Obama won it with 53 percent of the vote while winning statewide by just 75,000 votes in 2012. (Independent parties will reduce the winning margin between the two major parties.) It's another one of those white, college-educated areas that could prove key to this election. Marcela Stewart speaks to a voter at an event to encourage minority voter turnout n Cutler Bay, Fla., on Sunday. Its also loaded with government contractors and defense companies hit hard by the sequester. If Trump wants to win the state, he has to start with a win here and make up the rest of the margin elsewhere. Latest voter registration totals: 937,155 No party registration. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 105,724Republicans: 70,060Unaffiliated: 15,141Other: 6,079. 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. Since 1960, Democrats have won Rockingham County only three times. 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. Lets introduce a new concept: the quality of prediction. 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! In Westmoreland County, Virginia - a small, rural community south of Washington DC that's failed to be a bellwether only twice since 1928, and is home to twice the number of African Americans than the national average - he beat Mr Biden by 16 points. For the mathematically-minded: the table below shows that county outcomes do loosely follow a random outcome, up until a point. In total, Trump won 18 of the 19 former bellwether counties, winning the average such county by 13.7 points in 2020. Of these 35 counties, 10 of them consistently voted over 50% for the winning candidate since the year 2000. Latest voter registration totals:Undeclared: 105,097Republicans: 87,763Democrats: 77,383. 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. On Dec. 1, formerAttorney General William Barr also told the Associated Pressthe U.S. Justice Department had uncovered no such evidence. The Art Of The Vote: Who Designs The Ballots We Cast. 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. Nobody forgot about politics.". Both Clinton and Trump need to turn out their bases in Fulton (Atlanta). But what if we told you that only 1 of these 22 counties voted for Biden in 2020? Will Democrats Rally Behind President Biden In 2024? It's true that the report first showed Biden at 477 counties andTrump at 2,497 counties, though ithas since been updated to showBiden at 509 andTrump at 2,547. 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. Kyrsten Sinema's Odds Of Reelection Don't Look Great. "End of day, the solution is complicated but the problem is very simple," wrote a user who shared the meme on Instagram. 2016 winners: Bernie Sanders (Democratic caucus); Ted Cruz (GOP state convention) . More than half of all Americans livein just 143 counties, per the U.S. Census Bureau. Democrats need to drive up the margins in Fulton and DeKalb. Lets rank these counties from highest to lowest Democrat voting percentages in the 2008 election. This sizable Cincinnati suburb has reflected the statewide margin in the last two presidential elections. Bellwether counties are already extremely rare, but some bellwether counties are better than others at highlighting a 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. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton need to shore up their bases here in a place where there are more unaffiliated voters than Republicans or Democrats and major party registration is at near parity. The users have not responded to requests from USA TODAY for comment. 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. President-elect Joe Biden officially secured the presidency after the Electoral College met to give him and Vice President-elect Harris 306 votes. You have probably noticed by now that with each new section we write, we are relaxing the constraints to make it easier to build a case for the Democrats winning the 2020 election. 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. Shield icon by Freepik from flaticon.com. Ottawa County wasn't the only swing county to get the outcome wrong this time around. How many of these counties voted less for the Republican party in 2020? So those suburban whites are key here and might tell a story not just about who wins the state, but who wins nationally. From 1980 to 2016, 19 counties voted for the winner of the presidential election every single time. Learn about the anomalies, strange events, and eyewitness accounts surrounding the 2020 election. 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. our Gitlab account where you can In other words, only 54 percent of bellwether counties from 1980 to 2012 kept their status in 2016. Take the time to ponder and realize that this is no mean feat! 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. Learn how and when to remove this template message, "How many counties are in the United States? November 8, 2016 9:29 AM ET. Weve been losing a lot of younger people to other areas of the country. These counties were geographically clustered in the Midwest and in the Northeast. Most bellwether counties were slightly Democratic-leaning in 2008 and Republican leaning in 2012. Democrats also have to win big in Mecklenburg (Charlotte), Guilford (Greensboro), Durham and Buncombe (Asheville). Combinedwith general population growth, and this election had 27 million more participants. Three-in-four votes for President Obama in 2012 came from Clark County. 