"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. 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 . Somehow we jumped from 22 to 1 county in one election cycle and we are supposed to believe that is normal? Fact check: Trump-backed Michigan congressional candidate John - CNN "This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors.". Click on the relevant state then look for the county name.). If Clinton can carry Henrico, it will help offset nearby Chesterfield County, the slightly larger and more Republican-oriented Richmond suburb. What science tells us about the afterlife. We believe this was a mistake. What are bellwether counties and can they actually predict elections This was important for candidates since the presidential candidate's campaign would normally foot the bill. 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). Or even better, if you have children, get them to do it for you. Bellwether Counties Nearly Wiped Out by 2020 Election - WSJ 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. It gets a lot more interesting. They were particularly representative in 2012, when the average 1980-to-2016 bellwether county was just 0.8 points more Democratic than the nation. ), voted Democrat again in 2020? How Does The Electoral College Work And Is It Fair? Racine County2016 primary winners: Sanders, Cruz, Latest voter registration totals: 113,599No party registration. or even dive into the markdown files yourself to submit improvements. "We had to quietly move our parade," she says. Demographics (84) 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. So, for our purposes, a swing county would have voted as follows: There are 80 such counties. But it's still indicative of widespread support. The question is, how much did they get it wrong by? 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. That'sanother reason results of the contests might not have lined up. '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. Explore the pages of this site and the links to further reports. Dont simply gloss over this. (Think about what it takes, and what is required for a county to always get the election right. 25 battleground counties to watch - POLITICO 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. | AP Photo, By Darren Samuelsohn, Katie Glueck, Kyle Cheney and Daniel Strauss. Other swing counties to watch: Monroe and Calhoun. Florida (29 electoral votes) - Toss-up. By Dasha Burns, Antonia Hylton, Shaquille Brewster and Benjy Sarlin. While Trump won every county in the state in the GOP primary, he posted his best result in Luzerne 77 percent. Donald Trump is highly unlikely to win here -- Democrats have a big voter registration advantage in this county where Trump owns one of his many homes. It's also worth noting that some voters "split their tickets" between parties voting for Biden but also for Republicans in Congress, for example. Latest voter registration totals: 937,155 No party registration. The Tipping Points of the 2016 Election - The Atlantic John King has identified as key in the 2016 election. 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. From 1980 to 2016, 19 counties voted for the winner of the presidential election every single time. Other counties to watch: Wake, in the heart of the Research Triangle, used to be considered a swing county. 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.". 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. Oct. 28, 2021, 11:05 AM PDT. From 1980 through 2016, there were 19 counties that consistently voted for the eventual president. Obama won it narrowly that year, by fewer than 3,000 votes. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 51%-48% - 2008: Obama 52%-47%. 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. The percentage of people with college degrees here is two-thirds higher than the rest of the state. It's true that both Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2020 won in Florida, Ohio and Iowa. A Changing America Faces A Stark Choice This Election. Also key is Larimer (Fort Collins). Pittsburghs Allegheny County, the second-most populous county in the state after Philadelphia, is heavily Democratic. These former bellwether counties are much whiter and less college-educated than the country as a whole. In economics, a 'bellwether' is a leading indicator of an economic trend. 2012 National and State PVI Bellwether Counties for All 50 States Based on our research, the claim that these five statistics about Obama, Trump and Biden appear to discredit election results is MISSING CONTEXT. 2016 winners: Bernie Sanders (Democratic caucus); Ted Cruz (GOP state convention) . The county also features a diverse array of industries, from dairy farms and small manufacturers to major health-care companies. Other counties to watch: Pima (where Tucson is). That includes10elections, includingObama in 2008 and Trump in 2016. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. 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. And as was true in 2016, those counties voted substantially to the right of the nation. 