Were not going to just give you the answer, since the significance of the result might be lost on you. What's the least amount of exercise we can get away with? There are a total of 3,142 counties or county equivalents in the United States.[1]. But since it's gotten so much attention this cycle with the possibility that independent Evan McMullin siphons off votes from Trump, we kept it in here. Have information that relates to fraud in this election? To make things more interesting we will only look at swing counties since the 2004 election. The meme compares information about former President Barack Obama in 2008 and President Donald Trump and Biden in 2020. Kyrsten Sinema's Odds Of Reelection Don't Look Great. Will they vote for the winner in 2016? Clinton needs to be closer to Obama's 57 percent in 2008 than his 55 percent in 2012. Other counties to watch: Counties where Clinton has to drive up the score include Bexar (San Antonio), Hidalgo (McAllen) and Travis (Austin). It went for Romney in 2012 (when he won it), but Obama in 2008 (when the Democrat did). And speak out if youve been a witness to election tampering. We believe this was a mistake. Weve been losing a lot of younger people to other areas of the country. Now imagine getting 21 out of 22! Find the answer by searching politico.com/2020-election/results. 12. In 2020, a single. Considering how many counties there are in the USA (we h. The following 111 counties have deviated from the winner of the presidential election in two elections since 1980: Allamakee County, Iowa, in 1992 and 2020 [3] Alamosa County, Colorado, in 2016 and 2020 [3] Baldwin County, Georgia, in 1980 and 2016 [3] Benzie County, Michigan, in 2012 and 2020 [3] Blue Earth County, Minnesota, in 1988 and 2004 [3] Since only Clallam County voted Democrat in 2020, we know they all voted for the Republican party in 2020 and got it wrong. That includes10elections, includingObama in 2008 and Trump in 2016. The magnitude of the gap (or difference) is an indicator of the strength of the change in sentiment. Its also loaded with government contractors and defense companies hit hard by the sequester. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 53%-46% - 2008: Obama 56%-42%. But it's also not unprecedented. But Northampton went closely with the statewide margin in 2012. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 53%-44% - 2008: McCain 54%-45%. Latest voter registration totals: Unaffiliated: 49,026Democrats: 40,563Republicans: 35,146. Trump, who needs to pick off one Democratic leaning state, added a rally here Sunday night. If there's a place to watch in the state that could tip it toward Clinton is college towns like Ogden in Weber County, home to Weber State. Free and open-source. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. Potential canaries in the coal mine, aside from Montgomery, include Wood, south of Toledo, and Stark, home to Canton and the pro-football Hall of Fame in northeastern Ohio. Experts say that while traditional bellwether counties are whiter and less educated than the national average, there's no one element that unites them as political oracles. The question is, how much did they get it wrong by? 'Forest defenders' begin week of action to block Atlanta police training center, Frogxit: Harry and Meghan get what they asked for, More Iranian schoolgirls fall ill, protests erupt, Russell Brand was challenged to give examples of MSNBC pushing misinformation (that was a BAD idea), Secretary of the Army Guarantees a Lot of Young Soldiers Will Die but Has the Right Thoughts and Feelings, California - Do Not Sell My Personal Information. The Art Of The Vote: Who Designs The Ballots We Cast. All Rights Reserved. This article is part of a series on Identifying Electoral Fraud Using Trend Analysis. When is Eurovision and how do you get tickets? Whether or not these less diverse, industry-dependent communities can regain their bellwether status in four years' time remains to be seen. After Detroits Wayne County, Oakland County is the most-populous in the state. Trump also needs to drive up margins in Republican-leaning Western counties like Kent (Grand Rapids) and Ottawa (on the shores of Lake Michigan). We looked at the most recent swing counties and determined how many of the strongest Democrat voting counties in 2008, swung back to the Democrat party in 2020. After 8 elections, the number of counties left standing defy the odds, and it is this fact that makes them bellwether counties. It's true that both Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2020 won in Florida, Ohio and Iowa. With demographic change in the Research Triangle area, though, it's possible for Clinton to win without this smaller county. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 369,734Republicans: 247,029No Party Affiliation: 218,642Others: 30,414. In other words, only 54 percent of bellwether counties from 1980 to 2012 kept their status in 2016. Oct. 28, 2021, 11:05 AM PDT. Georgia (16 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. BBC Reality Check breaks down the bill for the world's most expensive election, Arriving at a voting station to observe as a poll challenger on 4 November last, she sat down next to two people she didn't know. