2023 BBC. Find a coin, and flip it, and see how long it takes to (just) get 10 heads or 10 tails in a row. 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. Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. 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. [Even Though Biden Won, Republicans Enjoyed The Largest Electoral College Edge In 70 Years. Instead, you can Find the latest updates on our Telegram channel which has more recent updates. The 2020 election appears to illustrate that the partisanship that's defined politics in Washington for years has now spread to small-town America. With demographic change in the Research Triangle area, though, it's possible for Clinton to win without this smaller county. This county voted with the popular vote each time. The Americans who almost always predict the president With a total turnout. That Trump did so well in the remaining 19 bellwether counties in 2020 should come as no surprise, then. ET. Warren and Henry Counties appear to be the least swingy of those counties from 2008 to 2012. Fifth, it listswhether each candidate's politicalparty won seats in the House of Representatives which occurred withObama andTrump, but not Biden. One of the big four suburban collar counties ringing Philadelphia and the fourth-most populous county in the state Bucks is always competitive. If it's close here, Georgia could be in play. The statistic on counties comes from a report bytheBrookings Institution on Nov. 10. Watch the margins in Story (Ames) and Scott (Davenport). Trump appears likely to lose many moderate Republicans here but his message is also expected to appeal to white working class voters in Lower Bucks County, closer to the city. ), You can find the answers to the above questions yourself by searching this site: politico.com/2020-election/results 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. Combinedwith general population growth, and this election had 27 million more participants. 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. Latest voter registration totals: Democrats: 116,093Republicans 89,644Unaffiliated: 86,703. 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. 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. 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. So we took 15 of the states where this election has been hotly waged and identified one county in each that has gone with the winner or closely reflected the statewide margin in each. And as was true in 2016, those counties voted substantially to the right of the nation. On Dec. 14, President-elect Joe Biden secured his victory after he received306 votes from the Electoral College, per USA TODAY. What, if anything, did we miss? Iowa (6 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. In other words, only 54 percent of bellwether counties from 1980 to 2012 kept their status in 2016. It's the wrong question. Latestvoter registration totals:Democrats: 521,881Republicans: 248,934Unaffiliated: 66,775Other: 45,567. In other words, how strongly do they swing to the winning party? 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. 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. (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. 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. 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. In total, Trump won 18 of the 19 former bellwether counties, winning the average such county by 13.7 points in 2020. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-47% - 2008: Obama 55%-44%. At one end of the I-4 corridor, Tampas Hillsborough County is a top bellwether -- since 1960, no candidate has won Florida without winning Hillsborough. 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 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. Follow the Data Identify Electoral Fraud Using Trend Analysis . "Those are things that aren't just political, they become personal, after the 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. "Mathematically impossible," wrote a user who shared it on Facebook. Answer (1 of 33): Because "bellwether counties" are a load of horse manure. Marcela Stewart speaks to a voter at an event to encourage minority voter turnout n Cutler Bay, Fla., on Sunday. Obama won it with 53 percent of the vote while winning statewide by just 75,000 votes in 2012. 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. Whether or not these less diverse, industry-dependent communities can regain their bellwether status in four years' time remains to be seen. 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. Feel free to forward a link to your elected officials as well. Jeff. In total, Trump won 18 of the 19 former bellwether counties, winning the average such county by 13.7 points in 2020. Hillary Clinton speaks during a rally at the Abraham Lincoln High School on Jan. 31 in Des Moines, Iowa. Ottawa County in Ohio has been on target every four years since 1964, and Bexar County in . "Especially considering there's a lot of things that has been done that don't get reported at all.". Re-doing the analysis we obtain 35 modern bellwether counties after the 2016 election. (You can make up your own mind on what the trends mean.). ), Fact check: Biden won the most total votes and the fewest total counties of any president-elect. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 51%-48% - 2008: Obama 52%-47%. Recently, though, social media users have shared a meme with statistics that they claim discredits his victory. We relaxed the constraint by introducing the concept of a swing county, i.e. Virginia (13 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. Clinton will win Democratic Clark County, the states population hub and home to Las Vegas. Kerry Sheridan/AFP/Getty Images Based on our research, the claim that these five statistics about Obama, Trump and Biden appear to discredit election results is MISSING CONTEXT. In other words, it's not whether Clinton wins Hillsborough that's important, but by how much. You should now have a real tangible sense of how difficult it is to get a streak of 10. In 2020,Biden received81,281,888 votes andTrump received74,223,251 votes, according to a tally byUSA TODAY. Lets rank these counties from highest to lowest Democrat voting percentages in the 2008 election. Ryan Matsumoto is a contributing analyst for Inside Elections. 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. The strongest bellwether counties are those that back the winning candidate in all elections. Co., as its sometimes referred to, has gone more closely for the statewide winner than any other big county. 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. Yet Donald Trump received 10 million more votes in 2020 than in 2016 -- and lost. A majority of voters here had backed the eventual winner of presidential elections every time since 1964. North Carolina (15 electoral votes) - Toss-up. Wood County is a decent bellwether of the state: Mr. Trump carried it by eight points in 2016, matching his statewide margin. We believe this was a mistake. A Changing America Faces A Stark Choice This Election. According to an analysis of bellwether states and counties by Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, "Vigo County, Indiana is the most prominent bellwether of presidential. 