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. 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. (Think about what it takes, and what is required for a county to always get the election right. (You can make up your own mind on what the trends mean.). On Dec. 1, formerAttorney General William Barr also told the Associated Pressthe U.S. Justice Department had uncovered no such evidence. GOP Chairman Dale Fellows noted that the population has been steadily aging in recent years. Just one Clallam County, Washington voted for President Joe Biden. 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. That Trump did so well in the remaining 19 bellwether counties in 2020 should come as no surprise, then. That means, watch Bucks and Northampton counties. After you have spent an hour trying, record the maximum streak length you achieved. Maricopa (home to Phoenix) is the most populous county in the state by far 60 percent of voters live here. Will That Last?]. [How The Frost Belt And Sun Belt Illustrate The Complexity Of Americas Urban-Rural Divide]. 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? If they are tipping to Clinton, it's over. Bonus points if you also keep track of the trends from 2016 to 2020. 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. 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. This one of 99 counties made up 16 percent of Obama's total vote in 2012. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 57%-41% - 2008: McCain 55%-44%. Key bellwether counties in the swingiest states appeared during the 2016 and 2018 cycles that can help serve as a guide for 2020. Other counties to watch: Also watch Luzerne (Wilkes-Barre). Driving up the margins in those places will be key for Clinton. | AP Photo, By Darren Samuelsohn, Katie Glueck, Kyle Cheney and Daniel Strauss. 12. 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 . 11. But what if we told you that only 1 of these 22 counties voted for Biden in 2020? 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.". And like so many electoral trends, demographics play a major role in explaining why these once-bellwether counties finally missed the mark in 2020. 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. What results did you discover? Lake County is a perpetual nail-biter. Republicans are bullish that the suburban county will stay in their column this time, in part because of frustration with Washington. In other words, how strongly do they swing to the winning party? Seriously. How many of these 150 switch counties voted Democrat in 2020? There are 25 counties with a Democrat percentage vote over 60%. Of these 35 counties, 10 of them consistently voted over 50% for the winning candidate since the year 2000. 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. Seven counties, including Vigo, have got it right in the past dozen elections. In 2012, it had nearly half a million more voters in it than every other county in the state combined. (subject to censorship). Trump, who has tended to run better with voters without college degrees, got trounced in the primary in Wake earlier this year. 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. There were 1.3 million voters, or a quarter of all the state's voters, in just eight counties in that stretch. Wilkes-Barres Luzerne County is traditionally Democratic territory in northeastern Pennsylvania but its also an aging, working-class county where Trumps message is resonating. It went Republican in 2012; if Clinton is doing better or vice-versa there compared to Obama, it could be a sign of things to come. Wood County is a decent bellwether of the state: Mr. Trump carried it by eight points in 2016, matching his statewide margin. Bellwether counties are already extremely rare, but some bellwether counties are better than others at highlighting a change in sentiment. This sizable Cincinnati suburb has reflected the statewide margin in the last two presidential elections. In 2018, Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, carried it by 11 points. It's happened before. 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. ), voted Democrat again in 2020? 2016 primary winners: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Latest voter registration totals: Democrats: 230,401Republicans: 211,817No Party Affiliation: 102,635Others: 16,526. Election night is going to be information overload. 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. 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. In economics, a 'bellwether' is a leading indicator of an economic trend. It went in a big way for Trump in the primary, but Obama won it, and the margin was similar to his statewide spread. The statistic on counties comes from a report bytheBrookings Institution on Nov. 10. It all starts in Salt Lake, a place more liberal than you might think. Telegram Telegram Twitter Twitter The users have not responded to requests from USA TODAY for comment. The most impressive of those was Valencia County, New Mexico, which voted for the victor in every presidential election from 1952 to 2016. 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. A total of 35 counties voted for the winner of each presidential election from 1980 through 2012. 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. "Democrats have really not done anything for the farmers They've totally ignored the rural community. "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised," they concluded. 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. 