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-46% - 2008: Obama 55%-43%. Latest voter registration totals: 618,420 No party registration. The users have not responded to requests from USA TODAY for comment. That's 14 in a row. By Randy Yeip and Stuart A. Thompson. That report was issued on Nov. 12. Dont simply gloss over this. Trump is making a hard play here; His first visit to Iowa after accepting the nomination at the Republican National Convention was in Scott County. The Bellwether County to Watch in Pennsylvania . "Especially considering there's a lot of things that has been done that don't get reported at all.". He would have to really drive up big margins in the less populous counties in the mountainous Western part of the state, as well as Chesterfield (south of Richmond) and Virginia Beach. A Trump win is probably out of the question in a county thats home to Des Moines and the state capitol -- he finished third here in the caucuses behind first-place finisher Rubio and runner-up Cruz -- but he will go a long way toward carrying the state if he can keep it close. Florida (29 electoral votes) - Toss-up. According to an analysis of bellwether states and counties by Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, "Vigo County, Indiana is the most prominent bellwether of presidential. The American Voter's Alliance provides a great national overview with many reports, videos and detailed legal submissions. This one of 99 counties made up 16 percent of Obama's total vote in 2012. It's the wrong question. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 480,926Republicans, 323,870Unaffiliated: 229,298Others: 65,281. It went Republican in 2012; if Clinton is doing better or vice-versa there compared to Obama, it could be a sign of things to come. He will need to cut into Clintons advantage here in North Carolinas second-most populous county since Clinton is likely to roll up the score in Democratic Mecklenburg County (Charlotte). 108,000 people. Go on, look them up! All rights reserved. More Than Half of U.S. Population in 4.6 Percent of Counties, Fact check: Clarifying the comparison between popular vote and counties won in the 2020 election, Bellwether Counties Nearly Wiped Out by 2020 Election, Americas bellwethers crumbled in aligning with Trump in 20. It will keep them entertained for hours, and you can tell them it is for a good cause. "I think people were pretty happy with some of the things he's done, what he's been able to accomplish," says Mark Coppeler, a leading local Republican who was re-elected county commissioner last month. 9. One of the big four suburban collar counties ringing Philadelphia and the fourth-most populous county in the state Bucks is always competitive. It also backed Gov. Ron Elving . We wanted to provide an easy-to-use guide of which counties to keep tabs on that could tell you how states might vote that are crucial to the election. Want to dive deeper? Re-doing the analysis we obtain 35 modern bellwether counties after the 2016 election. Ottawa County accurately predicted every president since 1964 until 2020, The Ottawa County commissioner says people are happy with Trump's accomplishments, Sunrise at East Harbor State Park, Ottawa County, Ohio, Minority voters who changed their minds about Trump, Chris Rock jokes about Oscars slap in Netflix show, Harry: I always felt different to rest of family, Everything Everywhere wins big ahead of Oscars, PM to end asylum claims from small boat arrivals, Street fighting in Bakhmut but Russia not in control, US-made cheese can be called 'gruyere' - court. As with Valencia County, in the past bipartisanship wasn't unusual in Indiana's Vigo County. who in 2016 won Caswell and other rural counties in North Carolina by tapping those feelings of abandonment. It clearly shows they hold no allegiances and will vote for whichever party makes the most sense to them at each election. If it's close here, Georgia could be in play. Four years later, Caswell is still looking for a second act for its . While local Republican Party candidates enjoyed a bump in local media coverage for opening a new headquarters last summer, Democrats were facing vastly different circumstances. You can find the answer by searching politico.com/2020-election/results. Once-reliably Republican -- and essential to Republicans to help overcome the deficit they face in Las Vegas Clark County -- Washoe voted twice for Bush and then twice for Obama. ), Fact check: Biden won the most total votes and the fewest total counties of any president-elect. There are 25 counties with a Democrat percentage vote over 60%. . Pittsburghs Allegheny County, the second-most populous county in the state after Philadelphia, is heavily Democratic. Other counties to watch: Also watch Luzerne (Wilkes-Barre). 2016 primary winners: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Latest voter registration totals: Democrats: 230,401Republicans: 211,817No Party Affiliation: 102,635Others: 16,526. It came close to reflecting the statewide vote in 2012. TIP: In the western mountains on the border with Tennessee, it's home to Boone, which includes Appalachian State. i.e. The website will remain online for the foreseeable future, but may not get any significant updates until the situation changes. David Hopkins, a political scientist at Boston College, toldthe Wall Street Journal that the failure of typical bellwether counties reflects"the overall trend that we are seeing toward greater geographic polarization.". Trumps local ties notwithstanding, Clinton is likely to run up her numbers here in the northernmost part of the South Florida region. Ryan Matsumoto is a contributing analyst for Inside Elections. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 316,586Republicans: 258,725No Party Affiliation: 206,457Others: 22,695. Trump needs to drive up the score in Cobb, which provided more votes than any other county for Mitt Romney in 2012. 