Elections have consequences.  Electoral systems do, too.

After the 2024 presidential contest, we wrote the following about Trump’s victory in Wisconsin:  ‘In Wisconsin, Trump squeaked by Harris in the popular vote, 49.6% vs 48.8%.  But he trounced her in the county vote, winning 59 to Harris’s 13, making Trump’s county victory in this State 81.9% with Harris taking only 18.1%.’

The point we were making in that essay was that conservatives/revivalists need to make structural changes to election systems, like requiring candidates to win a majority of counties/parishes in order to be declared the winner of an election, not simply look for ways to maximize turnout.  If they did, they would empower the rural areas of the States, which are generally more conservative, and thus have a better chance of consistently winning Statewide elections.

Wisconsin in 2025 shows how ephemeral victories for the Right will continue to be until some major structural reforms like the county/parish majority rule are implemented.  For in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, the Democrat candidate Susan Crawford handily beat the Republican Brad Schimel 55% to 45% in an election held only five months after President Trump’s victory in the State over VP Harris.

As in 2024, the results in 2025 are misleading.  Crawford’s victory wasn’t very broad.  Like Harris, she won only a minority of counties in Wisconsin despite winning the majority of votes:  23 out of 72 went for Crawford; 49 were won by Schimel (results via Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).  Schimel thus beat Crawford in the county total 68% to 32%.

Republican reliance on voter turnout alone to win in critical States like Wisconsin isn’t a wise strategy.  Even modest declines in voter participation can lead to stinging defeats for those who hold to that strategy.  A report from NBC News about the Wisconsin Supreme Court election confirms this:

‘Turnout for Tuesday’s court race stands at just more than 2.3 million. That’s a massive figure for an early spring, off-year race, but it’s still a far cry from the more than 3.4 million who voted in the 2024 presidential race in Wisconsin. And that falloff came disproportionately from the pro-Trump side.

‘The “resistance” enthusiasm comes from a particular segment of the Democratic base: voters with college degrees, higher incomes and vehemently anti-Trump views. They are predominantly, but not exclusively, white and are most concentrated in metro areas and college towns. They are plugged into heavily political, progressive-flavored media and have come to serve as a limitless source of online-fueled fundraising for Democratic candidates. And they are extremely motivated to vote, no matter the office, seemingly viewing any and every election as an opportunity to oppose the Trump-led GOP.

‘ . . . Compare this to the other end of the political spectrum. The political base that powered Trump to victory in the Badger State couldn’t be more demographically opposite. Trump drew overwhelming support from white voters without college degrees who are found primarily in exurban, small-town and rural Wisconsin. In 2024, Trump also folded in new support from nonwhite voters, many of them younger, male and first-time participants, who are more clustered in and around Milwaukee.

‘On Tuesday, there was significant slack in this coalition. . . .

‘This is all an inversion from the not-so-distant past, when the Republican coalition tilted toward the suburbs and was seen as more politically engaged. Back then, it was Democrats who had to contend more with the challenge of motivating infrequent voters for elections like this. Now, it’s a problem for the Trump side.

‘The president has assembled a unique coalition that, when fully activated, can win the popular vote in a national election. The question for the next two years is whether Republicans can rely on that coalition in an election that doesn’t feature Trump’s name on the ballot’ (Steve Kornacki, ‘How Democratic voter intensity powered Susan Crawford to a win in Wisconsin,’ nbcnews.com).

It is important for folks on the Right to present policies and candidates that generate enough legitimate enthusiasm to get voters to turn out and vote for them.  But if the revivalists out there want something more than short-term victories that only temporarily break up the longer-term trend of victories of the Leftists, they need to show more imagination and courage by implementing radical changes like a county majority rule.  It would not only be smart politically (a way to translate those famous Red vs Blue County Maps of the US into consistent conservative victories over generational timespans), but it would also be more just:  Rural voters shouldn’t be disenfranchised, shouldn’t have their voting strength so thoroughly diminished, simply because of their ZIP Code.

Mid-term elections are notoriously difficult for the party in the White House to win.  Wisconsin has just flashed an ominous warning sign for conservative Republicans.  Will they heed it?