Results of the 2022 Republican Gubernatorial Primary in the Milwaukee Metro

Republican primaries in Wisconsin often feature a divide between the southeastern part of the state and nearly everywhere else. Trump, for example, lost southeastern Wisconsin in the 2016 primary, while carrying the rest of the state. Similarly, Leah Vukmir won most southeastern counties in the 2018 Republican Senate primary, while losing nearly all the rest to Kevin Nicholson. In both cases, the victor of southeastern Wisconsin topped the statewide tally.

None of the Republican primary candidates for governor in 2022 sought out an “establishment” or “mainstream” label in their campaigns. But the respective endorsements and campaigning of Donald Trump and Mike Pence for Michels and Kleefisch must have communicated something meaningful to the Republican electorate.

Tim Michels defeated Rebecca Kleefisch by about 5 percentage points.¹ To win, Kleefisch needed to run up big totals in southeastern Wisconsin, especially the Milwaukee metro. While she did win the votes of the 4-county Milwaukee region overall, Michels kept it close enough to override this advantage with his strong support from the state’s smaller counties.

¹ With only a sliver of the vote unreported on Wednesday morning, media outlets reported Michels with 47%, Kleefisch with 42%, and Tim Ramthun with 6%.

Milwaukee’s suburban “WOW” counties are often spoken of as a single unit archetypical of the mainstream wing of the Republican electorate, as opposed to the insurgent, anti-establishment faction. Still, voters in these counties consistently betray the same divisions as the rest of Republican party. Within each county, Republicans in the larger municipalities tend to vote for establishment politicians, while voters in the more rural towns often swing toward their challengers. At the county level, Washington County usually offers the weakest support to establishment Republicans, as its population is the least suburbanized of the three.

Kleefisch won 49% to Michels’ 44% in both Milwaukee and Ozaukee counties. She did best in her home of Waukesha County, where she received 50%. Michels carried an outright majority of Washington County; he won 51% to Kleefisch’s 42%.

Results of the 2022 Republican Gubernatorial Primary
in the Milwaukee metro
	total	kleefisch		michels		ramthun
		votes	pct	votes	pct	votes	pct
Milwaukee	54,653	26,641	49%	24,055	44%	1,637	3%
Ozaukee	17,495	8,614	49%	7,772	44%	550	3%
Washington	30,277	12,741	42%	15,467	51%	1,340	4%
Waukesha	84,636	42,402	50%	37,103	44%	2,514	3%
Final, unofficial returns retrieved from County Clerks offices on 8/10/2022

Consider the map below, which shows the relative performance of Kleefisch and Michels in reporting units.² Green indicates a Kleefish victory, purple a victory for Michels.

² Wisconsin clerks are allowed to report election results from small wards combined into larger reporting units. I combined the ward geographies most recently published by the state Legislative Technology Services Bureau into the reporting unit polygons mapped here. Details available upon request.

Kleefish was generally strongest in more wealthy, highly educated suburbs. In Milwaukee County, she won handily on the North Shore and in Wauwatosa, but Michels had greater success in the more working class southern suburbs. Kleefish defeated Michels by 28 points in Fox Point, 27 points in Whitefish Bay, 23 points in Wauwatosa, and 21 points in both Shorewood and River Hills. Michels won by 12 points in South Milwaukee, 10 points in Cudahy, 3 points in Oak Creek, and 2 points in Hales Corners.

The 16,813 Republican voters from the City of Milwaukee were relatively evenly split between the candidates. They gave Kleefisch a 2 point victory, but pockets of support for Michels are nonetheless evident across the city–particularly on the south side.

Kleefisch performed fairly well across Waukesha County, winning 27 of 37 municipalities. Still she was strongest in many of the larger municipalities. She won the City of Oconomowoc by 18 points, Waukesha City by 14 points, Brookfield City by 9 points, Pewaukee by 7 points, and Menomonee Falls by 6.

By contrast, Kleefisch won just 2 out of 20 municipalities in Washington County. She carried the Village of Germantown by 3 points and Jackson Village by 1 point. The City of West Bend favored Michels by 4 points. Every other municipality gave Michels a larger victory than that. In smaller, more rural areas like Barton, Kewaskum, Wayne, and Addison, Michels margin of victory exceeded 20 points.

Ozaukee County displays a split political personality. The wealthier southern half of the county takes after the neighboring North Shore suburbs of Milwaukee County. The more rural northern half of the county behaves much more like neighboring Washington. Because the balance of Ozaukee’s population lies in the former category, those voters tend to shape public perceptions of the entirety. In the 2022 Republican primary, Kleefisch beat Michels by 13 points in Cedarburg, 12 points in Bayside, 9 points in Mequon, 7 points in the Village of Grafton, and 7 points in the City of Port Washington. Michels, on the other hand, won by 14 points in the Town of Saukville, 12 points in the Town of Fredonia, 8 points in the Village of Fredonia, and 6 points in both the town and village of Belgium.

2022 Republican Gubernatorial Primary results for Milwaukee metro municipalities

See the table below for specific election results in each municipality. Technically, results are shown for municipalities within counties. If a municipality straddles two counties, it will have two records.