2023 ABC News Internet Ventures. Eastern Iowa is often seen as Democratic turf -- the last 4 Democratic presidential nominees have won Scott County. "This is an added benefit for security and resilience," they wrote. ET. Twitter Twitter If Clinton's winning there, it means she's hitting marks with young voters. For a minute in this campaign, it looked like it could be a fairly close race in Texas, even within 5 points. The 2020 election appears to illustrate that the partisanship that's defined politics in Washington for years has now spread to small-town America. Team up with others in your region, and help out by Seriously. Website Updates Paused The same can be said for the three states listed in the meme. Latest voter registration totals: 937,155 No party registration. Clinton has to drive up the score in Philadelphia with its significant share of black voters. He is based in San Francisco and has also written for NBC News and The Hill. That Trump did so well in the remaining 19 bellwether counties in 2020 should come as no surprise, then. But those states represent just 29, 18and six electoral votes, respectively. That Trump did so well in the remaining 19 bellwether counties in 2020 should come as no surprise, then. The probability is hard to comprehend, so lets figure it out for real. "It wasn't part of his strategy.". 7. If Trump can't win back or cut into margins in places like Prince William, Fairfax and Loudon, he likely can't win the state. If Clinton can carry Henrico, it will help offset nearby Chesterfield County, the slightly larger and more Republican-oriented Richmond suburb. For Trump to win, he needs to flip a place like Racine, which went for Obama narrowly. Clinton is counting on running up big numbers in the city of Pittsburgh to offset any gains Trump may make in the suburbs, and in the more conservative surrounding southwestern Pennsylvania counties, including Westmoreland County. In 2012, it had nearly half a million more voters in it than every other county in the state combined. Obama won Monroe County 49.6-49.1 in 2012 and 52-47 in 2008. ), You can find the answers to the above questions yourself by searching this site: politico.com/2020-election/results From 1980 to 2016, 19 counties voted for the winner of the presidential election every single time. But theres a blue collar contingent too who feel like theyre being ignored, according to county Democratic Chairman Marty Martinez. Ultimately, of course, Trumps strong performance in these counties didnt matter because of Bidens gains in the more highly educated suburbs of Milwaukee, Grand Rapids and Philadelphia. Co., as its sometimes referred to, has gone more closely for the statewide winner than any other big county. In 2020, a single county in the setkept its perfect recordby tallying a win for Biden. When sorted from the highest to lowest Democrat percentage vote (at the 2008 election), we can see that there is 1 county that has a percentage Democrat vote greater than 60% at the 2008 election. Other counties to watch: Clinton has to drive up the margins in counties along the shores of Lake Erie, from Lucas (Toledo) to most notably Cuyahoga (Cleveland). (Biden, for example, won over 70%of the vote in Los Angeles County. It provided the second highest vote totals of any county and a significant share for Democrats. Follow us on Telegram to be notified when we release the remaining articles. Did they narrowly miss out on voting for the Democrat party in 2020? Other counties to watch: Clark County (Las Vegas, Henderson), Democrats have to drive up big margins in Las Vegas, something they have lots of experience doing. Hillsborough made up more than half that margin Obama won the county by 36,000 votes. In their . What's more, in this year's election voters in leading bellwether counties didn't just come out for Donald Trump marginally; they backed him in droves. Click here, for more. It requires a lot more than pure luck.). Re-doing the analysis we obtain 35 modern bellwether counties after the 2016 election. They are not a statistical curiosity, but the perfect distillation or embodiment of the whole countrys sentiment. Putting names to archive photos, The children left behind in Cuba's mass exodus, In photos: India's disappearing single-screen cinemas. It is important to realise these counties have no allegiances whatsoever and will happily vote for whichever party makes the most sense to them based on merit. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 51%-49% - 2008: Obama 50%-49%. President-elect Joe Biden officially secured the presidency after the Electoral College met to give him and Vice President-elect Harris 306 votes. Wood County is a decent bellwether of the state: Mr. Trump carried it by eight points in 2016, matching his statewide margin. Republicans have a voter registration advantage here but in recent presidential elections, its had consistently tight margins: In 2012 Obama won it by less than 4,000 votes. Nineteen of these counties continued their streak in 2016 by voting for Trump, but the remaining 16 counties ended their bellwether streak by voting for Hillary Clinton. The matters that way on their minds are real. Will That Last?]