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). Their emotions and decision making process are real. Dave Wasserman, who analyzes election data for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, told the Wall Street Journal that ticket-splitting appeared to make "a fashion comeback in many places.". Fifth, it listswhether each candidate's politicalparty won seats in the House of Representatives which occurred withObama andTrump, but not Biden. 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. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 316,586Republicans: 258,725No Party Affiliation: 206,457Others: 22,695. Republican county chairman Michael Barnett said hed celebrate if Trump could do better than Romneys 41 percent total here in 2012. It's New Hampshire's biggest county by population. Has No Presidential Candidate Won Iowa, Florida and Ohio and Still Lost? 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. 2016 winners: Bernie Sanders (Democratic caucus); Ted Cruz (GOP state convention)2012: Obama 51%, Romney 46%, Latestvoter registration totals:Unaffiliated: 128,938Republicans: 111,374Democrats: 109,140Libertarian: 3,388. In 132 years, no president has received more votes in his run for reelection and lost. Moving forward, it is entirely possible that there will be no single county that consistently indicates the results of a national election. Combined, they had more than twice the votes of Denver proper and 30 percent of all the votes statewide. The best bellwether counties will consistently vote more than 50% for the winning party. This is a fairly small county, but we couldn't resist the toll of this bellwether. 2016 primary winners: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Latest voter registration totals: Democrats: 230,401Republicans: 211,817No Party Affiliation: 102,635Others: 16,526. @ryanmatsumoto1, Donald Trump (1624 posts) This county voted with the popular vote each time. 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. 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 . Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. a county which has voted Republican in 2004, but swung to the Democrat party in 2008 and then back to the Republican party in 2016. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 51%-47% - 2008: Obama 53%-46%. Seven counties, including Vigo, have got it right in the past dozen elections. Still, the key for Democrats is Salt Lake, which gave Obama more than half his statewide vote there. We believe this was a mistake. Clinton needs to be closer to Obama's 57 percent in 2008 than his 55 percent in 2012. 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. In 2020, a single. After 8 elections, the number of counties left standing defy the odds, and it is this fact that makes them bellwether counties. What results did you discover? "We call them bellwethers because there's some fluke statistic, sometimes they are the right mix of different demographics. (See the DPV 08 column in the image below.) Weeks after Election Day, there have still been no discoveriesof widespread voter fraud. 2016 Election (1135) You can find the answer by searching politico.com/2020-election/results. Somehow we jumped from 22 to 1 county in one election cycle and we are supposed to believe that is normal? 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% ! From 1980 to 2012, for instance, these bellwether counties consistently voted within a few points of the national popular vote. Trump, who has tended to run better with voters without college degrees, got trounced in the primary in Wake earlier this year. That's 14 in a row. In the 1990s, he says, Democrats ran for many local county positions unopposed. More: Fact check: What's true and what's false about the 2020 election. 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. 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). We further relaxed the constraint by introducing the switch county. Election night is going to be information overload. North Carolina (15 electoral votes) - Toss-up Bellwether: Watauga In the western mountains on the border with Tennessee, it's home to Boone, which includes Appalachian State. 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. 5. 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. Answer (1 of 33): Because "bellwether counties" are a load of horse manure. Do you know this baby? There are 22 counties in the US that managed to vote for the winning party in every single election from 1988 to 2016. 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. (subject to censorship). The key is going to be what kind of floor McMullin has statewide and Trump's ceiling. Just how big is it? It came close to reflecting the statewide vote in 2012. "There are more and more places in this country that are consistently red or blue, so there are fewer and fewer counties that swing back and forth from election to election," he said. To get an idea as to whether Clinton could win it, watch Tarrant County. In at least three of the past four elections, county differed . i.e. President-elect Biden on Electoral College vote: Clear victory. View our How You Can Help page, or contribute via 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. Their ability and sensitivity to dramatically switch parties in 2000, 2008 and 2016, is outstanding. (Needless to say that if the tables were reversed, we would hear no end of the significance of bellwether counties in the media.). 