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. The highest percentage being 66.1%. 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 this section we will introduce a new concept: The swing county. Clinton has to hit that margin in this county where more than half a million people voted. 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. Other counties to watch: Palm Beach and Miami-Dade are both places where Clinton has to drive up the score. But in 2020, 18 of these 19 bellwether counties voted for former President Donald Trump. The more people can work out and see for themselves that the data clearly indicates a different outcome, the better. To get an idea as to whether Clinton could win it, watch Tarrant County. While Trump won every county in the state in the GOP primary, he posted his best result in Luzerne 77 percent. After you have spent an hour trying, record the maximum streak length you achieved. 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. In 2020, a single. 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. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 480,926Republicans, 323,870Unaffiliated: 229,298Others: 65,281. It's true that both Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2020 won in Florida, Ohio and Iowa. Other counties to watch: Perhaps no state more starkly displays the broader rural-urban divide in this country than Virginia. But it's still indicative of widespread support. 2016 Election (1135) 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. 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. Mike Pence, could marshal his supporters to cross the border and provide support. But it's also not unprecedented. Of these 35 counties, 10 of them consistently voted over 50% for the winning candidate since the year 2000. But there was only one county Clallam, Washington which voted Democrat. That might mean needing to factor that in by a couple points. "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. This Gulf Coast county is home to Tampa and has gone with the statewide winner in every presidential election since 1960. Not anymore. For Trump to win, he needs to flip a place like Racine, which went for Obama narrowly. The Trump era made us rethink a lot about politics and elections in America, including the counties that are useful barometers of the national political environment. Read about our approach to external linking. 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. 2. Most of the statistics in the meme are true but they are not proof of voter fraud or other supposed issues with the election. Neither Clinton nor Trump won here during the caucuses in this Mississippi River county. But what if we told you that only 1 of these 22 counties voted for Biden in 2020? University of New Hampshire . Allegheny (Pittsburgh) is also key for Democrats. "When I came here in 1989, you couldn't be elected dog catcher if you weren't a Democrat," he says. During the campaign Mrs Day-Baker says that local Democrats organised a "Ridin' for Biden" parade of vehicles through parts of the county. Multiple factors, including higher turnout and population growth, contributed to the fact that both Biden and Trump totaledmore votes than Obama. 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. 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. 1 County 61947 People 2012 Predicting since One county. With each new section we relaxed the constraint, to include the most friendly Democrat voting counties in the country (based on the 2008 election). 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. (Needless to say that if the tables were reversed, we would hear no end of the significance of bellwether counties in the media.). More: Fact check: What's true and what's false about the 2020 election. Will That Last?]. 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). 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. 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. Help raise awareness within your community about the lingering, unresolved issues with election integrity. Sumter County, . None of them impacts the legitimacy of the presidential election. The key is going to be what kind of floor McMullin has statewide and Trump's ceiling. Even combined, they represent only53 votes a fraction of the 538 total electoral votesor the 270 electoral votes required to win the White House. 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. What science tells us about the afterlife. The statistics also are not indicative of electoral fraud. In 2020, a single county in the setkept its perfect recordby tallying a win for Biden. 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. We further relaxed the constraint by introducing the switch county. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 105,724Republicans: 70,060Unaffiliated: 15,141Other: 6,079. To do so, the popular vote winner of each county for every presidential election from 1980 through 2016 was tabulated and mapped, yielding 19 true bellwether counties for the period. "We call them bellwethers because there's some fluke statistic, sometimes they are the right mix of different demographics. Go on, look them up! All other 21 counties voted Republican. They're just facts about the vote. . 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. In Valencia County, Mr Trump beat Mr Biden by six points more than he defeated Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. It is easy to gloss over this. 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. Also key is Volusia, which represents a large county that has been close to the overall vote. Key Counties: The race here is not binary, so watching the margins in the biggest counties will be important. The county also features a diverse array of industries, from dairy farms and small manufacturers to major health-care companies. 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. "People are more likely to identify with a party than we've seen before," says Harrison Kreisberg of BlueLabs Analytics, a polling firm that works with progressive and Democratic interests. Affluent, well-educated Wake County, home to Raleigh and part of the Research Triangle, was once Republican territory. 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. Click on the relevant state then look for the county name.). Want to dive deeper? 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.). (Sorry, not sorry.) (The highest value being again 66.1%). A majority of voters here had backed the eventual winner of presidential elections every time since 1964. "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. Republicans have paid some attention. Watch this populous county, home to Manchester. Since 1960, Democrats have won Rockingham County only three times. 2020 Election (1210) We know these counties are the best of the best at predicting the election winner. So, even though they got it wrong in 2020, it is still worth figuring out how much they got it wrong by. 2016 primary winners: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Latest voter registration totals: Democrats: 230,401Republicans: 211,817No Party Affiliation: 102,635Others: 16,526. 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).