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. 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. Found an error on our site? And this is the state with the highest share of whites with college degrees in the country. There were 1.3 million voters, or a quarter of all the state's voters, in just eight counties in that stretch. The divisions were everywhere. This favors the Democrat party since we are excluding counties that voted Republican in 1988. 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. But its not just demographic trends driving the loss of bellwether status. That'sanother reason results of the contests might not have lined up. In other words, we are including more counties that are more likely to vote for the Democrat party. Their ability and sensitivity to dramatically switch parties in 2000, 2008 and 2016, is outstanding. There are a total of 3,142 counties or county equivalents in the United States.[1]. A surge in African-American turnout helped deliver Cincinnatis Hamilton County to Obama in 2008, making him the first Democratic presidential nominee since Lyndon Johnson to carry the population hub of southwest Ohio. 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. Trump County, USA - POLITICO Magazine We already claimed that bellwether counties are a lot more than statistical curiosities, but lets assume for the time being that normal rules of probability apply. Most bellwether counties were slightly Democratic-leaning in 2008 and Republican leaning in 2012. If Clinton is getting in the mid-to-high 30s there, rather than the high 20s, she might have a shot at improving her statewide total enough to beat Trump and McMullin. Bellwether counties: Where in America do voters nail it? But its been a nail-biter in the past four presidential elections. That report was issued on Nov. 12. In 2004 Kerry lost it by about 5,000 votes. A total of 35 counties voted for the winner of each presidential election from 1980 through 2012. Key Counties: The race here is not binary, so watching the margins in the biggest counties will be important. Bellwether counties are important, and their significance should not be downplayed. Racine County2016 primary winners: Sanders, Cruz, Latest voter registration totals: 113,599No party registration. Affluent, well-educated Wake County, home to Raleigh and part of the Research Triangle, was once Republican territory. a suburban Philadelphia county that went for Hillary Clinton in 2016 with 52.6% of the vote, and that . Kyrsten Sinema's Odds Of Reelection Don't Look Great. New Hampshire (4 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. Learn about the anomalies, strange events, and eyewitness accounts surrounding the 2020 election. 8. With each new section we relaxed the constraint, to include the most friendly Democrat voting counties in the country (based on the 2008 election). 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. However, its bellwether status is by no means guaranteed in future elections. 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. "We call them bellwethers because there's some fluke statistic, sometimes they are the right mix of different demographics. 2023 BBC. Putting names to archive photos, The children left behind in Cuba's mass exodus, In photos: India's disappearing single-screen cinemas. 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. In the end, only Clallam County retained its streak this year. Much of the rest of the state is rural and ruby red Republican. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 54%-45% - 2008: Obama 57%-41%. In other words, only 54 percent of bellwether counties from 1980 to 2012 kept their status in 2016. Ottawa County in Ohio has been on target every four years since 1964, and Bexar County in . Here is a quick recap of what we have established so far: We will now introduce another new concept, called a switch county. [How The Frost Belt And Sun Belt Illustrate The Complexity Of Americas Urban-Rural Divide]. How many of these 150 switch counties voted Democrat in 2020? Will they vote for the winner in 2016? 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. North Carolina (15 electoral votes) - Toss-up. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 369,734Republicans: 247,029No Party Affiliation: 218,642Others: 30,414. "Democrats have really not done anything for the farmers They've totally ignored the rural community. It went in a big way for Trump in the primary, but Obama won it, and the margin was similar to his statewide spread. "It wasn't part of his strategy.". Thank you for supporting our journalism. 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. Trumps local ties notwithstanding, Clinton is likely to run up her numbers here in the northernmost part of the South Florida region. When sorted from the highest to lowest Democrat percentage vote (at the 2008 election), we can see that there is 1 county that has a percentage Democrat vote greater than 60% at the 2008 election. Watch Hampton City. How could 16 out of 17 bellwether counties predict a Trump win - Quora After Detroits Wayne County, Oakland County is the most-populous in the state. 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. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. The Bellwether County to Watch in Pennsylvania . The trick, for Trump, is to hold down her winning percentage here in a county that has nearly a quarter of a million registered Republicans. Lake County is a perpetual nail-biter. "I think people were pretty happy with some of the things he's done, what he's been able to accomplish," says Mark Coppeler, a leading local Republican who was re-elected county commissioner last month. 4. 7. These counties were geographically clustered in the Midwest and in the Northeast. "Especially considering there's a lot of things that has been done that don't get reported at all.". our Gitlab account where you can That Trump did so well in the remaining 19 bellwether counties in 2020 should come as no surprise, then. Based on our research, the claim that these five statistics about Obama, Trump and Biden appear to discredit election results is MISSING CONTEXT. After you have spent an hour trying, record the maximum streak length you achieved. They simply vote on merit. Bellwether 2016 Statewide results: 2012: Romney 73%-25% - 2008: McCain 63%-34%. 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. 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. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 57%-41% - 2008: McCain 55%-44%. 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 fact, they became even more Republican the average bellwether county from 1980 to 2016 voted 18.2 points to the right of the nation. Yet Donald Trump received 10 million more votes in 2020 than in 2016 -- and lost. Salt Lake City elected its first lesbian mayor this year, and Obama actually won Salt Lake County by a few hundred votes in 2008. Latest voter registration totals: Democrats: 116,093Republicans 89,644Unaffiliated: 86,703. Re-doing the analysis we obtain 35 modern bellwether counties after the 2016 election. "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. How Does The Electoral College Work And Is It Fair? 2016 primary winners: Sanders, Trump2012: Romney 52%, Obama 47%, Latest voter registration totals:Undeclared: 82,008Republicans: 80,068Democrats: 63,257. Ultimately, they are simply 19 counties and this time, 18 of them voted for the candidate who lost the election. 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. The most impressive of those was Valencia County, New Mexico, which voted for the victor in. Free and open-source. 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". Bellwether counties are mostly a matter of chance and are now - USAPP But it's still indicative of widespread support. If you find this article meaningful and convincing, please share it far and wide. Still, the state's worth watching. Watauga has gone for. The 10 Bellwether Counties That Show How Trump Is in Serious Trouble In 2018, Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, carried it by 11 points. Those places will get the bulk of the presidential candidates time and their surrounding media markets will get the bulk of the television ad spending. From his tweet: From 1984 through 2016, spanning presidential elections, seventeen US counties in several states ad voted for the winning presidential candidate in an astounding 148 of 153 times including 100% five times for five different presidents: Advertisement - story continues below 1984 Reagan 1996 Clinton 2000 Bush 2012 Obama 2016 Trump