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. Fourth, it lists whether they won Florida, Ohio and Iowa Obama won them, Trump won them, Biden lost them. Trump won 18 of the 19. So the question is, how many of them switched back to the Democrat party in 2020? Share your comments below or join the related discussion on Gitlab. Just a tiny fraction of them truly matter. Yes, another Hillsborough! 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. Texas likely isn't going Democratic, so we aren't including this in one of our 13 counties since it's less likely to decide the outcome of the presidential election. "It wasn't part of his strategy.". Published Nov. 8, 2016 at 5:30 a.m. Eastern Iowa is often seen as Democratic turf -- the last 4 Democratic presidential nominees have won Scott County. The 13 Bellwether Counties That Could Decide The Election. 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. "Mathematically impossible," wrote a user who shared it on Facebook. 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. Also key is Volusia, which represents a large county that has been close to the overall vote. "They followed through the whole four years. 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. Or want to contribute to our open-source collection of articles and statistics? Racine County2016 primary winners: Sanders, Cruz, Latest voter registration totals: 113,599No party registration. Lets find a coin, and flip it. Below are 10 bellwether counties that could give signs as to how the electorate feels this cycle and in future races. President-elect Biden on Electoral College vote: Clear victory. Ventura County, California - two misses since 1920 (in 1976 and 2016). A bellwether county that includes Canton, its part of a heavily blue collar region where Trumps message could resonate. Especially since Biden received million more votes than Obama did in 2008. Watauga has gone for. Weve been losing a lot of younger people to other areas of the country. This favors the Democrat party since we are excluding counties that voted Republican in 1988. Clinton will win Democratic Clark County, the states population hub and home to Las Vegas. Demographics (84) 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. Three-in-four votes for President Obama in 2012 came from Clark County. Latest voter registration totals: Democrats: 116,093Republicans 89,644Unaffiliated: 86,703. "I said: 'I'm the chair of the Democratic Party,' and the gentleman looked at me and said: 'Oh, the enemy.'". Re-doing the analysis we obtain 35 modern bellwether counties after the 2016 election. Other counties to watch: Counties where Clinton has to drive up the score include Bexar (San Antonio), Hidalgo (McAllen) and Travis (Austin). That is 19 counties still standing after 10 elections! Georgia (16 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. Stephen Starr is an Irish journalist and author who reported from the Middle East for a decade before moving to Ohio in 2018. And speak out if youve been a witness to election tampering. Dont simply gloss over this. (Sorry, not sorry.) 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. 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. Lets introduce a new concept: the quality of prediction. It went with the exact margin for Romney in 2012 statewide and McCain statewide in 2008. But demographic change appears to have tipped the county slightly more in Democrats' direction. Bellwether counties are important, and their significance should not be downplayed. Moving forward, it is entirely possible that there will be no single county that consistently indicates the results of a national election. If you'd like to assist or contribute in some way, learn how. So, for our purposes, a swing county would have voted as follows: There are 80 such counties. This county, home to Reno, borders California and is at the opposite end of the state from Las Vegas. Bellwether counties in swing states show that the demographic gulf between the Democrats' more urban coalition and the Republicans' base of rural and blue collar whites is poised to grow ever . For a minute in this campaign, it looked like it could be a fairly close race in Texas, even within 5 points. But its been a nail-biter in the past four presidential elections. Iowa (6 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. It will keep them entertained for hours, and you can tell them it is for a good cause. Enter Donald Trump. Watch Hampton City. Latest voter registration totals: 618,420 No party registration. Ultimately, they are simply 19 counties and this time, 18 of them voted for the candidate who lost the election. As with Valencia County, in the past bipartisanship wasn't unusual in Indiana's Vigo County. It might be actually the best bellwether in the state, as it closely mirrored the statewide vote in both 2008 and 2012, but it has fewer voters than Jefferson, which we highlighted. Instead, you can Find the latest updates on our Telegram channel which has more recent updates. Ohio (18 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. Arapahoe County. "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. Once-reliably Republican -- and essential to Republicans to help overcome the deficit they face in Las Vegas Clark County -- Washoe voted twice for Bush and then twice for Obama. "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. For the mathematically-minded: the table below shows that county outcomes do loosely follow a random outcome, up until a point. Really stop reading. 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. 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. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 369,734Republicans: 247,029No Party Affiliation: 218,642Others: 30,414. It gets a lot more interesting. 