Retiring Guy's Digest: Wisconsin 2026 elections: Democrat Robyn Vining and Republican Mike Roberts vie for open seat in 5th Senate District

Friday, October 9, 2026

Wisconsin 2026 elections: Democrat Robyn Vining and Republican Mike Roberts vie for open seat in 5th Senate District

Prior to redistricting, the three Assembly districts that comprise 5rd Senate District straddled Waukesha and Milwaukee counties, diluting the Democratic vote in western Milwaukee County in the process

Redistricting eliminated the GOP gerrymandered triple-decker cracking.

Maps: Wisconsin Blue Book

Election results: Ballotpedia

GOP freshman State Senator Rob Hutton chose not to run for re-election. He previously had served 3 terms in the Assembly.

Democratic candidate Robyn Vining has represented the 13th Assembly District since January 2019.

Republican candidate Mike Roberts is a healthcare professional and small business owner with no previous political experience.

Based on the election results since 2010, one might conclude that Roberts has a slight advantage. However, Rob Hutton's 5.5 percentage point advantage is likely to evaporate in a district where Trump was never fully embraced in the first place.

The 2026 primary results indicate that Robyn Vining should easily flip this district for Democrats. Both candidates ran unopposed in their respective primaries on August 11th. Vining received 23,924 votes out of 24.011 cast while Roberts received 11,973 votes out of 11,996 cast.

Related reading:

Wisconsin Applied Population Lab, 6/18/2018

Malia Jones explains:

Two core concepts of gerrymandering were central to the arguments presented to the high court: cracking and packing. A third process, known as stacking, also crops up in gerrymandered political maps, but was not the focus of Gill v. Whitford.

Cracking and packing both refer to specific ways of drawing legislative boundaries with the outcomes of elections in mind. These two processes operate in tension with one another, but both can be implemented by a party in power seeking to maximize its electoral chances through gerrymandering.

Packing refers to the practice of drawing particular districts in such a way as to ensure that another party's candidate wins that seat by a tremendous margin. Although the opposing party is all but guaranteed the seat, packing makes surrounding districts less competitive, and thus tips the balance of power in the legislative body overall toward the ruling party.

Cracking involves drawing districts in such a way as to divide a concentration of specific types of voters across several districts such that they are a minority in each one, with practically no hope of achieving representation in any of the districts. This practice also helps make districts less competitive. [emphasis added]

Other Wisconsin 2026 election posts:

1st Assembly District. (6/11/2026)

2nd Assembly District. (6/14/2026)

3rd Assembly District. (6/15/2026)

4th Assembly District. (6/17/2026)

5th Assembly District. (6/18/2026)

6th Assembly District. (6/20/2026)

7th Assembly District. (6/21/2026)

8th Assembly District. (6/21/2026)

9th Assembly District. (6/22/2026)

10th Assembly District. (6/23/2026)

11th Assembly District. (6/23/2026)