. Here are the concepts we have established so far: This is just the beginning. Virginia (13 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 369,734Republicans: 247,029No Party Affiliation: 218,642Others: 30,414. From 1980 to 2012, for instance, these bellwether counties consistently voted within a few points of the national popular vote. On Dec. 1, formerAttorney General William Barr also told the Associated Pressthe U.S. Justice Department had uncovered no such evidence. "I asked if they were from the Republican Party, and they said they were," she says. And notably, the 16 counties that lost their bellwether status in 2016 are more racially diverse (median of 46 percent non-Hispanic white, compared to 89 percent) and more highly educated (median of 27 percent of adults 25 or older with a bachelors degree or higher, compared to 22 percent) than the 19 counties that maintained their bellwether status. Other counties to watch: Nowhere is more important than Polk (Des Moines). Their finger was so tightly on the pulse of America that they not only picked the winner each time, but managed to accurately flip parties four times in that period. The same can be said for the three states listed in the meme. If you find this article meaningful and convincing, please share it far and wide. 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 theres a blue collar contingent too who feel like theyre being ignored, according to county Democratic Chairman Marty Martinez. Kerry Sheridan/AFP/Getty Images Follow us on Telegram to be notified when we release the remaining articles. This was George W. Bush territory in 2000 and 2004, but Obama brought it back into the Democratic fold in his two elections. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-46% - 2008: Obama 54%-44%. Fourth, it lists whether they won Florida, Ohio and Iowa Obama won them, Trump won them, Biden lost them. 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 statistic on counties comes from a report bytheBrookings Institution on Nov. 10. In politics, the term often applies in a metaphorical sense to characterize a geographic region where political tendencies match in microcosm those of a wider area, such that the result of an election in the former region might predict the eventual result in the latter. In 2020, a single county in the setkept its perfect recordby tallying a win for Biden. Scott Walker all three times his name appeared on the ballot. 4. And this is the state with the highest share of whites with college degrees in the country. 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. 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. But there was only one county Clallam, Washington which voted Democrat. 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. One of the highest income counties in the nation and a longtime GOP Midwestern stronghold, in recent years the suburban behemoth has begun trending toward Democrats -- not even Mitt Romney, who grew up here, could win it. "We had to quietly move our parade," she says. 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. In other words, it's not whether Clinton wins Hillsborough that's important, but by how much. Lake County is a perpetual nail-biter. 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. So, where are the bellwether counties? In 2020,Biden received81,281,888 votes andTrump received74,223,251 votes, according to a tally byUSA TODAY. From 1980 through 2016, there were 19 counties that consistently voted for the eventual president. 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. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. 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. That might mean needing to factor that in by a couple points. Follow the Data Identify Electoral Fraud Using Trend Analysis . Their emotions and decision making process are real. The probability is hard to comprehend, so lets figure it out for real. Winnebago County: A large bellwether county in east-central Wisconsin, Mr. Trump won it in 2016, but in 2018 Democrats running for governor and the Senate performed much better. 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. Pittsburghs Allegheny County, the second-most populous county in the state after Philadelphia, is heavily Democratic. Thank you for supporting our journalism. 2016 primary winners: Clinton, Trump2012: Obama 50%, Romney 49%, Latestvoter registration totals:Democrats: 192,278Republicans: 182,364Unaffiliated: 40,047Other: 29,484. 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. Trump remained very strong with white voters without a college degree in 2020, helping him win Iowa and Ohio by comfortable margins and remain competitive in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Fifth, it listswhether each candidate's politicalparty won seats in the House of Representatives which occurred withObama andTrump, but not Biden. To do so, the popular vote winner of each county for every presidential election from 1980 through 2016 was tabulated and mapped, yielding 19 true bellwether counties for the period. While Trump won every county in the state in the GOP primary, he posted his best result in Luzerne 77 percent. It voted twice for Bush and twice for Obama. 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. Explore the pages of this site and the links to further reports. President-elect Joe Biden officially secured the presidency after the Electoral College met to give him and Vice President-elect Harris 306 votes. Some say it's not only the polarisation induced by the outgoing president that's to blame for traditional bellwether counties' failure to correctly predict the election. Marcela Stewart speaks to a voter at an event to encourage minority voter turnout n Cutler Bay, Fla., on Sunday. Learn how and when to remove this template message, "How many counties are in the United States? The most populous county in the state and home to Manchester and Nashua, Hillsborough twice voted narrowly for Bush and twice for Obama. The matters that way on their minds are real. In the 1990s, he says, Democrats ran for many local county positions unopposed. But what if we told you that only 1 of these 22 counties voted for Biden in 2020? It's something Joan Day-Baker, chair of Valencia County's Democratic Party, has witnessed first-hand. