2016 bellwether counties 2016 bellwether counties

Read about our approach to external linking. 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). It's another one of those white, college-educated areas that could prove key to this election. Not anymore. 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: Romney 73%-25% - 2008: McCain 63%-34%. Like Texas, Utah looks like it's receded from the battleground, so we don't include it in our 13 battlegrounds. 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. 11. This suburban Denver county twice backed George W. Bush then twice supported Barack Obama. 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. The most impressive of those was Valencia County, New Mexico, which voted for the victor in every presidential election from 1952 to 2016. It is the only county to go twice for Bush and twice for Obama. 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. "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. 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. It came close to reflecting the statewide vote in 2012. "It wasn't part of his strategy.". 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. 6. We further relaxed the constraint by introducing the switch county. The statistics also are not indicative of electoral fraud. or even dive into the markdown files yourself to submit improvements. These key counties tell the story of America's shifting political landscape. The website will remain online for the foreseeable future, but may not get any significant updates until the situation changes. (Independent parties will reduce the winning margin between the two major parties.) Learn how and when to remove this template message, "How many counties are in the United States? Republicans have paid some attention. The best bellwether counties will consistently vote more than 50% for the winning party. 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. Increased political polarization is another reason why fewer counties are consistently indicative of presidential results in recent years. "End of day, the solution is complicated but the problem is very simple," wrote a user who shared the meme on Instagram. "I asked if they were from the Republican Party, and they said they were," she says. We identified and analyzed the best of the best bellwether counties at predicting an election outcome, and examined their trends in 2020. 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. Moving forward, it is entirely possible that there will be no single county that consistently indicates the results of a national election. Biden-voting counties equal 70% of America's economy. While Trump won every county in the state in the GOP primary, he posted his best result in Luzerne 77 percent. 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. Lets introduce a new concept: the quality of prediction. Answer (1 of 33): Because "bellwether counties" are a load of horse manure. Latest voter registration totals: 216,082No party registration. Clinton needs to be closer to Obama's 57 percent in 2008 than his 55 percent in 2012. "This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors.". From 1980 through 2016, there were19 counties that consistently voted for the eventual president. | AP Photo, By Darren Samuelsohn, Katie Glueck, Kyle Cheney and Daniel Strauss. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 53%-46% - 2008: McCain 52%-47%. Along with neighboring Pinellas County (St. Petersburg), the two counties include nearly a half-million registered Republicans. Other counties to watch: Perhaps no state more starkly displays the broader rural-urban divide in this country than Virginia. This county voted with the popular vote each time. Cincinnati is kind of considered a little bit of an island off the rest of Ohio. (Needless to say that if the tables were reversed, we would hear no end of the significance of bellwether counties in the media.). 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.". 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. Trump, who has tended to run better with voters without college degrees, got trounced in the primary in Wake earlier this year. Want to dive deeper? Multiple factors, including higher turnout and population growth, contributed to the fact that both Biden and Trump totaledmore votes than Obama. The state's demographics suggest it could go blue one day. Of these 35 counties, 10 of them consistently voted over 50% for the winning candidate since the year 2000. 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. Florida (29 electoral votes) - Toss-up. Suggest an improvement, report an issue, 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. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 258,050Unaffiliated: 228,638Republicans: 185,694Libertarian: 3,711. So, even though they got it wrong in 2020, it is still worth figuring out how much they got it wrong by. But those states represent just 29, 18and six electoral votes, respectively. In 2018, Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, carried it by 11 points. 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 . It voted twice for Bush and twice for Obama. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 50%-49% - 2008: Obama 51%-48%. What's the least amount of exercise we can get away with? 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. It is important to realise these counties have no allegiances whatsoever and will happily vote for whichever party makes the most sense to them based on merit. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-46% - 2008: Obama 54%-44%. 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. George W. Bush twice won comfortably in Forsyth County, the home of Winston-Salem. who in 2016 won Caswell and other rural counties in North Carolina by tapping those feelings of abandonment. 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. The exurban county has seen a surge in minority voters in fact, non-Hispanic whites only constitute 62 percent of the vote, and thats made the area more competitive. Watch the margins in Story (Ames) and Scott (Davenport). If they are tipping to Clinton, it's over. But when word got out, Trump supporters crashed it. 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. Their concerns are real. From 1980 to 2016, 19 counties voted for the winner of the presidential election every single time. 