Gov.-Elect Crowley Says He’d Sign Bill With New Wisconsin Congressional Map

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley gives a speech after winning the race for Wisconsin governor Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, at Landmark Credit Union Live in Milwaukee, Wis. Angela Major/WPR

Democratic Gov.-elect David Crowley says he’d sign a bill creating new congressional voting districts if Democratic leaders in the state Legislature send one to his desk.

It was an option not available to Democrats before last week, when they flipped both houses of the Legislature, and Crowley hung on to the governor’s office.

The courts had previously been seen as Democrats’ only shot at getting a new map, especially since liberals took control of the bench in 2023. But after their sweeping victories in the Nov. 3 election, Democrats won’t have to wait for the courts because they’ll have more than enough votes to pass a new congressional map when new majorities are sworn into the state Assembly and Senate in January.

Democratic legislative leaders have already been talking about passing a new congressional map, and in a Sunday interview with WISN-TV’s UpFront, Crowley made it clear the legislative option has legs.

“When it comes down to this, if the bill was to reach my desk, I will sign it,” Crowley said.

WPR asked state Senate Democratic Leader Dianne Hesselbein of Middleton if Crowley’s openness means redistricting should be expected from the Democratic majorities. In a statement, Hesselbein said Senate Democrats have added three new members who haven’t weighed in yet.

“That said, Democrats are united in making sure our government is more responsive to the people, which includes ensuring our Congressional districts are not rigged and that every vote is equal in our presidential elections,” Hesselbein said.

Assembly Democratic Leader Greta Neubauer of Racine did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Greta Neubauer, left, and Sen. Dianne Hesselbein, right, speak at an election night event for Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, at Landmark Credit Union Live in Milwaukee, Wis. Angela Major/WPR

Are fair maps in the eye of the beholder?

Republicans have had a majority of the state’s House districts going back to 2011, and ever since then, Democrats have discussed different ways of addressing it.

Some have proposed creating nonpartisan commissions to redraw maps. Past and current lawsuits have called for House districts to more accurately reflect Wisconsin’s “purple” nature of being split nearly 50-50 among Democrats and Republicans.

But Democrats’ newfound power opens the door to a third option, where they draw Wisconsin’s map to get even with Republicans at a national level.

Among their many midterm wins, Democrats flipped two Wisconsin House seats previously held by Republicans, which will net the party four of Wisconsin’s eight seats.

University of Wisconsin Law School Professor Robert Yablon, who co-directs the State Democracy Research Initiative, told WPR he suspects Democrats would say it shouldn’t take “an extraordinary wave election” for that to happen.

“In recent years, they’ve only had two out of eight seats, and so they would presumably prefer a map where four seats is more of the norm rather than the exception,” Yablon said. “I would say more than that, they may feel some political pressure to try to deliver a more favorable map for Democrats to help counter some of the mid-decade congressional redistricting that we’ve seen in some Republican-led states.”

Rob Yablon is a law professor at UW-Madison. Angela Major/WPR

Ahead of the midterms, President Donald Trump encouraged GOP states to redraw their lines and maximize the number of safe Republican seats in order to hold the party’s slim House majority. The blue wave overwhelmed the gambit, but Hesselbein told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Wisconsin Democrats need to consider responding.

Marquette University Law School researcher John Johnson said after Democrats defeated U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Janesville, and U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Prairie du Chein, the party could design a new map to make those seats easier to hold, but “that kind of feels like small potatoes, right?”

He and Yablon said there’s little stopping Democrats from drawing the congressional map to maximize the number of safe seats for the party, which would require splitting up Democratic voters in the liberal strongholds of Milwaukee and Madison and placing them in more Republican leaning districts.

“I have no reason to think that if they were going to draw new maps, that they would stop with just changing two of the districts, even if you could balance the population between them,” Johnson said. “I think once you open that can, why not just redraw the whole map to benefit your party?”

Gov.-elect David Crowley says he’d sign bill redrawing Wisconsin’s congressional map was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.