Former President Donald Trump is losing support from a group in Wisconsin that used to support him strongly: rural men. 

In the key battleground state of Wisconsin, rural men make up 19% of registered voters. An analysis of polling from 2020 to 2024 from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, however, shows Trump is losing that base support. The analysis of the Marquette University Law School polls uses “net favorability,” which takes the percentage of registered voters who view the candidate favorability and subtracts those who view them unfavorably.

In 2020, rural men in Wisconsin supported him by +29, but in 2024, his support among rural men fell to only +2, a drop of 27 percentage points. Support from white men without a college degree, another key demographic for Trump, also fell from +15 favorability to -5. Among white men with a college degree, support is down from -5 to -28.

Republican voters overall are also not as uniformly favorable toward Trump in the state as they once were. The analysis showed his fall in support from the party is consistent with a pattern seen in Republican primaries: with 10-20% of the vote going to former presidential hopeful Nikki Haley. In 2020, Trump had a +71 favorability rating, while in 2024, that has dropped by 20 points to +51.

In the once-Republican stronghold “WOW” counties, the suburban counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington that border the Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee County, support for the GOP is falling in the Trump era. Since 2020, support in these suburbs has dropped from +7 favorability to a neutral stance.

The group in the state Trump lost the most support from was young voters, those under the age of 30. In that demographic, his unpopularity increased from -28 to -43.

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In four years, Trump’s ratings may have increased among nonwhite voters. While white voters make up 84% of registered Wisconsin voters, Trump is seen more favorably among nonwhite voters while still having an overall unfavorable view. In 2020, he had a -43 favorability rating, but in 2024, he is now at a -18 favorability. 

Even small changes can be crucial as the presidential election is expected to be close in Wisconsin. In 2016, Trump flipped the state red by a little more than 27,000 votes. In 2020, President Joe Biden flipped the state back to blue by only 20,000 votes.