Why are the "WOW" counties in Wisconsin conservative?

[Suburbia]

I have never visited the Badger State (Wisconsin), but I've always wanted to know why Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington counties (the Milwaukee suburbs) are so conservative-leaning. Is it because of "conservative talk radio", "white backlash", or is it something else?

[MasterJedi]

They're the outer suburbs with huge houses. Upper middle to rich professionals live there and listen to talk radio for what they believe.

[RINO Tom]

A much better question is why the GOP is unable to make other areas similar to WOW vote like WOW.

[hopper]

Talk Radio has a big audience in the WOW counties from my understanding, Talk Radio in the WOW Counties scares State GOP lawmakers in Wisconsin the way it does sitting GOP members of Congress having to do with National Talk Radio in that they might recieve a primary challenge.

[RI]

Talk Radio has a big audience in the WOW counties from my understanding, Talk Radio in the WOW Counties scares State GOP lawmakers in Wisconsin the way it does sitting GOP members of Congress having to do with National Talk Radio in that they might recieve a primary challenge.

Sure, but why is talk radio so big in the WOW counties?

[Bismarck]

Wealthy white suburbs. The base of the GOP outside of the northeast and northwest.

[Gass3268]

This is a good place to start

[Brittain33]

How did it end up so much more consistently Republican than Chicago suburbs or Minneapolis suburbs?

[RINO Tom]

How did it end up so much more consistently Republican than Chicago suburbs or Minneapolis suburbs?

Minnesota has a much more loyally Democratic tradition, doesn't it?  As for Chicago, the Chicago suburbs used to be MUCH Whiter than they are today.

[TJ in Oregon]

How did it end up so much more consistently Republican than Chicago suburbs or Minneapolis suburbs?

Minnesota has a much more loyally Democratic tradition, doesn't it?  As for Chicago, the Chicago suburbs used to be MUCH Whiter than they are today.

But even the white ones don't vote like the WOW Counties. The only other midwestern city comparable at all is Cincinnati (but there while the suburbs are super Republican, they're less so than they used to be). For some reason while the upscale white collar suburbs of practically every other northern metro have moved leftward over the last two decades, Milwaukee has bucked the trend.

What will be interesting to see is if the trend continues to be bucked in the WOW Counties in a Post-Trump world.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

What will be interesting to see is if the trend continues to be bucked in the WOW Counties in a Post-Trump world.

From what I see on the ground, Republican support is cratering in suburban Cincinnati under Trump.

[RINO Tom]

What will be interesting to see is if the trend continues to be bucked in the WOW Counties in a Post-Trump world.

From what I see on the ground, Republican Trump's support is cratering in suburban Cincinnati under Trump.

FTFY.  A rejection of Trump =/= a rejection of your usual voting habits/statewide and local Republicans longterm.

[hopper]

How did it end up so much more consistently Republican than Chicago suburbs or Minneapolis suburbs?

Minnesota has a much more loyally Democratic tradition, doesn't it?  As for Chicago, the Chicago suburbs used to be MUCH Whiter than they are today

Minnesota-It could be probably because of the Mondale and Humphrey legacy that the White Vote is so D compared to most other states.  On the flip side the GOP still had both US Senate Seats in the 80's when Minnesota was still voting for Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis!

The Chicago Burbs(Lake, Kendall, Dupage, and Kane.)

64% White(Not including Hispanic)
20% Hispanic
7% Black
7% Asian

[hopper]

How did it end up so much more consistently Republican than Chicago suburbs or Minneapolis suburbs?

Minnesota has a much more loyally Democratic tradition, doesn't it?  As for Chicago, the Chicago suburbs used to be MUCH Whiter than they are today.

But even the white ones don't vote like the WOW Counties. The only other midwestern city comparable at all is Cincinnati (but there while the suburbs are super Republican, they're less so than they used to be). For some reason while the upscale white collar suburbs of practically every other northern metro have moved leftward over the last two decades, Milwaukee has bucked the trend.

What will be interesting to see is if the trend continues to be bucked in the WOW Counties in a Post-Trump world.

I'm sure the Republicans will do fine in the WOW Counties Post-Trump. Talk Radio can't stand Trump anyway over there from my understanding.

[CatoMinor]

If I recall correctly someone here once mentioned the churches in the area as a major factor.

[MasterJedi]

There's also strongly organized local talk radio which everyone in those counties listen to and get their political views from. Seriously, all the talking points people usually use come from Belling and Sykes.

[hopper]

There's also strongly organized local talk radio which everyone in those counties listen to and get their political views from. Seriously, all the talking points people usually use come from Belling and Sykes.

Yeah Sykes is pretty huge over there. He is their local Limbaugh, Hannity, and Levin I think. Sykes couldn't stand Trump when the Republican Primary for President was going on. I don't know if that has changed since Trump became the Republican Nominee. Trump didn't carry Wisconson in the Republican Primary Cruz did.

[MasterJedi]

You also have to realize that the WOW counties are much more socially than fiscally conservative. It's based on the hatred of the city of Milwaukee, its minorities and liberals. The fear that anything liberal will cause the minorities to come to their communities and destroy them. That's where they are fiscally conservative, they don't want any of their money going to help the poor minorities.

[KingSweden]

You also have to realize that the WOW counties are much more socially than fiscally conservative. It's based on the hatred of the city of Milwaukee, its minorities and liberals. The fear that anything liberal will cause the minorities to come to their communities and destroy them. That's where they are fiscally conservative, they don't want any of their money going to help the poor minorities.

..."destroy" them?

