First, what are bellwether counties? Lake County is a perpetual nail-biter. From 1980 through 2016, 19 of the nation's more than 3,000 counties voted for the eventual president in every election. He is based in San Francisco and has also written for NBC News and The Hill. Demographics (84) Bellwether counties are already extremely rare, but some bellwether counties are better than others at highlighting a change in sentiment. 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. Wood County is a decent bellwether of the state: Mr. Trump carried it by eight points in 2016, matching his statewide margin. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. Just one Clallam County, Washington voted for President Joe Biden. This well-educated, high-income and increasingly diverse D.C. exurb (Asians and Latinos togther make up a third of this county) went for Obama twice and roughly reflected the statewide margin. Georgia (16 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. 5. They're just facts about the vote. But what if we told you that only 1 of these 22 counties voted for Biden in 2020? In 1960, President John F. Kennedy lostall three states and won the White House, beating out future President Richard Nixon, according toSnopes. . 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. This website merely reports on substantial allegations made by well-known public figures, elected officials, members of congress, and their legal teams, and will correct errors when notified. 2016 winners: Bernie Sanders (Democratic caucus); Ted Cruz (GOP state convention), Latest voter registration totals:Unaffiliated: 112,113Democrats: 109,965Republicans: 100,540Libertarian: 3,009. Hillsborough made up more than half that margin Obama won the county by 36,000 votes. 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. The Biden campaign has run ads in the Toledo broadcast market, which conveniently covers part of Michigan, too. To flip Pennsylvania, Trump has to start in Bucks and expand in places like Northampton. For Trump to win, he needs to flip a place like Racine, which went for Obama narrowly. Weve been losing a lot of younger people to other areas of the country. This county voted with the popular vote each time. Contributors wanted After 8 elections, the number of counties left standing defy the odds, and it is this fact that makes them bellwether counties. Did they narrowly miss out on voting for the Democrat party in 2020? 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 came close to reflecting the statewide vote in 2012. Democrats Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Grover Cleveland (twice) won elections while losing ground in the House, per The Atlantic. (It will at least show a trend away from the Republican party that would help make more sense of this situation. The coalition which includedthe Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Association of State Election Directors also noted that all states with close results had paper records of each vote. 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. Relatively few counties across the nation switched party support in 2012, but Rockingham was one of them, flipping from Obama in 2008 to Romney. Take the time to ponder and realize that this is no mean feat! PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER / GETTY IMAGES. Arizona (11 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. 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. 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. It also backed Gov. In 132 years, no president has received more votes in his run for reelection and lost. Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. The highest percentage being 66.1%. ), voted Democrat again in 2020? But theres a blue collar contingent too who feel like theyre being ignored, according to county Democratic Chairman Marty Martinez. The fact that there were 19 demonstrates the incredible predictive abilities of these counties.). Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-46% - 2008: Obama 54%-45%. You can find the answer by searching politico.com/2020-election/results. [How The Frost Belt And Sun Belt Illustrate The Complexity Of Americas Urban-Rural Divide]. Three-in-four votes for President Obama in 2012 came from Clark County. (Go to the bottom of the page. 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. Florida (29 electoral votes) - Toss-up. But its been a nail-biter in the past four presidential elections. 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. 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. Most of the statistics in the meme are true but they are not proof of voter fraud or other supposed issues with the election. What does Terre Haute know about America 2016? Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 105,724Republicans: 70,060Unaffiliated: 15,141Other: 6,079. The storied home of Reagan Democrats and the third most-populous county in the state, southeastern Michigans Macomb last went Republican at the presidential level in 2004. 2023 ABC News Internet Ventures. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 51%-47% - 2008: Obama 53%-46%. Subscribe to breaking updates The most impressive of those was Valencia County, New Mexico, which voted for the victor in. Vigo County, Indiana, is a serious bellwether county. If you'd like to assist or contribute in some way, learn how. 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 . Follow the Data Identify Electoral Fraud Using Trend Analysis . It provided the second highest vote totals of any county and a significant share for Democrats. Clinton wouldn't mind having a win in Harris (Houston and its suburbs of over one million voters), Nueces (Corpus Christi) and Tarrant Ft. Worth/Arlington). Other counties to watch: Clinton has to drive up the margins in counties along the shores of Lake Erie, from Lucas (Toledo) to most notably Cuyahoga (Cleveland). But that changed in 2016 when Trump made huge gains with white voters without a college degree. For a minute in this campaign, it looked like it could be a fairly close race in Texas, even within 5 points. Of their nineteen bellwethers, only Essex County, Vermont can be considered as a political competitive county. That'sanother reason results of the contests might not have lined up. i.e. 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. 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. In 2008, Obama received69,498,516 votes, per the Federal Election Commission. 