Elections

La Crosse County island of blue in Red Western Wisconsin elections

Published

4 years ago

November 4, 2020

When President Trump campaigned in West Salem last week, he predicted a ‘big red wave’ of Republican votes at the polls.

Western Wisconsin had a big red wave, all right, but it seemed to miss La Crosse County.

Democrats prevailed across the board in the county’s elections on Tuesday, when turnout was 88 per cent.

Trump did get 42 per cent of the county’s presidential votes, picking up 2000 more county votes than in 2016, but Joe Biden scored 56 per cent in the county.

Both Congressman Ron Kind and his former staffer, Brad Pfaff, needed La Crosse County votes to win their respective elections.

Pfaff won the 32nd State Senate seat that he first ran for in 2004.

That year, Pfaff narrowly lost the county to Dan Kapanke, but this year he outscored Kapanke in La Crosse County by more than 5000 votes, winning by less than 600 votes.

Kind carried his home county with 60 per cent of the votes, while most other counties in the 3rd District supported opponent Derrick Van Orden.

And four referendums in the county…affecting two towns and the Westby School District…all passed on Tuesday.

Brad Williams

A native of Prairie du Chien, Brad graduated from UW - La Crosse and has worked in radio news for more than 30 years, mostly in the La Crosse area. He regularly covers local courts and city and county government. Brad produces the features "Yesterday in La Crosse" and "What's Buried on Brad's Desk." He also writes the website "Triviazoids," which finds odd connections between events that happen on a certain date, and he writes and performs with the local comedy group Heart of La Crosse. Brad been featured on several national TV programs because of his memory skills.