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. In 1960, President John F. Kennedy lostall three states and won the White House, beating out future President Richard Nixon, according toSnopes. How Does The Electoral College Work And Is It Fair? From 1980 to 2016, 19 counties voted for the winner of the presidential election every single time. Maricopa (home to Phoenix) is the most populous county in the state by far 60 percent of voters live here. Wood County is a decent bellwether of the state: Mr. Trump carried it by eight points in 2016, matching his statewide margin. 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. (i.e. There are more than 3,000 counties in the United States, but in presidential elections they are not all created equal. Democrats need to drive up the margins in Fulton and DeKalb. Feel free to forward a link to your elected officials as well. Other counties to watch: Also watch Luzerne (Wilkes-Barre). A Changing America Faces A Stark Choice This Election. Since 1960, Democrats have won Rockingham County only three times. Outstanding. It's whiter and less Hispanic than the rest of the state, but it has a higher share of residents with college degrees. Most of the statistics in the meme are true but they are not proof of voter fraud or other supposed issues with the election. 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. (See the DPV 08 column in the image below.) A majority of voters here had backed the eventual winner of presidential elections every time since 1964. 2016 primary winners: Sanders, Trump2012: Romney 52%, Obama 47%, Latest voter registration totals:Undeclared: 82,008Republicans: 80,068Democrats: 63,257. 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. She also has to run up the score in Franklin (Columbus, home to Ohio State University). Marcela Stewart speaks to a voter at an event to encourage minority voter turnout n Cutler Bay, Fla., on Sunday. Democrats also have to win big in Mecklenburg (Charlotte), Guilford (Greensboro), Durham and Buncombe (Asheville). Of these 35 counties, 10 of them consistently voted over 50% for the winning candidate since the year 2000. Out of 3,141 counties, there were 22 counties that had successfully voted for the winning candidate in each and every election between 1988 and 2016 (included). In the past, says Mrs Day-Baker, the presence of conservative Democrats and split-ticket voting - choosing a Republican nominee for president but Democratic Party candidates as local representatives, or vice versa - were both commonplace. 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. "Democrats have really not done anything for the farmers They've totally ignored the rural community. She says that previously, "when there was a presidential election, people are watching, paying attention, and as soon as the president is elected, they forget [about politics] until it's election time again". Key Counties: The race here is not binary, so watching the margins in the biggest counties will be important. The fact that there are fewer swing counties means that there are fewer potential bellwether counties. Instead, you can Find the latest updates on our Telegram channel which has more recent updates. Found an error on our site? It is easy to gloss over this. Click here, for more. Republican county chairman Michael Barnett said hed celebrate if Trump could do better than Romneys 41 percent total here in 2012. What does this mean for the nation's political-economic divide? First, itliststotal number of votes they received Obama at 69,000,000,Trump at 74,000,000 and Biden at 81,000,000. Hillary Clinton speaks during a rally at the Abraham Lincoln High School on Jan. 31 in Des Moines, Iowa. Once you have found all the results and looked at the trends, remember, these counties are the best counties at predicting an election outcome! Recently, though, social media users have shared a meme with statistics that they claim discredits his victory. But its also home to the largest concentration of registered Republicans in the state. 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. Trump won the other 18 counties. The coalition which includedthe Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Association of State Election Directors also noted that all states with close results had paper records of each vote. Putting names to archive photos, The children left behind in Cuba's mass exodus, In photos: India's disappearing single-screen cinemas. So, for our purposes, a swing county would have voted as follows: There are 80 such counties. Find the answer by searching politico.com/2020-election/results. The state's demographics suggest it could go blue one day. Republicans also have to do drive up their own turnout in big population areas like Charlotte, but also have to drive up margins in lots of medium-size population counties like Union (Charlotte suburb). But when word got out, Trump supporters crashed it. Other counties to watch: Wake, in the heart of the Research Triangle, used to be considered a swing county. We tried to pick counties that had a large enough population to matter some or if they just had a knack for picking that statewide winner. Election night is going to be information overload. Keep in mind that if we started the attrition from the 1980 election, there would still be 19 counties standing after the 2016 election. In 2008, Obama received69,498,516 votes, per the Federal Election Commission. 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. 2016 winners: Bernie Sanders (Democratic caucus); Ted Cruz (GOP state convention) . Do you know this baby? They are not a statistical curiosity, but the perfect distillation or embodiment of the whole countrys sentiment. We further relaxed the constraint by introducing the switch county. Of course, bellwethers are bellwethers until they aren't. Cable news loves to point to Vigo County, Indiana on election night coverage because Indiana is one of the first two states to close its polls and it has . Trump won 18 of the 19. Find a coin, and flip it, and see how long it takes to (just) get 10 heads or 10 tails in a row. In their . Other counties to watch: Almost half of all of Obama's votes in 2012 came from just three places Milwaukee City, Milwaukee County and Dane (Madison, home to the University of Wisconsin). 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. Here are the top 50 counties by Democrat voting percentage in 2008: How many of these counties swung back to the Democrat party in 2020? Were doing a lot of adult retraining, he said. North Carolina (15 electoral votes) - Toss-up. Still, the state's worth watching. 