2016 primary winners: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Latest voter registration totals: Democrats: 230,401Republicans: 211,817No Party Affiliation: 102,635Others: 16,526. Its also loaded with government contractors and defense companies hit hard by the sequester. Side note Could the Florida Keys tell us who wins? President-elect Biden on Electoral College vote: Clear victory. For Trump to win, he has to carry this populous Detroit suburb. The more people can work out and see for themselves that the data clearly indicates a different outcome, the better. 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. Not a bad streak. Watauga has gone for. They were particularly representative in 2012, when the average 1980-to-2016 bellwether county was just 0.8 points more Democratic than the nation. Click on the relevant state then look for the county name.). That means, watch Bucks and Northampton counties. A Changing America Faces A Stark Choice This Election. Clinton will win Democratic Clark County, the states population hub and home to Las Vegas. In 2018, Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, carried it by 11 points. Utah (6 electoral votes) - Likely Republican. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 53%-46% - 2008: McCain 52%-47%. First, itliststotal number of votes they received Obama at 69,000,000,Trump at 74,000,000 and Biden at 81,000,000. . "They followed through the whole four years. Seriously. If youve done your research and found the 2020 results for each of these counties, you should find the results extremely puzzling. "Especially considering there's a lot of things that has been done that don't get reported at all.". or even dive into the markdown files yourself to submit improvements. The divisions were everywhere. The most populous county in the state and home to Manchester and Nashua, Hillsborough twice voted narrowly for Bush and twice for Obama. Almost a quarter of Obama's votes in 2012 came out of Wayne County (Detroit), which is 41 percent black. Latest voter registration totals: Unaffiliated: 49,026Democrats: 40,563Republicans: 35,146. (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. 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. This is a fairly small county, but we couldn't resist the toll of this bellwether. So those suburban whites are key here and might tell a story not just about who wins the state, but who wins nationally. Obama won Monroe County 49.6-49.1 in 2012 and 52-47 in 2008. Thank you for supporting our journalism. Now imagine getting 21 out of 22! These counties turned out to vote strongly for the Democrat party in 2008, so they are the most likely to swing back to the Democrat party in 2020. Pittsburghs Allegheny County, the second-most populous county in the state after Philadelphia, is heavily Democratic. Obama won comfortably here in 2008 but only squeaked to victory four years later. Share your comments below or join the related discussion on Gitlab. our Gitlab account where you can Other counties to watch: Also watch Luzerne (Wilkes-Barre). In total, Trump won 18 of the 19 former bellwether counties, winning the average such county by 13.7 points in 2020. @ryanmatsumoto1, Donald Trump (1624 posts) Somehow we jumped from 22 to 1 county in one election cycle and we are supposed to believe that is normal? 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. (i.e. We believe this was a mistake. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-46% - 2008: Obama 55%-43%. 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. 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. "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised," they concluded. 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. The odds of 21 counties out of 22 missing the mark is extremely remote! Below are 10 bellwether counties that could give signs as to how the electorate feels this cycle and in future races. Ron Elving . Warren and Henry Counties appear to be the least swingy of those counties from 2008 to 2012. 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. [How Much Did COVID-19 Affect The 2020 Election?]. There are 391 such counties. However, its bellwether status is by no means guaranteed in future elections. BELLWETHER, a documentary web-series, will cover the 2016 presidential election through the eyes and experiences of voters in Terre Haute and Vigo County, the most consistently accurate "bellwether" in the nation. Other counties to watch: Denver suburbs Adams, Arapahoe, Jefferson. After you have spent an hour trying, record the maximum streak length you achieved. Instead, you can Find the latest updates on our Telegram channel which has more recent updates. "End of day, the solution is complicated but the problem is very simple," wrote a user who shared the meme on Instagram. Yet Donald Trump received 10 million more votes in 2020 than in 2016 -- and lost. 11. On Dec. 14, President-elect Joe Biden secured his victory after he received306 votes from the Electoral College, per USA TODAY. "Democrats have really not done anything for the farmers They've totally ignored the rural community. Other swing counties to watch: Monroe and Calhoun. Website Updates Paused If they are tipping to Clinton, it's over. 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. Weeks after Election Day, there have still been no discoveriesof widespread voter fraud. These counties were geographically clustered in the Midwest and in the Northeast. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 73%-25% - 2008: McCain 63%-34%. 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). "This is an added benefit for security and resilience," they wrote. All rights reserved. She blames much of that on the "Trump effect" - Mr Trump's ability to engage people in politics by appealing to their fears and discontents. Oct. 28, 2021, 11:05 AM PDT. 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. If you find this article meaningful and convincing, please share it far and wide. The 2020 election appears to illustrate that the partisanship that's defined politics in Washington for years has now spread to small-town America. A bellwether is a leader or an indicator of trends.. Vigo County, Indiana, is a serious bellwether county. In 2004 Kerry lost it by about 5,000 votes. They are: Notice RANSOM, SARGENT, and MARSHALL in particular. 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. One of the big four suburban collar counties ringing Philadelphia and the fourth-most populous county in the state Bucks is always competitive. 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. There are numerous theories about why it happened in 2020. 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. But that's no longer the case. 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.