[MasterJedi]

You also have to realize that the WOW counties are much more socially than fiscally conservative. It's based on the hatred of the city of Milwaukee, its minorities and liberals. The fear that anything liberal will cause the minorities to come to their communities and destroy them. That's where they are fiscally conservative, they don't want any of their money going to help the poor minorities.

..."destroy" them?

Oh I'm sure they would love to destroy Milwaukee if they got the chance. You're seeing a lot of "fence the north side up and let those people rot" and want them all shot, etc. Pretty disgusting.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Socially conservative, religious German Protestants, just like my hometown, which is about as ruby-red as you get.

[All Along The Watchtower]

In no particular order:

-  Racial polarization of the Milwaukee metro + white flight

- Suburbs are more recently developed IIRC (newer suburbs = very conservative) as well as being almost monolithically middle to upper middle class white

- Closer to the fringe of the Milwaukee metro (since it's not nearly as big as the Chicago metro, for example) making them more outer suburban/exurban in character

- Residents likely feel more alienated from Milwaukee (and thus, less likely to identify themselves with the city, or at least not very strongly) than residents of say, the Chicago suburbs

- Smaller city/metro than places like Chicago or Detroit - thus having a smaller proportion of white liberals than in Chicago and of course having very few minorities like both Chicago and Detroit

- Heavy presence of conservative religious groups (German Catholics, LCMS + WELS Lutherans, white evangelical megachurches, etc.)

- In tandem with the above, higher level of income and educational attainment = more church attendance = higher levels of both voter turnout and Republican affiliation (even higher than usual) among religious conservatives

- Proportionally higher-than-average educational differentials between men and women + high marriage rates (particularly married with children, I strongly suspect) = more of the idealized "traditional" male breadwinner - female homemaker style nuclear families

- A more traditional political divide between labor and management in the local economy, but with a larger-than-average proportion of the latter

[they don't love you like i love you]

Anyone else find it kind of amusing MasterJedi is sounding like me 9 years ago?

There is actually a liberal white middle class area in metro Milwaukee, including some of the suburbs. It's basically the area that sits north of downtown between the black area and the lake. But I think it's safe to say the sort of people who move there are significantly different from the people who move to WOW and this is the region that attracts the people who'd otherwise live in St. Louis Park or Richfield or Skokie.

[they don't love you like i love you]

I do think though that people often assume Milwaukee suburbs are way more of an outlier than they actually are for the region. The thing is most compare them to Chicago or Madison or here because those are the closest metro areas. But let's look at the whole Midwest:

Indianapolis: Similar
Cincinnati: If anything even worse
Anywhere in Iowa: The cities here don't have the sort of white flight and racial tensions issues such places are known for...and even then somewhere like non-Des Moines Polk County is more Republican than you'd expect.
St. Louis: Mostly similar. Kind of masked by the fact that the black settlement stretches much further out into the metro than in Milwaukee.
Fort Wayne: Similar
Grand Rapids: Similar.
Flint and Lansing: These places aren't as big and in Lansing's case (obviously not Flint) the Iowa explanation applies....however Livingston County is closer to them than Detroit.
Detroit: Actually quite similar in the comparable areas. The ones that don't vote the same are mostly the ones where a black population did come over (like Southfield) or are historic very working class union strongholds, something that's never really been true with WOW. The liberal white middle to upper middle class population in metro Detroit is mostly just confined to Ferndale an Royal Oak. And even the Grosse Points vote Republican.
Columbus: Similar, although kind of easy to miss by the city having some of the most screwed up municipal boundaries in the US. But look at the neighboring counties!
Cleveland: Not exactly similar, but not as different as one would expect if the areas with black spillover and a few exceptions like the ones mentioned in the Milwaukee area are excluded.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

What makes the Milwaukee metro unique is that, in the not so distant past, it had a thriving white working class culture founded upon trade unions and socialism but, in relatively short order, the progeny of this culture went from being staunch socialists to being rock-ribbed, ultra-conservative Republicans. Now, to my knowledge, Milwaukee wasn't much of a center of "heavy industry" and, as such, lacked a setting for the formation of strong industrial unions, which were (and remain) the foundation of left-liberalism in the US. Instead, Milwaukee was a center of lighter, more specialized industry, like brewing, which had a craft unionist tradition. Further, these industries were some of the first to be dramatically adversely affected by automation, offshoring and, in general, deinustrialization, much of which occurred quite early on.

Basically if I had to summarize my argument:
1. Culturally, the WOW counties are filled with the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of socialists and remain more downscale/working class than you might think. So why are these counties so Republican? The suburbs surrounding Gary or Cleveland might be more Republican than the core but they're ultimately still Democratic. Why is Milwaukee different?
2. As an attempt at answer, I'd argue that Milwaukee lacked cultural characteristics of Gary and Cleveland that made the Democratic Party so durable there. Namely, there was a lack of industrial unions and, something not considered in the post above, far fewer Catholics or "ethnic whites" in the Milwaukee metro area. The Catholic issue probably matters when one contrasts Cudahy with the WOW counties; Cudahy is quite Polish and still is relatively Democratic for a white town. WOW counties are pretty Protestant.
3. White collar workers in WOW counties are almost certainly either part of management linked to industrial production or part of the general cultural milieu. In otherwords, they're likely incredibly hostile to unions and any party aligned with union interests.

As far as the race factor goes, white flight is an interesting explanation but I don't think it's entirely persuasive. Most northern cities experienced white flight but there's a pretty wide variance in support for Democratic candidates based on factors of socioeconomic status. This is an obvious statement but it's bears repeating. The Northern half of the US does not exhibit the voting patterns of an Apartheid state, even if people are segregated like they live in an Apartheid state. A fallacy of this forum is the idea that white voters everywhere are very Republican. Not even close to being true, particularly in the Midwest.