2016 bellwether counties
Like Texas, Utah looks like it's receded from the battleground, so we don't include it in our 13 battlegrounds. Weve been losing a lot of younger people to other areas of the country. 9. Shield icon by Freepik from flaticon.com. From 1980 through 2016, 19 of the nation's more than 3,000 counties voted for the eventual president in every election. Obama won Monroe County 49.6-49.1 in 2012 and 52-47 in 2008. Both Clinton and Trump need to turn out their bases in Fulton (Atlanta). This was George W. Bush territory in 2000 and 2004, but Obama brought it back into the Democratic fold in his two elections. Third, it lists the fractionof bellwether counties each candidate won Obama at 18 of 19, Trump at 18 of 19 and Biden at one of 19. An Inquiry of Bellwether Counties in US Presidential Elections, 1980-2016 Daniel Zimny-Schmitt1, Michael C. Harris2 1. That might mean needing to factor that in by a couple points. Arizona (11 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. Bellwether 2016 The percentage of people with college degrees here is two-thirds higher than the rest of the state. The 13 Bellwether Counties That Could Decide The Election. The fourth-largest county in the state, its home to the Green Bay Packers, which are a huge economic engine. These counties' national bellwether status might not ring true in 2016, though, because Illinois is one of Obama's home states. The following 111 counties have deviated from the winner of the presidential election in two elections since 1980: List of election bellwether counties in the United States. Want to dive deeper? 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. [Even Though Biden Won, Republicans Enjoyed The Largest Electoral College Edge In 70 Years. To flip Pennsylvania, Trump has to start in Bucks and expand in places like Northampton. 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. Contributors wanted The fact that there were 19 demonstrates the incredible predictive abilities of these counties.). The Milwaukee suburb went for Obama by just 3 points in 2012, but went for George W. Bush in 2004 when Wisconsin was the closest state of that election, though it went for Democrat John Kerry. 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. This is a fairly small county, but we couldn't resist the toll of this bellwether. Trump also needs to overperform in Macomb, another Detroit suburb, which narrowly went for Obama in 2012. Dont simply gloss over this. 2023 BBC. Just one Clallam County, Washington voted for President Joe Biden. For a county to be considered a bellwether it would have to vote for the winning party at each of the following elections: That is 4 switches in 8 election cycles! Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-46% - 2008: Obama 54%-44%. Now, Democrats have to drive up the margin in this populous, central North Carolina county. Other counties to watch: Perhaps no state more starkly displays the broader rural-urban divide in this country than Virginia. 108,000 people. University of Denver, 2. Fourth, it lists whether they won Florida, Ohio and Iowa Obama won them, Trump won them, Biden lost them. i.e. 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. The matters that way on their minds are real. 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. The state's demographics suggest it could go blue one day. our Gitlab account where you can Ultimately, they are simply 19 counties and this time, 18 of them voted for the candidate who lost the election. a suburban Philadelphia county that went for Hillary Clinton in 2016 with 52.6% of the vote, and that . Republicans have paid some attention. Re-doing the analysis we obtain 35 modern bellwether counties after the 2016 election. "We had to quietly move our parade," she says. How many of these counties voted less for the Republican party in 2020? And speak out if youve been a witness to election tampering. Now imagine getting 21 out of 22! Due to health and time constraints of our original contributors and a lack of volunteers to replace them, we haven't been able to keep pace with the further reports and findings after May 2022, including the Nov 2022 Mid-Term Elections, during which, sadly, many of the same irregularities and potential fraud occurred. In the 1990s, he says, Democrats ran for many local county positions unopposed. Just a tiny fraction of them truly matter. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 73%-25% - 2008: McCain 63%-34%. For the mathematically-minded: the table below shows that county outcomes do loosely follow a random outcome, up until a point. 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. Where did all the bellwether counties go? - HotAir During the campaign Mrs Day-Baker says that local Democrats organised a "Ridin' for Biden" parade of vehicles through parts of the county. Nobody forgot about politics.". Read about our approach to external linking. They are not a statistical curiosity, but the perfect distillation or embodiment of the whole countrys sentiment. (You can make up your own mind on what the trends mean.). Trump appears likely to lose many moderate Republicans here but his message is also expected to appeal to white working class voters in Lower Bucks County, closer to the city. @ryanmatsumoto1, Donald Trump (1624 posts) 3. 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. Free and open-source. Or even better, if you have children, get them to do it for you. At one end of the I-4 corridor, Tampas Hillsborough County is a top bellwether -- since 1960, no candidate has won Florida without winning Hillsborough. (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. Have information that relates to fraud in this election? That includes 10 elections, including Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016. The American Voter's Alliance provides a great national overview with many reports, videos and detailed legal submissions. Really stop reading. Democrats also have to win big in Mecklenburg (Charlotte), Guilford (Greensboro), Durham and Buncombe (Asheville). hide caption. Watauga has gone for the winner statewide in each of the last three presidential elections and three Senate races since 2008. One of the big four suburban collar counties ringing Philadelphia and the fourth-most