. Scott Walker all three times his name appeared on the ballot. Were doing a lot of adult retraining, he said. (Independent parties will reduce the winning margin between the two major parties.) our Gitlab account where you can Seven counties, including Vigo, have got it right in the past dozen elections. We relaxed the constraint by introducing the concept of a swing county, i.e. The trick, for Trump, is to hold down her winning percentage here in a county that has nearly a quarter of a million registered Republicans. In 2008, Obama carried this county outside Detroit by 9 percentage points but that winning margin was cut in half in 2012 with Michigan native Mitt Romney leading the GOP ticket. "People are more likely to identify with a party than we've seen before," says Harrison Kreisberg of BlueLabs Analytics, a polling firm that works with progressive and Democratic interests. It did go for John Kerry in 2004, though, when Bush won the state, so let's see if Monroe retains its bellwether status beyond two elections or if it was just a cheeseburger in paradise. The strongest bellwether counties are those that back the winning candidate in all elections. In the end, only Clallam County retained its streak this year. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 105,724Republicans: 70,060Unaffiliated: 15,141Other: 6,079. We highlighted the counties that voted the highest for the Democrat party in 2008 as it is a clear indicator of their propensity to vote for the Democrat party. The fourth-largest county in the state, its home to the Green Bay Packers, which are a huge economic engine. Nineteen of these counties continued their streak in 2016 by voting for Trump, but the remaining 16 counties ended their bellwether streak by voting for Hillary Clinton. 11. Other counties to watch: Often early results in Michigan will show a close race or Republicans ahead, until the Detroit area votes come in. A few counties in America are known as the "bellwether counties": Those locations that always end up voting for the candidate who ultimately wins in the presidential election. Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. Split-Ticket Voters Helped Biden, Republicans in Nebraska, Maine, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Latest voter registration totals: 216,082No party registration. Hillary Clinton (578) Here are the top 30 sorted by the highest to lowest Democrat percentage vote in 2008, thats the DPV 08 column: Find out at politico.com/2020-election/results. In fact, of the 19 pivot counties across America to correctly pick the president every time over the past 10 election cycles, only one - Clallam County in Washington state - saw a majority back Joe Biden for president. . 2. The fact that there are fewer swing counties means that there are fewer potential bellwether counties. So, where are the bellwether counties? These key counties tell the story of America's shifting political landscape. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 50%-49% - 2008: Obama 51%-48%. If they are tipping to Clinton, it's over. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 51%-47% - 2008: Obama 53%-46%. A swing county is a county that voted correctly for the winning party at one election and then voted for the other winning party at the next election. North Carolina (15 electoral votes) - Toss-up. However, its bellwether status is by no means guaranteed in future elections. These former bellwether counties are much whiter and less college-educated than the country as a whole. 2016 primary winners: Sanders, Trump2012: Romney 52%, Obama 47%, Latest voter registration totals:Undeclared: 82,008Republicans: 80,068Democrats: 63,257. It might be actually the best bellwether in the state, as it closely mirrored the statewide vote in both 2008 and 2012, but it has fewer voters than Jefferson, which we highlighted. University of New Hampshire . The Trump era made us rethink a lot about politics and elections in America, including the counties that are useful barometers of the national political environment. There were 1.3 million voters, or a quarter of all the state's voters, in just eight counties in that stretch. Until this year. Situated on the southern shore of Lake Erie in Ohio, Ottawa County is one of America's most accurate bellwether counties - a region where voters correctly pick the president, election after election for decades at a time. The 13 Bellwether Counties That Could Decide The Election. Racine County, which features a significant Hispanic and African American population, is the only competitive county bordering Milwaukee Ozaukee, Waukesha and Washington counties are reliably Republican. Side note Could the Florida Keys tell us who wins? The county narrowly voted for Bush in 2000 but has gone Democratic in the three presidential elections since then, though never by more than 52 percent. To flip Pennsylvania, Trump has to start in Bucks and expand in places like Northampton. Other counties to watch: Wake, in the heart of the Research Triangle, used to be considered a swing county. Not a bad streak. Subscribe to breaking updates Help raise awareness within your community about the lingering, unresolved issues with election integrity. We will only focus on the most recent elections to increase the pool of counties to analyze.). It's true that it is unusual for the party of thecandidate who wins the White House to lose seats in the House of Representatives. White voters without a college degree used to vote more like the country as a whole, which helps explain why these counties maintained their bellwether status for a long time. At the presidential level, Republicans havent won Oakland County since 1992, though George W. Bush twice came very close. Watauga has gone for the winner statewide in each of the last three presidential elections and three Senate races since 2008. 4. From 1980 through 2016, 19 of the nation's more than 3,000 counties voted for the eventual president in every election. Enter Donald Trump. And this is the state with the highest share of whites with college degrees in the country.