Menominee County emerges as Wisconsin’s most Democratic county

Menominee County’s new label as Wisconsin’s most Democratic county is not just a political headline. It is a portrait of a county anchored in Keshena, shaped by the Menominee Indian Reservation, and defined by a voting pattern that outpaced even Dane County and Milwaukee County in 2024.

Kamala Harris won 80.5% of the Menominee County vote in the presidential race, compared with 75.1% in Dane County and 68.3% in Milwaukee County. That made Menominee County the top Wisconsin county for Harris by percentage, a striking result for the state’s least populous county and one of its most distinctive.

The numbers help explain why the county’s politics look different from the state’s larger urban centers. Menominee County had 4,255 residents in the 2020 Census, and the U.S. Census Bureau estimated 4,286 residents on July 1, 2024, then 4,199 on July 1, 2025. It is 78.5% American Indian and Alaska Native alone, according to Census Bureau QuickFacts, and is virtually coterminous with the Menominee Indian Reservation.

That geography matters. The county seat is in Keshena, where tribal and county identity overlap in ways that make the “bluest county” label feel both accurate and incomplete. Menominee County was created in 1959 after federal termination of the Menominee Tribe, then the tribe regained federal recognition through the Menominee Restoration Act, Public Law 93-197, signed on December 22, 1973. The tribe says its history in the region reaches back 10,000 years, and that seven treaties in the 1800s reduced its land base from an estimated 10 million acres to a little more than 235,000 acres today.

Seen that way, the county’s politics reflect more than party preference. They also reflect tribal governance, community priorities and a long history of political survival. Wisconsin counties report election results through county clerks, not a central statewide results system, so each county’s numbers still carry real weight in close races. In Menominee County, the margin was not close in 2024, but the county’s small size means its influence is often symbolic as much as arithmetic.

Compared with nearby counties and even other tribal areas, Menominee’s vote stands out because it combines deep Democratic support with a county structure almost inseparable from the reservation itself. The label fits the map, but it also points to a larger truth: here, politics cannot be separated from land, history and who governs it.