2016 bellwether counties 2016 bellwether counties

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: Clinton has to drive up the margins in counties along the shores of Lake Erie, from Lucas (Toledo) to most notably Cuyahoga (Cleveland). Latest voter registration totals:Undeclared: 105,097Republicans: 87,763Democrats: 77,383. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-46% - 2008: Obama 54%-44%. To make things more interesting we will only look at swing counties since the 2004 election. 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. Or, if you dont have enough time, how many of the top 10 switch counties, which overwhelmingly voted Democrat in 2008 (with a percentage Democrat vote over 58% ! (You can make up your own mind on what the trends mean.). In communities . 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. ET. So the question is, how many of them switched back to the Democrat party in 2020? 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). It is the only county to go twice for Bush and twice for Obama. After you have spent an hour trying, record the maximum streak length you achieved. In 2008, Obama carried this county outside Detroit by 9 percentage points but that winning margin was cut in half in 2012 with Michigan native Mitt Romney leading the GOP ticket. 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. There were 1.3 million voters, or a quarter of all the state's voters, in just eight counties in that stretch. But along with the states other urbanized counties, Forsyth has moved to the left, twice backing Barack Obama. University of New Hampshire . 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. Eastern Iowa is often seen as Democratic turf -- the last 4 Democratic presidential nominees have won Scott County. who in 2016 won Caswell and other rural counties in North Carolina by tapping those feelings of abandonment. Their concerns are real. The Bellwether County to Watch in Pennsylvania . Ottawa County in Ohio has been on target every four years since 1964, and Bexar County in . "Mathematically impossible," wrote a user who shared it on Facebook. Asingle county could have as few as 88 residents,like Kalawao County, Hawaii. But in 2020, 18 of these 19 bellwether counties voted for former President Donald Trump. Other swing counties to watch: Monroe and Calhoun. | AP Photo, By Darren Samuelsohn, Katie Glueck, Kyle Cheney and Daniel Strauss. Hamilton is ringed by heavily Republican Butler, Warren and Clermont counties, and it shares a border with Indiana, which is giving hope to GOP officials who think Trumps running mate, Indiana Gov. Still, the key for Democrats is Salt Lake, which gave Obama more than half his statewide vote there. America's most accurate bellwether counties, regions that have a reputation for accurately picking the president, got the presidential election completely wrong. 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). The fact that there are fewer swing counties means that there are fewer potential bellwether counties. Wood County is a decent bellwether of the state: Mr. Trump carried it by eight points in 2016, matching his statewide margin. 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. "This is an added benefit for security and resilience," they wrote. What are the odds of getting 21 heads or 21 tails? Statewide results: 2012: Obama 51%-47% - 2008: Obama 53%-46%. 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. It provided the second highest vote totals of any county and a significant share for Democrats. Split-Ticket Voters Helped Biden, Republicans in Nebraska, Maine, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. In other words, how strongly do they swing to the winning party? Lets find a coin, and flip it. In 2018, Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, carried it by 11 points. If Clinton's winning there, it means she's hitting marks with young voters. 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. In Valencia County, New Mexico, which had correctly predicted the winner of every presidential election since 1952, Mr Trump won by 10 points; in Indiana's Vigo County, which backed every president bar two since 1888, he prevailed by 15 points. Other counties to watch: Perhaps no state more starkly displays the broader rural-urban divide in this country than Virginia. This favors the Democrat party since we are excluding counties that voted Republican in 1988. To get an idea as to whether Clinton could win it, watch Tarrant County. John King has identified as key in the 2016 election. 'Forest defenders' begin week of action to block Atlanta police training center, Frogxit: Harry and Meghan get what they asked for, More Iranian schoolgirls fall ill, protests erupt, Russell Brand was challenged to give examples of MSNBC pushing misinformation (that was a BAD idea), Secretary of the Army Guarantees a Lot of Young Soldiers Will Die but Has the Right Thoughts and Feelings, California - Do Not Sell My Personal Information. 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. 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. View our How You Can Help page, or contribute via 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. In economics, a 'bellwether' is a leading indicator of an economic trend. The popular vote is not enough to win apresidential election; thatonly occurs with awin in the Electoral College. Help raise awareness within your community about the lingering, unresolved issues with election integrity. Combined, they had more than twice the votes of Denver proper and 30 percent of all the votes statewide. (It will at least show a trend away from the Republican party that would help make more sense of this situation. You can find the answer by searching politico.com/2020-election/results. It voted twice for Bush and twice for Obama. Republicans are bullish that the suburban county will stay in their column this time, in part because of frustration with Washington. David Niven, a political scientist at the University of Cincinnati, also told the Associated Press that it "speaks to an evolution in American politics" rather than fraud. 