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. ), voted Democrat again in 2020? A majority of voters here had backed the eventual winner of presidential elections every time since 1964. Lake County is a perpetual nail-biter. Of the 19 counties that had a perfect record between 1980 and 2016, all but one voted to reelect President Donald Trump, who lost to Joe Biden in both the national popular vote and in nearly. 7. Telegram Telegram But after twice voting for George W. Bush, it has since moved well to the left. Click on the relevant state then look for the county name.). This favors the Democrat party since we are excluding counties that voted Republican in 1988. Read about our approach to external linking. The magnitude of the gap (or difference) is an indicator of the strength of the change in sentiment. Salt Lake City elected its first lesbian mayor this year, and Obama actually won Salt Lake County by a few hundred votes in 2008. The Bellwether County to Watch in Pennsylvania . 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. If Clinton's winning there, it means she's hitting marks with young voters. This one of 99 counties made up 16 percent of Obama's total vote in 2012. Like Jefferson (but slightly more populous), Arapahoe was once a GOP stronghold that voted for Obama twice. 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. The American Voter's Alliance provides a great national overview with many reports, videos and detailed legal submissions. But it's also not unprecedented. In their . 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. New Hampshire (4 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. Whether or not these less diverse, industry-dependent communities can regain their bellwether status in four years' time remains to be seen. 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. We welcome any suggestions and content contibutions with credible references that help others understand the key election integrity issues. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 316,586Republicans: 258,725No Party Affiliation: 206,457Others: 22,695. 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. Lets rank these counties from highest to lowest Democrat voting percentages in the 2008 election. 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. A county that voted for the winning party in 1992 (Democrat), 2000 (Republican), 2008 (Democrat) and 2016 (Republican), irrespective of how they voted at the other elections. The table shows the number of counties that voted for the winning candidate since the 1988 election. Suburban Denvers Arapahoe and Jefferson counties have moved in tandem for the past four elections. So, for our purposes, a swing county would have voted as follows: There are 80 such counties. That Trump did so well in the remaining 19 bellwether counties in 2020 should come as no surprise, then. We will only focus on the most recent elections to increase the pool of counties to analyze.). Considering how many counties there are in the USA (we h. Outstanding. Their ability and sensitivity to dramatically switch parties in 2000, 2008 and 2016, is outstanding. 4. In 2018, Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, carried it by 11 points . 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. Bonus points if you also keep track of the trends from 2016 to 2020. 8. This is a fairly small county, but we couldn't resist the toll of this bellwether. 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. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-47% - 2008: Obama 55%-44%. Kyrsten Sinema's Odds Of Reelection Don't Look Great. Thank you for supporting our journalism. These counties' national bellwether status might not ring true in 2016, though, because Illinois is one of Obama's home states. But that's no longer the case. 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. How many of these counties voted less for the Republican party in 2020? It almost became religious.". Clinton is counting on running up big numbers in the city of Pittsburgh to offset any gains Trump may make in the suburbs, and in the more conservative surrounding southwestern Pennsylvania counties, including Westmoreland County. Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. (Go to the bottom of the page. Stephen Starr is an Irish journalist and author who reported from the Middle East for a decade before moving to Ohio in 2018. Voter Demographics (9). Here's why. It will keep them entertained for hours, and you can tell them it is for a good cause. The strongest bellwether counties are those that back the winning candidate in all elections. So, where are the bellwether counties? First, what are bellwether counties? What are the odds of getting 21 heads or 21 tails? 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. Trump, however, needs to drive up the score in Collin (Plano). 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. This website summarizes the major findings in the 1218 months following the Nov 2020 election. 2023 ABC News Internet Ventures. Have you looked at the results of these counties? 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. Re-doing the analysis we obtain 35 modern bellwether counties after the 2016 election. In other words, we are including more counties that are more likely to vote for the Democrat party. ET. America's most accurate bellwether counties, regions that have a reputation for accurately picking the president, got the presidential election completely wrong. "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. It also backed Gov. Or want to contribute to our open-source collection of articles and statistics? More: Fact check: What's true and what's false about the 2020 election. At the presidential level, Republicans havent won Oakland County since 1992, though George W. Bush twice came very close. In 2004 Kerry lost it by about 5,000 votes. 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. Texas (38 electoral votes) - Likely Republican, Bellwether: Tarrant (Ft. Worth, Arlington). 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. A total of 35 counties voted for the winner of each presidential election from 1980 through 2012. It's something Joan Day-Baker, chair of Valencia County's Democratic Party, has witnessed first-hand. For Trump to win, he needs to flip a place like Racine, which went for Obama narrowly. 