2024 Wisconsin State Legislature Voter Guide: Assembly District 85
By Sage Weil
September 19, 2024 5:26 PM CDT
This is part of The Recombobulation Area and Civic Media’s 2024 Wisconsin State Legislature Voter Guide. Read the first part of the series, “New Board, New Game,” here. See the full district-by-district breakdown of the Wisconsin State Senate here. See the comprehensive Voter Guide here.
R: Patrick Snyder*
Central Wisconsin doesn’t include a whole lot of swing districts, but there’s one there now in the new 85th. This is one of the few districts on the map won by both Tony Evers and Ron Johnson in the 2022 midterm elections — Evers by 1%, Johnson by 3%. In the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump won this district by less than 200 votes.
Republican Patrick Snyder is the incumbent in the 85th, and he is actually moving to remain in the district. Snyder has served in the Assembly since 2017 and is currently the Chair of the Committee on Children and Families. He was a staffer for former congressman Sean Duffy. He has won re-election by double-digit margins every year since 2018.
Democrat Yee Leng Xiong is the challenger in this race, and were he to win, he’d make history as Wisconsin’s first Hmong state representative. Xiong has worked as the executive director of the Hmong American Center for the last decade, and is stepping down at the end of this year. He has served on the D.C. Everest Area School District school board since 2014, first elected when he was just 19 years old, and has served on the Marathon County Board since 2016. In a story at Madison 365 from earlier this year, he said that “one of my friends described me as annoyingly moderate.”
The New York Times featured this race in an extended feature story not long after maps were signed. The CNalysis projections puts this right at the center of the battle for Assembly control. If Xiong wins this race, it seems likely that Democrats will win a majority.
CNalysis: TOSS UP
- Proj. margin: D+0.1
Modeled 2022 outcome: R+5.2
