Rice Lake, WI is a rural city located in northwestern Wisconsin. It is governed by a mayor-council form of government with the mayor elected at-large and seven council members representing each of the wards in the city. The current mayor is Jesse Brunner, who has been in office since 2012 and was reelected to a third term in 2020. Rice Lake also has an active city council that meets twice monthly to discuss issues important to the local community such as infrastructure development, economic development, public safety, land use planning, and budgeting. In addition to the mayor and city council members, Rice Lake also elects its own representatives for state legislative offices including senators and representatives for both houses of the Wisconsin State Legislature. In addition to these political roles, many Rice Lake residents are actively engaged in volunteer service on various boards and commissions throughout the community. This helps ensure that all citizens have a voice when it comes to making decisions that will impact their lives.
The political climate in Zip 54868 (Rice Lake, WI) is moderately conservative.
Barron County, WI is strongly conservative. In Barron County, WI 36.3% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 62.3% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 1.4% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Barron county remained overwhelmingly Republican, 62.3% to 36.3%.
Barron county voted Republican in five of the last six Presidential elections (2008 went Democratic).
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Zip 54868 (Rice Lake, WI) is moderately conservative.
Rice Lake, Wisconsin is moderately conservative.
Barron County, Wisconsin is strongly conservative.
Not Found Metro Area is 0.
Wisconsin is leaning liberal.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Rice Lake, Wisconsin: r r d r R R
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in zip 54868 (Rice Lake)
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 707 contributions totaling $43,618 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $62 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 212 contributions totaling $126,634 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $597 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)