Craig Gilbert, in his most recent column for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, examines characteristics of Wisconsin’s most right-leaning and left-leaning areas.

The state’s reddest communities are less demographically diverse (they are overwhelmingly white) but more geographically dispersed than the state’s bluest communities. The wards where Walker won 70% or more of the vote cover a huge swath of eastern Wisconsin, from the suburbs and exurbs west of Milwaukee and Racine northward along the Fox Valley and up toward the Door Peninsula. They also cover large patches of north central Wisconsin. (Walker won 53% of the statewide vote).

The Democratic landslide wards are heavily concentrated in and around Milwaukee and Madison. But the state’s bluest areas are demographically diverse. They include African-American neighborhoods in Racine, Beloit and Milwaukee, liberal white enclaves in Dane County, very traditional, blue-collar Democratic pockets in northwestern Wisconsin, and tribal communities across the state.