instead, they show that Trump has made inroads among Democratic-leaning groups while Harris performed more poorly than expected with female, black and Hispanic voters.
