By Marie Horrigan, CQ Staff

CQ Politics Presidential Race Rating: Leans Democratic

Electoral Votes: 10

All the political elements that have added up to make this a challenging year for Republicans in Wisconsin, a state that has gone Democratic in the last five presidential elections but one where John McCain harbors some hopes given the narrowness of the last two races.

The last time Wisconsin voted Republican was in the 1984 Ronald Reagan landslide. But it was a battleground state in both of the past two contests, favoring John Kerry over President Bush by just four-tenths of a percentage point in 2004 — the smallest state margin for either candidate — and going for Al Gore over Bush in 2000 by an even closer two-tenths of a point.

The most recent polls — by Strategic Vision and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute — had Obama ahead by five and six points respectively.

But his campaign still will have to make an effort to ensure that Wisconsin doesn’t return to its “battleground” identity.

Running in a state where blacks, a large segment of his national base, make up just 6 percent of the population, Obama did better in Wisconsin among groups that tended to elude him elsewhere. That includes blue-collar whites, most of whom supported Clinton in other states.

Obama holds the advantage for several reasons, Wisconsin political analyst J.R. Ross said. Polls indicate that top issues for the state’s voters are “Democratic issues,” such as health care and jobs; the state has a strong anti-war sentiment; and Bush faces extremely low approval ratings.

“You add that all up and it’s not a good year to be running as a Republican in Wisconsin for president,” Ross said.

Moreover, the national political environment has made it difficult for McCain to make gains among constituencies that are key to his prospects, including independents and conservative-leaning “Reagan Democrats,” said Craig Gilbert of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It’s an open question how much the race tightens up and whether Wisconsin turns out to be right on the cusp nationally like it has been in previous elections or whether it leans Democratic,” Gilbert said.

Thomas Holbrook, professor of political science for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said “For a lot of the states that were very close in the last election — given the condition in the country and that Sen. McCain is wearing the Bush mantle, whether he likes it or not — you’re going to see Obama’s share of the vote go up by 3, 4, 5 percentage points in those states and they’re not going to be as close as they were.”

Another factor may be the enthusiasm level in each party. In the primaries here, which both Obama and McCain won, more than 1.1 million voters participated in the Democratic contest to just about 411,000 for the Republicans, a stunning differential for a so-called swing state, although McCain rival Mitt Romney had dropped out by that point.

Democrats currently hold five of the state’s eight House seats, with a tie-breaking win in 2006 by physician and political newcomer Steve Kagen in a largely rural stretch of northeastern Wisconsin that normally is dependably Republican. This year, Kagen is the only one of the state’s eight incumbents, all of whom are seeking re-election, who is facing a competitive challenge.