populous county in the state Bucks is always competitive. Bellwether Counties Nearly Wiped Out by 2020 Election - WSJ Fifth, it listswhether each candidate's politicalparty won seats in the House of Representatives which occurred withObama andTrump, but not Biden. "It gave suburban moderates an opportunity to vent their anger at Trump directly at the top of the ticket but continue to vote for the down-ballot Republicans they liked," he said. And as was true in 2016, those counties voted substantially to the right of the nation. Weeks after Election Day, there have still been no discoveriesof widespread voter fraud. These bellwether counties mirror close NC race for president It's something Joan Day-Baker, chair of Valencia County's Democratic Party, has witnessed first-hand. Fact check: 5 election statistics do not discredit Joe Biden's victory Latest voter registration totals: Unaffiliated: 49,026Democrats: 40,563Republicans: 35,146. And as was true in 2016, those counties voted substantially to the right of the nation. Demographics (84) (From a purely random statistics perspective, there should only be 1 or 2 standing. Concretely, a switch county would have voted for the following parties: (We ignore how they voted in 1996, 2004 and 2012 when the parties stayed the same.). Of their nineteen bellwethers, only Essex County, Vermont can be considered as a political competitive county. Whether or not these less diverse, industry-dependent communities can regain their bellwether status in four years' time remains to be seen. The 10 Bellwether Counties That Show How Trump Is in Serious Trouble None of them impacts the legitimacy of the presidential election. Democrats need to drive up the margins in Fulton and DeKalb. With demographic change in the Research Triangle area, though, it's possible for Clinton to win without this smaller county. Re-doing the analysis we obtain 35 modern bellwether counties after the 2016 election. 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. We believe this was a mistake. That report was issued on Nov. 12. It very closely mirrors the rest of the state demographically (with a slightly higher Asian population), but it is far more educated. Marcela Stewart speaks to a voter at an event to encourage minority voter turnout n Cutler Bay, Fla., on Sunday. 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. 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. That Trump did so well in the remaining 19 bellwether counties in 2020 should come as no surprise, then. 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. Since 1960, Democrats have won Rockingham County only three times. The county also features a diverse array of industries, from dairy farms and small manufacturers to major health-care companies. The 2020 election appears to illustrate that the partisanship that's defined politics in Washington for years has now spread to small-town America. Bellwether counties are already extremely rare, but some bellwether counties are better than others at highlighting a change in sentiment. Green Bays Brown County voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, then Barack Obama in 2008, then flipped to Mitt Romney in 2012. The 10 Bellwether Counties That Show How Trump Is in Serious Trouble The Biden campaign has run ads in the Toledo broadcast market, which conveniently covers part of Michigan, too. The best bellwether counties will consistently vote more than 50% for the winning party. In total, Trump won 18 of the 19 former bellwether counties, winning the average such county by 13.7 points in 2020. From 1980 to 2012, for instance, these bellwether counties consistently voted within a few points of the national popular vote. And as was true in 2016, those counties voted substantially to the right of the nation. They were particularly representative in 2012, when the average 1980-to-2016 bellwether county was just 0.8 points more Democratic than the nation. "Those are things that aren't just political, they become personal, after the election.". How many of these 150 switch counties voted Democrat in 2020? 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 . On Dec. 1, formerAttorney General William Barr also told the Associated Pressthe U.S. Justice Department had uncovered no such evidence. Here are the counties that consistently voted more than 50% for the winning party since the 2000 election: To make things a little more interesting we will relax the constraints a little to include modern bellwether counties, that is, counties that have voted for the winning candidate since 1992. 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. Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. Increased political polarization is another reason why fewer counties are consistently indicative of presidential results in recent years. This website summarizes the major findings in the 1218 months following the Nov 2020 election. Website Updates Paused Team up with others in your region, and help out by Of these 35 counties, 10 of them consistently voted over 50% for the winning candidate since the year 2000. 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. Will they vote for the winner in 2016? Moving forward, it is entirely possible that there will be no single county that consistently indicates the results of a national election. They're just facts about the vote. Tampa's Hillsborough County is a top bellwether -- since 1960, no candidate has won Florida . Of the 19 counties that had a perfect record between 1980 and 2016, all but one voted to reelect President Donald Trump, who lost to Joe Biden in both the national popular vote and in nearly. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 51%-49% - 2008: Obama 50%-49%. 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. The statistics also are not indicative of electoral fraud. In other words, only 54 percent of bellwether counties from 1980 to 2012 kept their status in 2016. 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. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 369,734Republicans: 247,029No Party Affiliation: 218,642Others: 30,414. 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. Not a bad streak. ET. 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. It's New Hampshire's biggest county by population.