The worry was that all those protests and recalls and attack ads and serial elections would burn people out.
After all, voters are turned off by political conflict, right?
Not quite.
In fact, Wisconsin's festival of discord mobilized people on a massive scale, generating one record-breaking turnout after another.
In the last presidential election, Ozaukee County had the highest turnout of voting-age citizens — 84% — of any county with more than 50,000 residents in America. Nearby Waukesha County was tied for second at 83%. Dane County, anchored by the ultra-blue city of Madison, was fifth (81%). Washington County was 11th (79%). Milwaukee had one of the highest turnouts of any big urban county in America (74%).
The suburban city of Brookfield (population 38,015), where Republican Mitt Romney won two-thirds of the vote, achieved something close to universal turnout: 90% of voting-age citizens went to the polls — a rate more than 30 points higher than the nation as a whole.
What happened to voter fatigue?
Is it possible that instead of turning voters off, the state's strife and struggle turned them on? Does polarization, which is supposed to be a bad thing, get people more involved in politics, which is supposed to be a good thing? Does more interest and involvement by voters also lead to more polarization?
The answer, at least in Wisconsin, is yes.
Polarization and participation in politics have been rising hand in hand in metropolitan Milwaukee for decades. One of the most polarized places in America also is one of the most politically active, engaged and mobilized places in America.
"To foster high rates of voter turnout, you need two things at opposite ends of the spectrum," says the University of Notre Dame's David Campbell, who studies political engagement. You need "highly competitive places politically, where you feel compelled to vote to advance your interests, because your vote is going to matter, and you are more likely to be contacted by a campaign. Or you live in a place where elections aren't competitive but that means everybody has kind of the same view and same values." Those like-minded communities foster a "sense of civic duty" about voting, he says.
Metropolitan Milwaukee has both places in great abundance. It is full of politically like-minded communities, where shared political values are nurtured. And it's a seething hotbed of division and conflict, because southeastern Wisconsin is where the reddest and bluest communities in a warring battleground state converge.
"You have what you might call the perfect storm," Campbell says. "You've got both the consensus and the conflict. That just adds more fuel to the fire."
Some experts call this boost in participation the "bright side" of polarization. Conversely, deep divisions could be considered the "dark side" of political engagement.
In the middle of the recall wars in Wisconsin, one third of the state's voters said they had stopped talking about politics with someone they knew because of their disagreements over Walker.
"You think, 'Oh engagement — that's a good thing.' But it can lead to people being more polarized," says political scientist Alan Abramowitz of Emory University.
Why? Because the most active and engaged voters are by and large the most partisan. They are the ones who think elections matter, feel a stake in the outcome and follow politics the most intently. That also means more moderate voters — the constituency for compromise and conciliation — play a lesser role.
"They're less engaged and less likely to turn out," says political scientist Charles Franklin, a Marquette Law School professor who has conducted 20 statewide polls in Wisconsin since 2012, and who collaborated on the research for these stories.
