"Democrats have really not done anything for the farmers They've totally ignored the rural community. Other counties to watch: Palm Beach and Miami-Dade are both places where Clinton has to drive up the score. As the country's demographics shift and the rural-urban divide becomes more pronounced, the chances appear slim. In other words, only 54 percent of bellwether counties from 1980 to 2012 kept their status in 2016. Arapahoe County. Of these 35 counties, 10 of them consistently voted over 50% for the winning candidate since the year 2000. a suburban Philadelphia county that went for Hillary Clinton in 2016 with 52.6% of the vote, and that . Twitter Twitter "I said: 'I'm the chair of the Democratic Party,' and the gentleman looked at me and said: 'Oh, the enemy.'". Their concerns are real. 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. The key is going to be what kind of floor McMullin has statewide and Trump's ceiling. Key bellwether counties in the swingiest states appeared during the 2016 and 2018 cycles that can help serve as a guide for 2020. It went with the exact margin for Romney in 2012 statewide and McCain statewide in 2008. Take the time to ponder and realize that this is no mean feat! Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 258,050Unaffiliated: 228,638Republicans: 185,694Libertarian: 3,711. Were doing a lot of adult retraining, he said. Home to Tipton (population 3,199), Cedar has gone with the winner of every presidential and Senate race since 1992. This fact check is available at IFCNs 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Trump gave them hope. These counties arent the only ones that matter most swing states have a handful of critical counties, not just one or two but these 25 stand out, either for their voting history, population size or traditional impact on swing-state election results. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 51%-49% - 2008: Obama 50%-49%. The best bellwether counties will consistently vote more than 50% for the winning party. But demographic change appears to have tipped the county slightly more in Democrats' direction. Its also loaded with government contractors and defense companies hit hard by the sequester. It all starts in Salt Lake, a place more liberal than you might think. 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. Election night is going to be information overload. Pittsburghs Allegheny County, the second-most populous county in the state after Philadelphia, is heavily Democratic. 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). It has a slightly higher Hispanic population than Jefferson County 19 percent, according to the Census which makes it an uphill challenge for Donald Trump. As weve seen in the past two presidential elections, bellwether streaks can be suddenly ended thanks to Americas continually evolving political and demographic trends. Now imagine getting 21 out of 22! HereIsTheEvidence.com and ElectionEvidence.com have compiled detailed databases of hundreds of items of election fraud evidence, by state. 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). 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. (From a purely random statistics perspective, there should only be 1 or 2 standing. i.e. Trump, who has tended to run better with voters without college degrees, got trounced in the primary in Wake earlier this year. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 53%-46% - 2008: McCain 52%-47%. Iowa (6 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. 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). Click on the relevant state then look for the county name.). In 1960, President John F. Kennedy lostall three states and won the White House, beating out future President Richard Nixon, according toSnopes. or even dive into the markdown files yourself to submit improvements. Until this year. Since only Clallam County voted Democrat in 2020, we know they all voted for the Republican party in 2020 and got it wrong. Ventura County, California - two misses since 1920 (in 1976 and 2016). The fourth-largest county in the state, its home to the Green Bay Packers, which are a huge economic engine. A caveat: because its black population is higher than the state average (21 percent versus 13 percent), the county has gone narrowly for Democrats even in 2004 and 2000 when George W. Bush won the state. But in 2020, 18 of these 19 bellwether counties voted for former President Donald Trump. The Art Of The Vote: Who Designs The Ballots We Cast. View our How You Can Help page, or contribute via In this section we will introduce a new concept: The swing county. 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. 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. 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. . Did they narrowly miss out on voting for the Democrat party in 2020? Latest voter registration totals: Unaffiliated: 49,026Democrats: 40,563Republicans: 35,146. 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. In the 1990s, he says, Democrats ran for many local county positions unopposed. Weve been losing a lot of younger people to other areas of the country. 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. Or, if you dont have enough time, how many of the top 10 switch counties, which overwhelmingly voted Democrat in 2008 (with a percentage Democrat vote over 58% ! 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. Enter Donald Trump. From 1980 to 2012, for instance, these bellwether counties consistently voted within a few points of the national popular vote. 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. It also backed Gov. This one of 99 counties made up 16 percent of Obama's total vote in 2012. 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. Were not going to just give you the answer, since the significance of the result might be lost on you. With each new section we relaxed the constraint, to include the most friendly Democrat voting counties in the country (based on the 2008 election). But it's still indicative of widespread support. That said, they will look to get out as many voters as they can here to help compensate for expected losses in other northern parts of the state. Nobody forgot about politics.". '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. 