Asingle county could have as few as 88 residents,like Kalawao County, Hawaii. Lets quickly recap what we have established so far: In this post we will further relax the constraint by analyzing counties that voted Democrat in 2008 and Republican in 2016 only; that is, the switch counties in the most recent elections. Arapahoe County. Of their nineteen bellwethers, only Essex County, Vermont can be considered as a political competitive county. Trump won Luzerne County by nearly 20 points in 2016, outperforming Romney . It provided the second highest vote totals of any county and a significant share for Democrats. From 1980 through 2016, there were19 counties that consistently voted for the eventual president. America's most accurate bellwether counties, regions that have a reputation for accurately picking the president, got the presidential election completely wrong. But what if we told you that only 1 of these 22 counties voted for Biden in 2020? ), Fact check: Biden won the most total votes and the fewest total counties of any president-elect. To get an idea as to whether Clinton could win it, watch Tarrant County. 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. The question is, how much did they get it wrong by? If the Republican percentage in 2020 is less than in 2016, it would clearly indicate a change in sentiment away from the Republican party, towards the Democrat party. We sorted the counties from highest to lowest Democrat percentage vote (in the 2008 election). our Gitlab account where you can If you take a coin and flip it 22 times. If Clinton is going to win Utah, she will need to squeeze out as many Democrats as is possible in Salt Lake, and maybe win young people in those college towns, including Logan in Cache County (Utah State). Ottawa County in Ohio has been on target every four years since 1964, and Bexar County in . North Carolina (15 electoral votes) - Toss-up. 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. History suggests not: just two-thirds of historic bellwether counties. Most of the statistics in the meme are true but they are not proof of voter fraud or other supposed issues with the election. In Valencia County, Mr Trump beat Mr Biden by six points more than he defeated Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. Now imagine getting 21 out of 22! It is easy to gloss over this. It is also not as educated: Just 22 percent of adults 25 or older have a bachelors degree or higher, which is substantially lower than the 32 percent who have a college degree nationwide. Clinton has to drive up the score in Philadelphia with its significant share of black voters. As the country's demographics shift and the rural-urban divide becomes more pronounced, the chances appear slim. Democrats Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Grover Cleveland (twice) won elections while losing ground in the House, per The Atlantic. It also backed Gov. (See the DPV 08 column in the image below.) Democrats have a registration advantage in Iowas most populous county, and they are looking to run up Clintons numbers here as best as they can to offset expected losses in more conservative parts of the state. New Hampshire (4 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. Hamilton is ringed by heavily Republican Butler, Warren and Clermont counties, and it shares a border with Indiana, which is giving hope to GOP officials who think Trumps running mate, Indiana Gov. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 73%-25% - 2008: McCain 63%-34%. In each of the past three presidential elections, Arizona has had four consistently Democratic counties (Apache, Coconino, Pima, Santa Cruz) and 11 Republican ones (Cochise, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, La Paz, Maricopa, Mohave, Navajo, Pinal, Yavapai and Yuma). The meme compares information about former President Barack Obama in 2008 and President Donald Trump and Biden in 2020. Have information that relates to fraud in this election? Unfortunately, Github (now a Microsoft company) terminated this website's account on 13 Jan 2021 for "spreading misinformation", a violation of their terms, although no specific examples were given. But its been a nail-biter in the past four presidential elections. Here are the concepts we have established so far: This is just the beginning. Bucks has three times the voters than its neighboring county to the north. Re-doing the analysis we obtain 35 modern bellwether counties after the 2016 election. In 2018, Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, carried it by 11 points. We relaxed the constraint by introducing the concept of a swing county, i.e. A total of 35 counties voted for the winner of each presidential election from 1980 through 2012. Where Did All The Bellwether Counties Go? We have looked at every imaginable scenario to build a case for the Democrat party winning the 2020 election based upon how our trusted counties voted. Now, Democrats have to drive up the margin in this populous, central North Carolina county. or even dive into the markdown files yourself to submit improvements. We identified and analyzed the best of the best bellwether counties at predicting an election outcome, and examined their trends in 2020. Three-in-four votes for President Obama in 2012 came from Clark County. Republicans Ulysses S. Grant and William Howard Taft won a majority of the presidential popular vote but lost a handful of seats in House, too. (It will at least show a trend away from the Republican party that would help make more sense of this situation. (Go to the bottom of the page. Republicans are bullish that the suburban county will stay in their column this time, in part because of frustration with Washington. While Trump won every county in the state in the GOP primary, he posted his best result in Luzerne 77 percent. It won't be enough for Trump; he also needs to likely win by more than Romney did in Brown (Green Bay) and drive up turn out in Waukesha, one of the reddest and most populous counties in the state. Will they vote for the winner in 2016? Just how big is it? This is a fairly small county, but we couldn't resist the toll of this bellwether. If they are tipping to Clinton, it's over. Other counties to watch: Also watch Luzerne (Wilkes-Barre). More than half of all Americans livein just 143 counties, per the U.S. Census Bureau. Election bellwether counties in the United States are counties that vote in alignment with the country as a whole in United States presidential elections, so that the county votes for the candidate who ultimately wins the election. They are not a statistical curiosity, but the perfect distillation or embodiment of the whole countrys sentiment. 