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. This fact check is available at IFCNs 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 73%-25% - 2008: McCain 63%-34%. These counties could play an . What science tells us about the afterlife. But in 2020, 18 of these 19 bellwether counties voted for former President Donald Trump. (You can make up your own mind on what the trends mean.). Tampa's Hillsborough County is a top bellwether -- since 1960, no candidate has won Florida . Just how big is it? After 8 elections, the number of counties left standing defy the odds, and it is this fact that makes them bellwether counties. It's also worth noting that some voters "split their tickets" between parties voting for Biden but also for Republicans in Congress, for example. A total of 35 counties voted for the winner of each presidential election from 1980 through 2012. An Inquiry of Bellwether Counties in US Presidential Elections, 1980-2016 Daniel Zimny-Schmitt1, Michael C. Harris2 1. Virginia (13 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. 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. 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 From 1980 to 2012, for instance, these bellwether counties consistently voted within a few points of the national popular vote. Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. 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. 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. More than half of all Americans livein just 143 counties, per the U.S. Census Bureau. 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. No county more closely reflected Obama's wins in 2008 and 2012 than Monroe, home to Key West and the rest of the Keys. Were doing a lot of adult retraining, he said. If you take a coin and flip it 22 times. "Especially considering there's a lot of things that has been done that don't get reported at all.". 2023 ABC News Internet Ventures. The Art Of The Vote: Who Designs The Ballots We Cast. Colorado (9 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. Latest voter registration totals: 216,082No party registration. Somehow we jumped from 22 to 1 county in one election cycle and we are supposed to believe that is normal? @ryanmatsumoto1, Donald Trump (1624 posts) The most impressive of those was Valencia County, New Mexico, which voted for the victor in. New Hampshire (4 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. Vigo County, Indiana, is a serious bellwether county. In the end, only Clallam County retained its streak this year. The second-most populous county in the state, northern Nevadas Washoe County is home to Reno. Again, youll appreciate the results when you dig some of them up yourself. 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. If Clinton is going to win Utah, she will need to squeeze out as many Democrats as is possible in Salt Lake, and maybe win young people in those college towns, including Logan in Cache County (Utah State). We welcome any suggestions and content contibutions with credible references that help others understand the key election integrity issues. It's the wrong question. Website Updates Paused 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! . The statistics also are not indicative of electoral fraud. If the Republican percentage in 2020 is less than in 2016, it would clearly indicate a change in sentiment away from the Republican party, towards the Democrat party. Warren and Henry Counties appear to be the least swingy of those counties from 2008 to 2012. This article is part of a series on Identifying Electoral Fraud Using Trend Analysis. 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. He is based in San Francisco and has also written for NBC News and The Hill. 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. With a total turnout of 78%, Donald Trump won Ottawa County by a margin of 61% to 38%, improving his 2016 return by four points. Follow the Data Identify Electoral Fraud Using Trend Analysis . November 8, 2016 9:29 AM ET. Help raise awareness within your community about the lingering, unresolved issues with election integrity. Take the time to ponder and realize that this is no mean feat! Trump also needs to overperform in Macomb, another Detroit suburb, which narrowly went for Obama in 2012. You should now have a real tangible sense of how difficult it is to get a streak of 10. 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. 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. 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). University of New Hampshire . But Northampton went closely with the statewide margin in 2012. 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. 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. Hillary Clinton speaks during a rally at the Abraham Lincoln High School on Jan. 31 in Des Moines, Iowa. These key counties tell the story of America's shifting political landscape. The highest percentage being 66.1%. Keep in mind that if we started the attrition from the 1980 election, there would still be 19 counties standing after the 2016 election. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 258,050Unaffiliated: 228,638Republicans: 185,694Libertarian: 3,711. Joe Biden (631) The county also features a diverse array of industries, from dairy farms and small manufacturers to major health-care companies. America's most accurate bellwether counties, regions that have a reputation for accurately picking the president, got the presidential election completely wrong. It almost became religious.". The idea being these counties are good at sensing a change of sentiment and will happily vote for whichever party makes the most sense to them. 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.

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