03:30. Three-in-four votes for President Obama in 2012 came from Clark County. Bucks has three times the voters than its neighboring county to the north. It voted twice for Bush and twice for Obama. Allegheny (Pittsburgh) is also key for Democrats. But after twice voting for George W. Bush, it has since moved well to the left. From 1980 to 2016, 19 counties voted for the winner of the presidential election every single time. Not a bad streak. That's 14 in a row. History suggests not: just two-thirds of historic bellwether counties. Georgia (16 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. In an election that will be decided by a relatively small group of pivotal counties within a relatively small set of swing states, POLITICO has selected 25 critical battleground counties that are poised to be difference makers, places that could have a material impact on the presidential election. 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). ET. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. Only one of them, Washington state's Clallam County, backed. (It will at least show a trend away from the Republican party that would help make more sense of this situation. Until this year. We will only focus on the most recent elections to increase the pool of counties to analyze.). Outstanding. Recently, though, social media users have shared a meme with statistics that they claim discredits his victory. 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). For a minute in this campaign, it looked like it could be a fairly close race in Texas, even within 5 points. 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. (You can make up your own mind on what the trends mean.). Maricopa (home to Phoenix) is the most populous county in the state by far 60 percent of voters live here. Other counties to watch: Remarkably, Obama won every county in this state in 2008. Trump won 18 of the 19. Obama won both with 56 percent; if Trump is making them competitive, that could mean Iowa goes his way. Some bored statistician or media hack needed something to do one day and decided to see which counties in the country consistently voted for the winning candidate. In other words, only 54 percent of bellwether counties from 1980 to 2012 kept their status in 2016. Hillsborough made up more than half that margin Obama won the county by 36,000 votes. 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. 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. Traditional Republican eastern counties of Carroll, Belknap and Rockingham, home to Portsmouth, fell back to the GOP in 2012, but not by enough for Romney, who had a home in the state, to win. There are more than 3,000 counties in the United States, but in presidential elections they are not all created equal. Website Updates Paused 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 . ", "Bellwether Counties Nearly Wiped Out by 2020 Election", "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_election_bellwether_counties_in_the_United_States&oldid=1125445752, This page was last edited on 4 December 2022, at 01:36. Like Texas, Utah looks like it's receded from the battleground, so we don't include it in our 13 battlegrounds. The Most Important Counties to Watch on Election Night. Outstanding. More than one-in-four votes cast for Obama and Romney in 2012 came from Hillsborough. 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. It's whiter and less Hispanic than the rest of the state, but it has a higher share of residents with college degrees. The Atlantic wonders why we're still arguing about masks. Find Stephen on Twitter and Instagram, The Americans who almost always predict the president, China looks at reforms to deepen Xi's control, Historic ocean treaty agreed after decade of talks, Inside the enclave surrounded by pro-Russia forces, 'The nurses wanted me to feel guilty about my abortion, From Afghan TV fame to a US factory floor. But that's no longer the case. Arizona (11 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. They were particularly representative in 2012, when the average 1980-to-2016 bellwether county was just 0.8 points more Democratic than the nation. Key Counties: The race here is not binary, so watching the margins in the biggest counties will be important. In at least three of the past four elections, county differed . 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. If you'd like to assist or contribute in some way, learn how. Warren and Henry Counties appear to be the least swingy of those counties from 2008 to 2012. And as was true in 2016, those counties voted substantially to the right of the nation. In fact, according to David Wasserman of The Cook Political Report, just 303 counties were decided by single-digit margins in 2016, compared to 1,096 counties that fit that description in 1992. The users have not responded to requests from USA TODAY for comment. 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. And as was true in 2016, those counties voted substantially to the right of the nation. 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. (Think about what it takes, and what is required for a county to always get the election right. One of the big four suburban collar counties ringing Philadelphia and the fourth-most populous county in the state Bucks is always competitive. Re-doing the analysis we obtain 35 modern bellwether counties after the 2016 election. If you find this article meaningful and convincing, please share it far and wide. Jeff. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-46% - 2008: Obama 54%-45%. (Independent parties will reduce the winning margin between the two major parties.) It is the only county to go twice for Bush and twice for Obama. A Changing America Faces A Stark Choice This Election. Driving up the margins in those places will be key for Clinton. (You can make up your own mind on what the trends mean.). 3. 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. This suburban Denver county twice backed George W. Bush then twice supported Barack Obama. [How Much Did COVID-19 Affect The 2020 Election?]. America's most accurate bellwether counties, regions that have a reputation for accurately picking the president, got the presidential election completely wrong. Watch the margins in Story (Ames) and Scott (Davenport). 108,000 people. Somehow we jumped from 22 to 1 county in one election cycle and we are supposed to believe that is normal? Lets find a coin, and flip it. He is based in San Francisco and has also written for NBC News and The Hill. 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. 2016 primary winners: Clinton, Trump2012: Obama 50%, Romney 49%, Latestvoter registration totals:Democrats: 192,278Republicans: 182,364Unaffiliated: 40,047Other: 29,484. Lets rank these counties from highest to lowest Democrat voting percentages in the 2008 election. This is a fairly small county, but we couldn't resist the toll of this bellwether. 