2016 primary winners: Clinton, Trump2012: Obama 50%, Romney 49%, Latestvoter registration totals:Democrats: 192,278Republicans: 182,364Unaffiliated: 40,047Other: 29,484. It went for Romney 54 to 44 percent, nearly reflecting the overall margin. It almost became religious.". John King has identified as key in the 2016 election. It's also worth noting that some voters "split their tickets" between parties voting for Biden but also for Republicans in Congress, for example. "I asked if they were from the Republican Party, and they said they were," she says. With such overwhelming Democrat support in 2008, one can only surmise that ALL these 25 counties would have switched back to the Democrat party in 2020. And like so many electoral trends, demographics play a major role in explaining why these once-bellwether counties finally missed the mark in 2020. The more people can work out and see for themselves that the data clearly indicates a different outcome, the better. 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. 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. For a minute in this campaign, it looked like it could be a fairly close race in Texas, even within 5 points. Compiled by Si Williams, non-US resident, and other contributors. 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. First, what are bellwether counties? 108,000 people. Thank you for supporting our journalism. Election night is going to be information overload. But after twice voting for George W. Bush, it has since moved well to the left. What are your thoughts on this article? A total of 35 counties voted for the winner of each presidential election from 1980 through 2012. So, where are the bellwether counties? The county is home to a huge diaspora of health care workers affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic, and other players in the areas huge medical cluster. Latest voter registration totals: Unaffiliated: 49,026Democrats: 40,563Republicans: 35,146. These counties' national bellwether status might not ring true in 2016, though, because Illinois is one of Obama's home states. For the mathematically-minded: the table below shows that county outcomes do loosely follow a random outcome, up until a point. Key bellwether counties in the swingiest states appeared during the 2016 and 2018 cycles that can help serve as a guide for 2020. Watch this populous county, home to Manchester. In other words, how strongly do they swing to the winning party? Their hopes are real. Outstanding. 8. Until this year. Democrats need to drive up the margins in Fulton and DeKalb. In 2020, a single county in the setkept its perfect recordby tallying a win for Biden. Mike Pence, could marshal his supporters to cross the border and provide support. Have you looked at the results of these counties? Just a tiny fraction of them truly matter. 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 state's demographics suggest it could go blue one day. (Biden, for example, won over 70%of the vote in Los Angeles County. One of the big four suburban collar counties ringing Philadelphia and the fourth-most populous county in the state Bucks is always competitive. Click on the relevant state then look for the county name.). 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. Watch Hampton City. The website FiveThirtyEight pointed out in 2021 that, in the 2016 election Trump won, opponent Hillary Clinton carried 16 of the 35 counties that had gone for the winner in every election from. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 105,724Republicans: 70,060Unaffiliated: 15,141Other: 6,079. It's whiter and less Hispanic than the rest of the state, but it has a higher share of residents with college degrees. President-elect Biden on Electoral College vote: Clear victory. Democrats also have to win big in Mecklenburg (Charlotte), Guilford (Greensboro), Durham and Buncombe (Asheville). In other words, only 54 percent of bellwether counties from 1980 to 2012 kept their status in 2016. She blames much of that on the "Trump effect" - Mr Trump's ability to engage people in politics by appealing to their fears and discontents. "We had to quietly move our parade," she says. "It wasn't part of his strategy.". This well-educated, high-income and increasingly diverse D.C. exurb (Asians and Latinos togther make up a third of this county) went for Obama twice and roughly reflected the statewide margin. David Niven, a political scientist at the University of Cincinnati, also told the Associated Press that it "speaks to an evolution in American politics" rather than fraud. Watauga has gone for. How many of these counties voted less for the Republican party in 2020? Home to Davenport, the states third-largest city, Scott County is also packed with independents who can swing either way. Arizona (11 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. Suggest an improvement, report an issue, Suburban Denvers Arapahoe and Jefferson counties have moved in tandem for the past four elections. 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. 