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. Still, the key for Democrats is Salt Lake, which gave Obama more than half his statewide vote there. 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. Bellwether counties are already extremely rare, but some bellwether counties are better than others at highlighting a change in sentiment. Lets introduce a new concept: the quality of prediction. In 132 years, no president has received more votes in his run for reelection and lost. (It will at least show a trend away from the Republican party that would help make more sense of this situation. It provided the second highest vote totals of any county and a significant share for Democrats. I would love to see Clinton or Kaine hold a truckstop rally and appeal to those guys., Latest voter registration totals: 146,952No party registration. But those states represent just 29, 18and six electoral votes, respectively. But it's also not unprecedented. Ottawa County wasn't the only swing county to get the outcome wrong this time around. (You can make up your own mind on what the trends mean.). 7. If Clinton's winning there, it means she's hitting marks with young voters. 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. Other counties to watch: Counties where Clinton has to drive up the score include Bexar (San Antonio), Hidalgo (McAllen) and Travis (Austin). Take the time to ponder and realize that this is no mean feat! To flip Pennsylvania, Trump has to start in Bucks and expand in places like Northampton. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-46% - 2008: Obama 55%-43%. These counties were geographically clustered in the Midwest and in the Northeast. Eastern Iowa is often seen as Democratic turf -- the last 4 Democratic presidential nominees have won Scott County. Now, Democrats have to drive up the margin in this populous, central North Carolina county. Latest voter registration totals:Undeclared: 105,097Republicans: 87,763Democrats: 77,383. Wilkes-Barres Luzerne County is traditionally Democratic territory in northeastern Pennsylvania but its also an aging, working-class county where Trumps message is resonating. However, its bellwether status is by no means guaranteed in future elections. 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. (subject to censorship). At the presidential level, Republicans havent won Oakland County since 1992, though George W. Bush twice came very close. By Randy Yeip and Stuart A. Thompson. That Trump did so well in the remaining 19 bellwether counties in 2020 should come as no surprise, then. 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. 2020 Election (1210) 9. It is the only county to go twice for Bush and twice for Obama. 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. As the country's demographics shift and the rural-urban divide becomes more pronounced, the chances appear slim. . [How The Frost Belt And Sun Belt Illustrate The Complexity Of Americas Urban-Rural Divide]. used to vote more like the country as a whole, huge gains with white voters without a college degree, just 303 counties were decided by single-digit margins in 2016, How The Federal Reserve Is The Shadow Branch Of The Government, Why Original Predictions About The War In Ukraine Were So Off. 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. How many of these counties voted less for the Republican party in 2020? ), You can find the answers to the above questions yourself by searching this site: politico.com/2020-election/results The fact that there were 19 demonstrates the incredible predictive abilities of these counties.). Sitting at the same Kozy Corners diner table that president Barack Obama ate from when on his own re-election campaign in July 2012, Mr Brikmanis, a lawyer, believes local Democrats' failure to get votes is also linked to the broader economic decline being experienced by rural and rust belt communities across the Midwest. "When I came here in 1989, you couldn't be elected dog catcher if you weren't a Democrat," he says. You should now have a real tangible sense of how difficult it is to get a streak of 10. Obama won Monroe County 49.6-49.1 in 2012 and 52-47 in 2008. And speak out if youve been a witness to election tampering. Watauga has gone for. For Trump to win, he needs to flip a place like Racine, which went for Obama narrowly. Democrats Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Grover Cleveland (twice) won elections while losing ground in the House, per The Atlantic. This county voted with the popular vote each time. Other counties to watch: Often early results in Michigan will show a close race or Republicans ahead, until the Detroit area votes come in. If Clinton can carry Henrico, it will help offset nearby Chesterfield County, the slightly larger and more Republican-oriented Richmond suburb. Trump also needs to drive up margins in Republican-leaning Western counties like Kent (Grand Rapids) and Ottawa (on the shores of Lake Michigan). Almost a quarter of Obama's votes in 2012 came out of Wayne County (Detroit), which is 41 percent black. "It wasn't part of his strategy.". In total, Trump won 18 of the 19 former bellwether counties, winning the average such county by 13.7 points in 2020. 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. 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. 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. Bucks has three times the voters than its neighboring county to the north. Other counties to watch: Watch Atlanta and the suburbs. With each new section we relaxed the constraint, to include the most friendly Democrat voting counties in the country (based on the 2008 election). there are signs that the progress he made there in 2016 winning the county by about 1.5 percentage points after Obama carried it by 16 points . 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. An Inquiry of Bellwether Counties in US Presidential Elections, 1980-2016 Daniel Zimny-Schmitt1, Michael C. Harris2 1. Lets rank these counties from highest to lowest Democrat voting percentages in the 2008 election. 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. In fact, a national coalition of election security officials described the general election as "the most secure in American history," per USA TODAY. In the western mountains on the border with Tennessee, it's home to Boone, which includes Appalachian State. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER / GETTY IMAGES. 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. 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