2016 primary winners: Sanders, Trump2012: Romney 52%, Obama 47%, Latest voter registration totals:Undeclared: 82,008Republicans: 80,068Democrats: 63,257. It went for Romney in 2012 (when he won it), but Obama in 2008 (when the Democrat did). If bellwethers were just a statistical curiosity and purely random, we could expect half of these counties to pick the winning party at the 2020 election. This year with Mr Trump winning the county handily, not only did Vigo County Republicans keep their seats, a "red tide" similar to what transpired in Ottawa and Valencia counties saw Republican members take positions such as county judge, treasurer, clerk and recorder. Driving up the margins in those places will be key for Clinton. All Rights Reserved. Weeks after Election Day, there have still been no discoveriesof widespread voter fraud. 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 . 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. Until this year. 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. Bellwether - Wikipedia Feel free to forward a link to your elected officials as well. Scott Walker all three times his name appeared on the ballot. For the mathematically-minded: the table below shows that county outcomes do loosely follow a random outcome, up until a point. From 1980 to 2016, 19 counties voted for the winner of the presidential election every single time. But since it's gotten so much attention this cycle with the possibility that independent Evan McMullin siphons off votes from Trump, we kept it in here. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-47% - 2008: Obama 55%-44%. Neither Clinton nor Trump won here during the caucuses in this Mississippi River county. 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. 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. Until this year. The fact that there were 19 demonstrates the incredible predictive abilities of these counties.). 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 . 2. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 480,926Republicans, 323,870Unaffiliated: 229,298Others: 65,281. Fifth, it listswhether each candidate's politicalparty won seats in the House of Representatives which occurred withObama andTrump, but not Biden. Seven counties, including Vigo, have got it right in the past dozen elections. 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. That report was issued on Nov. 12. We will only focus on the most recent elections to increase the pool of counties to analyze.). And as was true in 2016, those counties voted substantially to the right of the nation. 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. George W. Bush twice won comfortably in Forsyth County, the home of Winston-Salem. Vigo County, Indiana, is a serious bellwether county. Answer (1 of 33): Because "bellwether counties" are a load of horse manure. The state's demographics suggest it could go blue one day. Almost a quarter of Obama's votes in 2012 came out of Wayne County (Detroit), which is 41 percent black. President-elect Joe Biden officially secured the presidency after the Electoral College met to give him and Vice President-elect Harris 306 votes. The matters that way on their minds are real. 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. Trump gave them hope. @ryanmatsumoto1, Donald Trump (1624 posts) However, its bellwether status is by no means guaranteed in future elections. Biden-voting counties equal 70% of America's economy. 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. Kerry Sheridan/AFP/Getty Images The popular vote is not enough to win apresidential election; thatonly occurs with awin in the Electoral College. What Can We Learn from Bellwether Counties in Swing States? In total, Trump won 18 of the 19 former bellwether counties, winning the average such county by 13.7 points in 2020. It is easy to gloss over this. This one of 99 counties made up 16 percent of Obama's total vote in 2012. a suburban Philadelphia county that went for Hillary Clinton in 2016 with 52.6% of the vote, and that . Read about our approach to external linking. 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. Will they vote for the winner in 2016? History suggests not: just two-thirds of historic bellwether counties. Putting names to archive photos, The children left behind in Cuba's mass exodus, In photos: India's disappearing single-screen cinemas. The 2020 election appears to illustrate that the partisanship that's defined politics in Washington for years has now spread to small-town America. Latest voter registration totals: Democrats: 116,093Republicans 89,644Unaffiliated: 86,703. University of Denver, 2. 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. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 258,050Unaffiliated: 228,638Republicans: 185,694Libertarian: 3,711. 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. Allegheny (Pittsburgh) is also key for Democrats. A switch county is our name for a county that happens to vote for the winning party whenever there is a change of parties, ignoring how they voted for the incumbent. "I think people were pretty happy with some of the things he's done, what he's been able to accomplish," says Mark Coppeler, a leading local Republican who was re-elected county commissioner last month. [How The Frost Belt And Sun Belt Illustrate The Complexity Of Americas Urban-Rural Divide]. 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. 