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. After Detroits Wayne County, Oakland County is the most-populous in the state. Other counties to watch: Nowhere is more important than Polk (Des Moines). Fact check: What's true and what's false about the 2020 election, Joe Biden says democracy 'proved to be resilient' after Hawaii casts final ballots in Electoral College, Election security officials: 'No evidence voting systems compromised', Disputing Trump, Barr says no widespread election fraud, How Biden managed to win far more votes in 2020 than Obama did in 2008 but far fewer counties. The fourth-largest county in the state, its home to the Green Bay Packers, which are a huge economic engine. As with Valencia County, in the past bipartisanship wasn't unusual in Indiana's Vigo County. '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. Here are the top 25 counties which voted over 60% for the Democrat party in 2008, and then voted Republican in 2016: There is no doubt these 25 counties heavily favor the Democrat party. Lake County is a perpetual nail-biter. ), voted Democrat again in 2020? While Clinton has family ties to the coal-producing region her father was born in neighboring Scranton mid-July polling from a GOP pollster suggests Trump is winning big here. Increased political polarization is another reason why fewer counties are consistently indicative of presidential results in recent years. These counties could play an . All rights reserved. Click here, for more. Mr Biden "never thought he was going to bring Ohio; he didn't put the effort in," says Democrat John Brikmanis from Oak Harbor in Ottawa County, and who ran unsuccessfully for the position of county clerk last month. As such, the margins in bellwether counties became substantially more Republican even as the country only became a little more Republican, as you can see in the chart below. These are the bellwether counties. 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: 480,926Republicans, 323,870Unaffiliated: 229,298Others: 65,281. Enter Donald Trump. But both are worth watching. The users have not responded to requests from USA TODAY for comment. Watauga has gone for the winner statewide in each of the last three presidential elections and three Senate races since 2008. "End of day, the solution is complicated but the problem is very simple," wrote a user who shared the meme on Instagram. The statistic on counties comes from a report bytheBrookings Institution on Nov. 10. At the presidential level, Republicans havent won Oakland County since 1992, though George W. Bush twice came very close. The table shows the number of counties that voted for the winning candidate since the 1988 election. A switch county is our name for a county that happens to vote for the winning party whenever there is a change of parties, ignoring how they voted for the incumbent. Jeff. For the first time "in years," says Mr Brikmanis, the Democratic National Party chose not to set up a local headquarters ahead of the November election. On a cold, wind-swept November afternoon two weeks after election day, the crowds that thronged the beaches of Ottawa County all summer long are but a distant memory. In 2008, Obama received69,498,516 votes, per the Federal Election Commission. Also key is Volusia, which represents a large county that has been close to the overall vote. Republican county chairman Michael Barnett said hed celebrate if Trump could do better than Romneys 41 percent total here in 2012. The county also features a diverse array of industries, from dairy farms and small manufacturers to major health-care companies. Ask our loving God to act in dealing with corruption, restoring justice and integrity in the nation, and prayerfully consider who you should share information with and what your role might be. Latestvoter registration totals:Democrats: 521,881Republicans: 248,934Unaffiliated: 66,775Other: 45,567. i.e. In the western mountains on the border with Tennessee, it's home to Boone, which includes Appalachian State. That might mean needing to factor that in by a couple points. These counties turned out to vote strongly for the Democrat party in 2008, so they are the most likely to swing back to the Democrat party in 2020. 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). Weeks after Election Day, there have still been no discoveriesof widespread voter fraud. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-46% - 2008: Obama 55%-43%. For instance, Washington County, Maine the median bellwether county in terms of its share thats non-Hispanic white is 89 percent non-Hispanic white, which is much higher than the overall U.S. population that identifies as such (60 percent). Clinton needs to be closer to Obama's 57 percent in 2008 than his 55 percent in 2012. Especially since Biden received million more votes than Obama did in 2008. Trump, who has tended to run better with voters without college degrees, got trounced in the primary in Wake earlier this year. The most impressive of those was Valencia County, New Mexico, which voted for the victor in. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 53%-44% - 2008: McCain 54%-45%. Tampa's Hillsborough County is a top bellwether -- since 1960, no candidate has won Florida . Like Texas, Utah looks like it's receded from the battleground, so we don't include it in our 13 battlegrounds. hide caption. 4. Both Clinton and Trump need to turn out their bases in Fulton (Atlanta). Latest voter registration totals: 618,420 No party registration. So, for our purposes, a swing county would have voted as follows: There are 80 such counties. Feel free to forward a link to your elected officials as well. In this section we will introduce a new concept: The swing county. Website Updates Paused 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. Will That Last?]. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER / GETTY IMAGES. [How Much Did COVID-19 Affect The 2020 Election?]