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. But along with the states other urbanized counties, Forsyth has moved to the left, twice backing Barack Obama. But county wins don't correlate with the popular vote, in part due to tremendousvariancein population size and density by county. Other counties to watch: Clark County (Las Vegas, Henderson), Democrats have to drive up big margins in Las Vegas, something they have lots of experience doing. All other 21 counties voted Republican. 12. Other counties to watch: Watch Atlanta and the suburbs. This article is part of a series on Identifying Electoral Fraud Using Trend Analysis. It is whiter than the rest of the state but has a slightly higher level of college degrees, although still it's just 28 percent. For that reason,Rogers M. Smith, a political scientistat the University of Pennsylvania, told Reutersthat "focusing on counties won as an indicator of the likely popular vote winner makes no sense whatsoever.". Arapahoe County. Donald Trump is highly unlikely to win here -- Democrats have a big voter registration advantage in this county where Trump owns one of his many homes. This was George W. Bush territory in 2000 and 2004, but Obama brought it back into the Democratic fold in his two elections. White voters without a college degree used to vote more like the country as a whole, which helps explain why these counties maintained their bellwether status for a long time. '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. Subscribe to breaking updates Virginia (13 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. The American Voter's Alliance provides a great national overview with many reports, videos and detailed legal submissions. Like Jefferson (but slightly more populous), Arapahoe was once a GOP stronghold that voted for Obama twice. Other counties to watch: Pima (where Tucson is). Watauga has gone for. 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. The matters that way on their minds are real. Side note Could the Florida Keys tell us who wins? "It wasn't part of his strategy.". ET. A Changing America Faces A Stark Choice This Election. 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. "Democrats have really not done anything for the farmers They've totally ignored the rural community. "Biden did well in virtually all of the most populous counties in the U.S., which, along with a larger electorate explains why he defeated Donald Trump by over 7 million votes, despite carrying many fewer counties," Smith wrote. Split-Ticket Voters Helped Biden, Republicans in Nebraska, Maine, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. It has gone with the statewide winner in every presidential election since 2000. A majority of voters here had backed the eventual winner of presidential elections every time since 1964. 3. 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. He is based in San Francisco and has also written for NBC News and The Hill. Relatively few counties across the nation switched party support in 2012, but Rockingham was one of them, flipping from Obama in 2008 to Romney. If youve done your research and found the 2020 results for each of these counties, you should find the results extremely puzzling. There are more than 3,000 counties in the United States, but in presidential elections they are not all created equal. Watch Hampton City. 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. 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] Republicans are bullish that the suburban county will stay in their column this time, in part because of frustration with Washington. They are: Notice RANSOM, SARGENT, and MARSHALL in particular. 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. Allegheny (Pittsburgh) is also key for Democrats. 2. 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. ", "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. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 51%-49% - 2008: Obama 50%-49%. When is Eurovision and how do you get tickets? Affluent, well-educated Wake County, home to Raleigh and part of the Research Triangle, was once Republican territory. It is easy to gloss over this. The county also features a diverse array of industries, from dairy farms and small manufacturers to major health-care companies. 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). Here is a look at the bellwether counties for the 2020 presidential race. It's happened before. Find a coin, and flip it, and see how long it takes to (just) get 10 heads or 10 tails in a row. Pittsburghs Allegheny County, the second-most populous county in the state after Philadelphia, is heavily Democratic. Obeng (2016) was similarly skeptical, noting that bellwethers run the risk of producing models that explain what has happened but cannot predict the future. In 1960, President John F. Kennedy lostall three states and won the White House, beating out future President Richard Nixon, according toSnopes. Telegram Telegram It gets a lot more interesting. Multiple factors, including higher turnout and population growth, contributed to the fact that both Biden and Trump totaledmore votes than Obama. Much of the rest of the state is rural and ruby red Republican. How many of these 150 switch counties voted Democrat in 2020? ), Fact check: Biden won the most total votes and the fewest total counties of any president-elect. 2023 BBC. Washoe County2016 caucus winners: Sanders, Trump2012: Obama 51%, Romney 47%, Latest voter registration totals:Republican: 105,410Democrats: 102,422Unaffiliated: 53,048Others: 19,815. 