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 they are tipping to Clinton, it's over. 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. 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. Outstanding. 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. Still, the state's worth watching. Salt Lake City elected its first lesbian mayor this year, and Obama actually won Salt Lake County by a few hundred votes in 2008. They are: Notice RANSOM, SARGENT, and MARSHALL in particular. They simply vote on merit. If you take a coin and flip it 22 times. 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% ! Demographically, the bellwether counties tended to be whiter, older, less . Some of the same messages that are going to work in Northeastern Ohio are maybe not going to work as well down here, said county GOP Chairman Alex Triantafilou. Enter Donald Trump. Marcela Stewart speaks to a voter at an event to encourage minority voter turnout n Cutler Bay, Fla., on Sunday. Watch the margins in Story (Ames) and Scott (Davenport). 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. His win in 2012 was by a smaller margin in Forsyth County than in 2008, as the state flipped back to Mitt Romney. That might mean needing to factor that in by a couple points. We already claimed that bellwether counties are a lot more than statistical curiosities, but lets assume for the time being that normal rules of probability apply. Were not going to just give you the answer, since the significance of the result might be lost on you. Suburban Denvers Arapahoe and Jefferson counties have moved in tandem for the past four elections. Help raise awareness within your community about the lingering, unresolved issues with election integrity. Dave Wasserman, who analyzes election data for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, told the Wall Street Journal that ticket-splitting appeared to make "a fashion comeback in many places.". Where Did All The Bellwether Counties Go? | FiveThirtyEight These are places that are demographically strong for Republicans in the abstract, but might have had something that kept them closer to 50-50.". Most bellwether counties were slightly Democratic-leaning in 2008 and Republican leaning in 2012. It provided the second highest vote totals of any county and a significant share for Democrats. 9. Suggest an improvement, report an issue, But after twice voting for George W. Bush, it has since moved well to the left. Keep in mind that if we started the attrition from the 1980 election, there would still be 19 counties standing after the 2016 election. ), You can find the answers to the above questions yourself by searching this site: politico.com/2020-election/results An Inquiry of Bellwether Counties in US Presidential Elections, 1980-2016 Daniel Zimny-Schmitt1, Michael C. Harris2 1. (i.e. 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. The divisions were everywhere. It also backed Gov. Obeng (2016) was similarly skeptical, noting that bellwethers run the risk of producing models that explain what has happened but cannot predict the future. Increased political polarization is another reason why fewer counties are consistently indicative of presidential results in recent years. To get an idea as to whether Clinton could win it, watch Tarrant County. In total, Trump won 18 of the 19 former bellwether counties, winning the average such county by 13.7 points in 2020. Iowa (6 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. In 132 years, no president has received more votes in his run for reelection and lost. Contributors wanted From 1980 through 2016, 19 of the nation's more than 3,000 counties voted for the eventual president in every election. Statewide results: 2012: Romney 53%-44% - 2008: McCain 54%-45%. Other counties to watch: Denver suburbs Adams, Arapahoe, Jefferson. And as was true in 2016, those counties voted substantially to the right of the nation. "Mathematically impossible," wrote a user who shared it on Facebook. "We call them bellwethers because there's some fluke statistic, sometimes they are the right mix of different demographics. "End of day, the solution is complicated but the problem is very simple," wrote a user who shared the meme on Instagram. More than one-in-four votes cast for Obama and Romney in 2012 came from Hillsborough. (Independent parties will reduce the winning margin between the two major parties.) Not a bad streak. There are numerous theories about why it happened in 2020. Whether or not these less diverse, industry-dependent communities can regain their bellwether status in four years' time remains to be seen. Obama won it with 53 percent of the vote while winning statewide by just 75,000 votes in 2012. This website summarizes the major findings in the 1218 months following the Nov 2020 election. A caveat: because its black population is higher than the state average (21 percent versus 13 percent), the county has gone narrowly for Democrats even in 2004 and 2000 when George W. Bush won the state. Just how big is it? 2023 BBC. 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. Warren and Henry Counties appear to be the least swingy of those counties from 2008 to 2012. PDF An Inquiry of Bellwether Counties in US Presidential Elections, 1980-2016