. Considering how many counties there are in the USA (we h. The Biden campaign has run ads in the Toledo broadcast market, which conveniently covers part of Michigan, too. 2016 winners: Bernie Sanders (Democratic caucus); Ted Cruz (GOP state convention) . This website merely reports on substantial allegations made by well-known public figures, elected officials, members of congress, and their legal teams, and will correct errors when notified. President-elect Joe Biden officially secured the presidency after the Electoral College met to give him and Vice President-elect Harris 306 votes. From his tweet: From 1984 through 2016, spanning presidential elections, seventeen US counties in several states ad voted for the winning presidential candidate in an astounding 148 of 153 times including 100% five times for five different presidents: Advertisement - story continues below 1984 Reagan 1996 Clinton 2000 Bush 2012 Obama 2016 Trump Pittsburghs Allegheny County, the second-most populous county in the state after Philadelphia, is heavily Democratic. All other 21 counties voted Republican. 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. Clinton will win Democratic Clark County, the states population hub and home to Las Vegas. 2016 primary winners: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Latest voter registration totals: Democrats: 230,401Republicans: 211,817No Party Affiliation: 102,635Others: 16,526. Well, lets consider the percentage gap between the winning and losing party in these counties. [Even Though Biden Won, Republicans Enjoyed The Largest Electoral College Edge In 70 Years. 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. A majority of voters here had backed the eventual winner of presidential elections every time since 1964. That is 19 counties still standing after 10 elections! As long as a candidate wins enough electoral votes from other states, there is noreason it's impossible to win an election while losing Florida, Ohio, or Iowa. This was important for candidates since the presidential candidate's campaign would normally foot the bill. We organized this by poll-closing time (all in Eastern time for the latest poll-closing times in that state), so you can follow along as the night goes: 1. While Bill Clinton was in town recently to open up a Democratic campaign office, party leaders are skeptical they can win here with Hillary Clinton on the ticket. There are 22 counties in the US that managed to vote for the winning party in every single election from 1988 to 2016. A bellwether is a leader or an indicator of trends.. It's happened before. Ottawa County wasn't the only swing county to get the outcome wrong this time around. 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] 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. And speak out if youve been a witness to election tampering. It requires a lot more than pure luck.). This year with Mr Trump winning the county handily, not only did Vigo County Republicans keep their seats, a "red tide" similar to what transpired in Ottawa and Valencia counties saw Republican members take positions such as county judge, treasurer, clerk and recorder. Bellwether counties are important, and their significance should not be downplayed. Other counties to watch: Perhaps no state more starkly displays the broader rural-urban divide in this country than Virginia. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 51%-48% - 2008: Obama 52%-47%. (The highest value being 66.1%), When sorted from the highest to lowest Democrat percentage vote (at the 2008 election), we can see that there are 25 counties that have a percentage Democrat vote greater than 60% at the 2008 election. Since 1960, Democrats have won Rockingham County only three times. The exurban county has seen a surge in minority voters in fact, non-Hispanic whites only constitute 62 percent of the vote, and thats made the area more competitive. Arguably, it was 2016 and not 2020 when bellwether counties first showed signs of falling by the wayside, given their dramatic swing to the right in that election. 2023 BBC. These former bellwether counties are much whiter and less college-educated than the country as a whole. Yet Donald Trump received 10 million more votes in 2020 than in 2016 -- and lost. More: Fact check: What's true and what's false about the 2020 election. 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.". But that changed in 2016 when Trump made huge gains with white voters without a college degree. Demographically, the bellwether counties tended to be whiter, older, less . Trump gave them hope. Answer (1 of 33): Because "bellwether counties" are a load of horse manure. 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. It gets a lot more interesting. In fact, they became even more Republican the average bellwether county from 1980 to 2016 voted 18.2 points to the right of the nation. Not a bad streak. If Clinton's winning there, it means she's hitting marks with young voters. Her running mate Tim Kaine the former Richmond mayor and Virginia governor could make a difference here, Latest voter registration totals: 230,236No party registration, Loudoun County flipped from red to blue in 2008, when Barack Obama won it and held it in 2012. Obama won it narrowly that year, by fewer than 3,000 votes. The pattern has become clear between the last two presidential elections and governor's race early results from rural counties show Republicans up, but Northern Virginia counties, especially Fairfax, have more than made up the difference. Again, youll appreciate the results when you dig some of them up yourself. But theres a blue collar contingent too who feel like theyre being ignored, according to county Democratic Chairman Marty Martinez. Outstanding. Along with neighboring Pinellas County (St. Petersburg), the two counties include nearly a half-million registered Republicans.