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. Obama won Monroe County 49.6-49.1 in 2012 and 52-47 in 2008. Below are 10 bellwether counties that could give signs as to how the electorate feels this cycle and in future races. In 2020, a single county in the setkept its perfect recordby tallying a win for Biden. With demographic change in the Research Triangle area, though, it's possible for Clinton to win without this smaller county. Since only Clallam County voted Democrat in 2020, we know they all voted for the Republican party in 2020 and got it wrong. As the country's demographics shift and the rural-urban divide becomes more pronounced, the chances appear slim. Copyright 2023 HotAir.com/Salem Media. Home to Davenport, the states third-largest city, Scott County is also packed with independents who can swing either way. In Valencia County, Mr Trump beat Mr Biden by six points more than he defeated Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. After you have spent an hour trying, record the maximum streak length you achieved. Obama won comfortably here in 2008 but only squeaked to victory four years later. 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. [How Much Did COVID-19 Affect The 2020 Election?]. 2016 primary winners: Clinton, Cruz2012: Obama 53%, Romney 46%, Latestvoter registration totals:Democrats: 101,967Republicans: 75,145Unaffiliated:65,344Libertarian: 1,022. In the 1990s, he says, Democrats ran for many local county positions unopposed. University of New Hampshire . November 8, 2016 9:29 AM ET. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. Watch the Philadelphia suburbs, and that means white women. Have information that relates to fraud in this election? Once you have found all the results and looked at the trends, remember, these counties are the best counties at predicting an election outcome! Were doing a lot of adult retraining, he said. (i.e. While local Republican Party candidates enjoyed a bump in local media coverage for opening a new headquarters last summer, Democrats were facing vastly different circumstances. All other 21 counties voted Republican. 3. Republicans are bullish that the suburban county will stay in their column this time, in part because of frustration with Washington. Well, lets consider the percentage gap between the winning and losing party in these counties. Latest voter registration totals: 618,420 No party registration. Affluent, well-educated Wake County, home to Raleigh and part of the Research Triangle, was once Republican territory. Of these 35 counties, 10 of them consistently voted over 50% for the winning candidate since the year 2000. 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. Warren and Henry Counties appear to be the least swingy of those counties from 2008 to 2012. 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. ), You can find the answers to the above questions yourself by searching this site: politico.com/2020-election/results 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. The divisions were everywhere. What, if anything, did we miss? (The highest value being 66.1%), When sorted from the highest to lowest Democrat percentage vote (at the 2008 election), we can see that there are 25 counties that have a percentage Democrat vote greater than 60% at the 2008 election. In fact, a national coalition of election security officials described the general election as "the most secure in American history," per USA TODAY. Watauga has gone for the winner statewide in each of the last three presidential elections and three Senate races since 2008. Just one Clallam County, Washington voted for President Joe Biden. Based on our research, the claim that these five statistics about Obama, Trump and Biden appear to discredit election results is MISSING CONTEXT. How Does The Electoral College Work And Is It Fair? Most of the statistics in the meme are true but they are not proof of voter fraud or other supposed issues with the election. [How The Frost Belt And Sun Belt Illustrate The Complexity Of Americas Urban-Rural Divide]. Furthermore, consider the fact that bellwethers dont just have a random 50% chance at winning we should expect them to have a better than 50% chance of getting it right. And as was true in 2016, those counties voted substantially to the right of the nation. . To get an idea as to whether Clinton could win it, watch Tarrant County. Green Bays Brown County voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, then Barack Obama in 2008, then flipped to Mitt Romney in 2012. Virginia (13 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. Second, the meme includes the number of counties each candidate won Obama at 873, Trump at 2,497 and Biden at 477. 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. Contributors wanted The US Election Integrity Plan contains further news, analysis, videos and practical guides to getting involved. And like so many electoral trends, demographics play a major role in explaining why these once-bellwether counties finally missed the mark in 2020. Will they vote for the winner in 2016? The probability is hard to comprehend, so lets figure it out for real. With each new section we relaxed the constraint, to include the most friendly Democrat voting counties in the country (based on the 2008 election). Other counties to watch: Pima (where Tucson is). Other swing counties to watch: Monroe and Calhoun. 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. Split-Ticket Voters Helped Biden, Republicans in Nebraska, Maine, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. You should now have a real tangible sense of how difficult it is to get a streak of 10. Latest voter registration totals: Democrats: 116,093Republicans 89,644Unaffiliated: 86,703. Watauga has gone for. 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. The highest percentage being 66.1%. This county, home to Reno, borders California and is at the opposite end of the state from Las Vegas. Other counties to watch: Denver suburbs Adams, Arapahoe, Jefferson. Its also loaded with government contractors and defense companies hit hard by the sequester. 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. We sorted the counties from highest to lowest Democrat percentage vote (in the 2008 election). 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. If you'd like to assist or contribute in some way, learn how. For the mathematically-minded: the table below shows that county outcomes do loosely follow a random outcome, up until a point. Shield icon by Freepik from flaticon.com.