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.). 2016 primary winners: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Latest voter registration totals: Democrats: 230,401Republicans: 211,817No Party Affiliation: 102,635Others: 16,526. (Think about what it takes, and what is required for a county to always get the election right. 3. Telegram Telegram But when word got out, Trump supporters crashed it. Here, local Republican candidates fuelled by Mr Trump's firebrand style almost wiped Democrats off the local political map. In each of the past three presidential elections, Arizona has had four consistently Democratic counties (Apache, Coconino, Pima, Santa Cruz) and 11 Republican ones (Cochise, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, La Paz, Maricopa, Mohave, Navajo, Pinal, Yavapai and Yuma). Trump is making a hard play here; His first visit to Iowa after accepting the nomination at the Republican National Convention was in Scott County. Once you have found all the results and looked at the trends, remember, these counties are the best counties at predicting an election outcome! That Trump did so well in the remaining 19 bellwether counties in 2020 should come as no surprise, then. And as was true in 2016, those counties voted substantially to the right of the nation. i.e. In 2012, it had nearly half a million more voters in it than every other county in the state combined. With demographic change in the Research Triangle area, though, it's possible for Clinton to win without this smaller county. After 8 elections, the number of counties left standing defy the odds, and it is this fact that makes them bellwether counties. That's 14 in a row. Lets introduce a new concept: the quality of prediction. Clinton has to drive up the score in Philadelphia with its significant share of black voters. Click on the relevant state then look for the county name.). 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. Their emotions and decision making process are real. Other counties to watch: Denver suburbs Adams, Arapahoe, Jefferson. It went for Romney in 2012 (when he won it), but Obama in 2008 (when the Democrat did). Statewide results: 2012: Obama 54%-45% - 2008: Obama 57%-41%. Suggest an improvement, report an issue, According to PolitiFact, voter turnout was66.2% in 2020 and 61.6% in 2008. What are your thoughts on this article? Trump also needs to drive up margins in Republican-leaning Western counties like Kent (Grand Rapids) and Ottawa (on the shores of Lake Michigan). Kerry Sheridan/AFP/Getty Images They are not a statistical curiosity, but the perfect distillation or embodiment of the whole countrys sentiment. We tried to pick counties that had a large enough population to matter some or if they just had a knack for picking that statewide winner. This county, home to Reno, borders California and is at the opposite end of the state from Las Vegas. Other counties to watch: Counties where Clinton has to drive up the score include Bexar (San Antonio), Hidalgo (McAllen) and Travis (Austin). Seven counties, including Vigo, have got it right in the past dozen elections. That might mean needing to factor that in by a couple points. Still, the state's worth watching. 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. Almost a quarter of Obama's votes in 2012 came out of Wayne County (Detroit), which is 41 percent black. Go on, look them up! Whether or not these less diverse, industry-dependent communities can regain their bellwether status in four years' time remains to be seen. 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. 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. 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 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. Latest voter registration totals: 216,082No party registration. It far surpasses any statistical explanation, because at the end of the day we are dealing with real people, with real personalities, concerns and aspirations, which happen to align perfectly with the whole American population. Ultimately, they are simply 19 counties and this time, 18 of them voted for the candidate who lost the election. 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. There are more than 3,000 counties in the United States, but in presidential elections they are not all created equal. But its population has steadily diversified, including a surge in Asian and Latino voters, which has made it more competitive Obama carried it twice. In their . But what if we told you that only 1 of these 22 counties voted for Biden in 2020? Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-47% - 2008: Obama 55%-44%. Joe Biden (631) What, if anything, did we miss? 2016 primary winners: Clinton, Trump2012: Obama 50%, Romney 49%, Latestvoter registration totals:Democrats: 192,278Republicans: 182,364Unaffiliated: 40,047Other: 29,484. (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. 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. 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. This Gulf Coast county is home to Tampa and has gone with the statewide winner in every presidential election since 1960. Other counties to watch: Watch Atlanta and the suburbs. 11. A total of 35 counties voted for the winner of each presidential election from 1980 through 2012. Multiple factors, including higher turnout and population growth, contributed to the fact that both Biden and Trump totaledmore votes than Obama. Ryan Matsumoto is a contributing analyst for Inside Elections. Utah (6 electoral votes) - Likely Republican. This populous, longtime Republican county has shifted in the last two presidential elections, as demograpic change has swept the metro Atlanta area. But that changed in 2016 when Trump made huge gains with white voters without a college degree. 