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. Neither Clinton nor Trump won here during the caucuses in this Mississippi River county. Suburban Richmonds Henrico County was once a reliable GOP stronghold it went twice for George W. Bush and backed Bob McDonnell in his 2009 gubernatorial win. Other counties to watch: Palm Beach and Miami-Dade are both places where Clinton has to drive up the score. It clearly shows they hold no allegiances and will vote for whichever party makes the most sense to them at each election. 2016 winners: Bernie Sanders (Democratic caucus); Ted Cruz (GOP state convention), Latest voter registration totals:Unaffiliated: 112,113Democrats: 109,965Republicans: 100,540Libertarian: 3,009. hide caption. 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. "They followed through the whole four years. Trump, however, needs to drive up the score in Collin (Plano). Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-46% - 2008: Obama 55%-43%. Yes, another Hillsborough! Statewide results: 2012: Obama 50%-49% - 2008: Obama 51%-48%. The highest percentage being 66.1%. So, for our purposes, a swing county would have voted as follows: There are 80 such counties. Until this year. [Even Though Biden Won, Republicans Enjoyed The Largest Electoral College Edge In 70 Years. We sorted the counties from highest to lowest Democrat percentage vote (in the 2008 election). That is 19 counties still standing after 10 elections! Explore the pages of this site and the links to further reports. From 1980 through 2016, 19 of the nation's more than 3,000 counties voted for the eventual president in every election. Where Did All The Bellwether Counties Go? And as was true in 2016, those counties voted substantially to the right of the nation. There are a total of 3,142 counties or county equivalents in the United States.[1]. It went in a big way for Trump in the primary, but Obama won it, and the margin was similar to his statewide spread. Arizona (11 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. 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). (The highest value being 60.6%), When sorted from the highest to lowest Democrat percentage vote (at the 2008 election), we can see that there are 4 counties that have a percentage Democrat vote greater than 60% at the 2008 election. These counties' national bellwether status might not ring true in 2016, though, because Illinois is one of Obama's home states. Other counties to watch: Wake, in the heart of the Research Triangle, used to be considered a swing county. 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. Profiled by BBC News weeks before the 2020 election, locals said voters' political identities weren't always defined in strict party terms and that people would regularly pivot between parties from one election cycle to the next. 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. Vigo County, Indiana, is a serious bellwether county. One of the big four suburban collar counties ringing Philadelphia and the fourth-most populous county in the state Bucks is always competitive. But after twice voting for George W. Bush, it has since moved well to the left. Now, Democrats have to drive up the margin in this populous, central North Carolina county. Have information that relates to fraud in this election? Racine County, which features a significant Hispanic and African American population, is the only competitive county bordering Milwaukee Ozaukee, Waukesha and Washington counties are reliably Republican. Trumps local ties notwithstanding, Clinton is likely to run up her numbers here in the northernmost part of the South Florida region. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. Trump won the other 18 counties. At the presidential level, Republicans havent won Oakland County since 1992, though George W. Bush twice came very close. Compiled by Si Williams, non-US resident, and other contributors. Cincinnati is kind of considered a little bit of an island off the rest of Ohio. running an event, collecting and distributing information, Canvassing: Alarming Results in Multiple States, Identify Electoral Fraud Using Trend Analysis, The Curious Case of the 2020 Voting Rate Blowouts, How to Predict Election Results Using Registration Data, The Counties Where Votes and Party Registrations Don't Align, Investigating the Large Democrat Vote Increases, USEIPs Election Fraud Data Analytics Guide, 2000 Mules: Video Evidence of Ballot Trafficking, Voting Machines Lacking EAC Accreditation, List of Legislators Supporting Election Audits, Forensic Analysis of Mesa County Machine Images, A Vote Trafficking Parable, by David K. Clements, Identifying Electoral Fraud Using Trend Analysis, View the County & Local Organizing Playbook, Find the latest updates on our Telegram channel, Bellwether counties are not just statistical curiosities, The odds of 21 (out of 22) of these counties getting it wrong is, We have identified and analyzed the best of the best bellwether counties at predicting an election outcome, and examined their trends in 2020. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-46% - 2008: Obama 54%-45%. A total of 35 counties voted for the winner of each presidential election from 1980 through 2012. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. It almost became religious.". It went for Romney 54 to 44 percent, nearly reflecting the overall margin. Driving up the margins in those places will be key for Clinton. 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.). What science tells us about the afterlife. Wood County is a decent bellwether of the state: Mr. Trump carried it by eight points in 2016, matching his statewide margin. Demographically, the bellwether counties tended to be whiter, older, less .