Both Donald Trump and Tammy Baldwin won Wisconsin by about 30,000 votes. How did that happen?
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Wisconsin once again lived up to its reputation as a true swing state. Voters here helped send President-elect Donald Trump back to the White House, but they also reelected Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin.
Two years ago, Wisconsin voters did something very similar. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers won reelection while Republican Sen. Ron Johnson also won another term.
As of 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, Mr. Trump had 29,634 more votes than Vice President Kamala Harris. At the same time, Baldwin defeated Republican challenger Eric Hovde by 28.958 votes. The 0.9% margin would allow for Hovde to seek a recount without being responsible for the cost, which he'd have to pay if the margin was greater than 1%.
Reviewing county-level election results, a consistent theme was Baldwin outperforming Harris in numerous counties while Hovde did not get enough of a lift from sharing a ballot with Mr. Trump.
Overall, Baldwin received 4,253 more votes from across the state than Harris. Some of her most noticeable support relative to Harris was in the south central and western parts of the state.
Baldwin was able to capture Sauk County outside of Madison, which is consistently one of the most competitive counties in the state. While she won Sauk County by more than 500 votes, Trump won the county by more than 600 votes.
Elsewhere in the region, Baldwin won Iowa County by about 1,300 votes while Harris' margin of victory there was around 1,100. In Rock County, which contains Janesville and Beloit, Baldwin received about 400 more votes than Harris did.
In Portage County, which leans slightly Democratic because of Stevens Point, Baldwin had about 500 more votes than Harris. Her margin of victory of 4.4 percentage points was also better than Harris' 1.2-point advantage.
In other key liberal counties, Baldwin did better than Harris. She captured 75.4% of the vote in Dane County compared to 75.1% for Harris. The two-term senator received about 250 more votes than Harris in La Crosse County.
While Harris received more raw votes in Milwaukee County, Baldwin got a bigger share in her contest. Baldwin had 69.1% of the Milwaukee County vote, matching President Joe Biden's performance there in 2020. Harris received 68.3% of the vote there.
The Republican-leaning 'WOW' counties in the Milwaukee suburbs were among the few places where Harris outperformed Baldwin. Harris had a larger share of the vote in each of Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties, typically by about one percentage point.