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. 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. Vigo County, Indiana, is a serious bellwether county. Clinton has to hit that margin in this county where more than half a million people voted. Allegheny (Pittsburgh) is also key for Democrats. 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. But Northampton went closely with the statewide margin in 2012. Election night is going to be information overload. First, what are bellwether counties? It went with the exact margin for Romney in 2012 statewide and McCain statewide in 2008. Jacksonvilles Duval County has been a reliable Republican performer over the years, though it nearly went for Obama in 2008 in large part due to high African-American turnout. 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. In 2020,Biden received81,281,888 votes andTrump received74,223,251 votes, according to a tally byUSA TODAY. The statistic on counties comes from a report bytheBrookings Institution on Nov. 10. Trump gave them hope. Outstanding. Not a bad streak. It gets a lot more interesting. 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. ", "Bellwether Counties Nearly Wiped Out by 2020 Election", "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_election_bellwether_counties_in_the_United_States&oldid=1125445752, This page was last edited on 4 December 2022, at 01:36. "I said: 'I'm the chair of the Democratic Party,' and the gentleman looked at me and said: 'Oh, the enemy.'". Neither Clinton nor Trump won here during the caucuses in this Mississippi River county. 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. 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. We relaxed the constraint by introducing the concept of a swing county, i.e. Based on our research, the claim that these five statistics about Obama, Trump and Biden appear to discredit election results is MISSING CONTEXT. Trump also needs to overperform in Macomb, another Detroit suburb, which narrowly went for Obama in 2012. Have you looked at the results of these counties? The American Voter's Alliance provides a great national overview with many reports, videos and detailed legal submissions. Latest voter registration totals: Democrats: 116,093Republicans 89,644Unaffiliated: 86,703. 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. 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. Watauga has gone for. How Does The Electoral College Work And Is It Fair? In 2008, Obama received69,498,516 votes, per the Federal Election Commission. The Most Important Counties to Watch on Election Night. Re-doing the analysis we obtain 35 modern bellwether counties after the 2016 election. 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. (Independent parties will reduce the winning margin between the two major parties.) 12. And as was true in 2016, those counties voted substantially to the right of the nation. During the campaign Mrs Day-Baker says that local Democrats organised a "Ridin' for Biden" parade of vehicles through parts of the county. Obama won Monroe County 49.6-49.1 in 2012 and 52-47 in 2008. Trump won Luzerne County by nearly 20 points in 2016, outperforming Romney . A total of 35 counties voted for the winner of each presidential election from 1980 through 2012. 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. A majority of voters here had backed the eventual winner of presidential elections every time since 1964. (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. Watch Hampton City. It clearly shows they hold no allegiances and will vote for whichever party makes the most sense to them at each election. Biden-voting counties equal 70% of America's economy. Arapahoe County. Marcela Stewart speaks to a voter at an event to encourage minority voter turnout n Cutler Bay, Fla., on Sunday. From 1980 to 2016, 19 counties voted for the winner of the presidential election every single time. It's another one of those white, college-educated areas that could prove key to this election. For Trump to win, he has to carry this populous Detroit suburb. Ask our loving God to act in dealing with corruption, restoring justice and integrity in the nation, and prayerfully consider who you should share information with and what your role might be. You should now have a real tangible sense of how difficult it is to get a streak of 10. Some say it's not only the polarisation induced by the outgoing president that's to blame for traditional bellwether counties' failure to correctly predict the election. 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. Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. Trumps local ties notwithstanding, Clinton is likely to run up her numbers here in the northernmost part of the South Florida region. In 2020, a single. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 57%-41% - 2008: McCain 55%-44%. History suggests not: just two-thirds of historic bellwether counties. If you find this article meaningful and convincing, please share it far and wide. 2023 ABC News Internet Ventures. If it's close here, Georgia could be in play. Copyright 2023 HotAir.com/Salem Media. Other counties to watch: Nowhere is more important than Polk (Des Moines). More than one-in-four votes cast for Obama and Romney in 2012 came from Hillsborough. Vigo County, Indiana, is a serious bellwether county. As weve seen in the past two presidential elections, bellwether streaks can be suddenly ended thanks to Americas continually evolving political and demographic trends. 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. That Trump did so well in the remaining 19 bellwether counties in 2020 should come as no surprise, then. 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. Until this year. Along with neighboring Pinellas County (St. Petersburg), the two counties include nearly a half-million registered Republicans. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 258,050Unaffiliated: 228,638Republicans: 185,694Libertarian: 3,711.