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. Well, lets consider the percentage gap between the winning and losing party in these counties. On Dec. 14, President-elect Joe Biden secured his victory after he received306 votes from the Electoral College, per USA TODAY. However, its bellwether status is by no means guaranteed in future elections. Share your comments below or join the related discussion on Gitlab. 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. Ottawa County wasn't the only swing county to get the outcome wrong this time around. But Northampton went closely with the statewide margin in 2012. Other counties to watch: Nowhere is more important than Polk (Des Moines). Other counties to watch: Denver suburbs Adams, Arapahoe, Jefferson. 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. Oct. 28, 2021, 11:05 AM PDT. The question is just how big of a margin she can run up here -- where roughly two-thirds of the states presidential votes were cast in 2012 -- to offset Trumps victories across much of the rest of the state. "That didn't happen after 2016," she adds. Putting names to archive photos, The children left behind in Cuba's mass exodus, In photos: India's disappearing single-screen cinemas. Neither Clinton nor Trump won here during the caucuses in this Mississippi River county. It's happened before. Trump won Luzerne County by nearly 20 points in 2016, outperforming Romney . 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". Go on, look them up! Here is a quick recap of what we have established so far: We will now introduce another new concept, called a switch county. These are the bellwether counties. In other words, it's not whether Clinton wins Hillsborough that's important, but by how much. The magnitude of the gap (or difference) is an indicator of the strength of the change in sentiment. 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. Bellwether counties are important, and their significance should not be downplayed. Trumps local ties notwithstanding, Clinton is likely to run up her numbers here in the northernmost part of the South Florida region. 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. Here is a look at the bellwether counties for the 2020 presidential race. We'll get an early indicator of Clinton's black support given this is a 7 p.m. poll close state and a place where 1-in-5 voters were black and went 93 percent for Obama. 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. Hillary Clinton speaks during a rally at the Abraham Lincoln High School on Jan. 31 in Des Moines, Iowa. Trump also needs to drive up margins in Republican-leaning Western counties like Kent (Grand Rapids) and Ottawa (on the shores of Lake Michigan). 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. 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. 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. It very closely mirrors the rest of the state demographically (with a slightly higher Asian population), but it is far more educated. It went for Romney in 2012 (when he won it), but Obama in 2008 (when the Democrat did). 6. This sizable Cincinnati suburb has reflected the statewide margin in the last two presidential elections. @ryanmatsumoto1, Donald Trump (1624 posts) There are a total of 3,142 counties or county equivalents in the United States.[1]. The Bellwether County to Watch in Pennsylvania . North Carolina (15 electoral votes) - Toss-up. This county, home to Reno, borders California and is at the opposite end of the state from Las Vegas. In Valencia County, Mr Trump beat Mr Biden by six points more than he defeated Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. What science tells us about the afterlife. In the end, only Clallam County retained its streak this year. Yes, another Hillsborough! 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. Much of the rest of the state is rural and ruby red Republican. (i.e. 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. The same can be said for the three states listed in the meme. Ottawa County in Ohio has been on target every four years since 1964, and Bexar County in . How Does The Electoral College Work And Is It Fair? To make things more interesting we will only look at swing counties since the 2004 election. For Trump to win, he needs to flip a place like Racine, which went for Obama narrowly. But that changed in 2016 when Trump made huge gains with white voters without a college degree. Bonus points if you also keep track of the trends from 2016 to 2020. Team up with others in your region, and help out by Vigo County, Indiana, is a serious bellwether county. Now, Democrats have to drive up the margin in this populous, central North Carolina county. 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. (Biden, for example, won over 70%of the vote in Los Angeles County. They simply vote on merit. 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. New Hampshire (4 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. It gets a lot more interesting. Valencia County is home to a string of towns along the banks of the Rio Grande river in an otherwise largely arid stretch of desert south of Albuquerque. Kerry Sheridan/AFP/Getty Images That report was issued on Nov. 12. "It wasn't part of his strategy.". University of Denver, 2. First, itliststotal number of votes they received Obama at 69,000,000,Trump at 74,000,000 and Biden at 81,000,000. 2016 primary winners: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Latest voter registration totals: Democrats: 230,401Republicans: 211,817No Party Affiliation: 102,635Others: 16,526. This county voted with the popular vote each time. But it's also not unprecedented. If bellwethers were just a statistical curiosity and purely random, we could expect half of these counties to pick the winning party at the 2020 election. Even combined, they represent only53 votes a fraction of the 538 total electoral votesor the 270 electoral votes required to win the White House. Trump also needs to overperform in Macomb, another Detroit suburb, which narrowly went for Obama in 2012. It's a largely rural area of 40,000 residents that's home to a nuclear power plant, a sprawling US National Guard training facility and islands that the British Royal Navy battled for and lost during the War of 1812. hide caption. Democrats also have to win big in Mecklenburg (Charlotte), Guilford (Greensboro), Durham and Buncombe (Asheville). Trump, who needs to pick off one Democratic leaning state, added a rally here Sunday night. And this is the state with the highest share of whites with college degrees in the country. For the mathematically-minded: the table below shows that county outcomes do loosely follow a random outcome, up until a point. Bellwether counties are already extremely rare, but some bellwether counties are better than others at highlighting a change in sentiment. 2. 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.