It's something Joan Day-Baker, chair of Valencia County's Democratic Party, has witnessed first-hand. Kerry Sheridan/AFP/Getty Images Copyright 2023 HotAir.com/Salem Media. "This is an added benefit for security and resilience," they wrote. Key Counties: The race here is not binary, so watching the margins in the biggest counties will be important. In 2012, it had nearly half a million more voters in it than every other county in the state combined. 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). Tampa's Hillsborough County is a top bellwether -- since 1960, no candidate has won Florida . Or itcould have almost 10.1 million residents, like Los Angeles County. Were not going to just give you the answer, since the significance of the result might be lost on you. ), You can find the answers to the above questions yourself by searching this site: politico.com/2020-election/results Telegram Telegram Learn about the anomalies, strange events, and eyewitness accounts surrounding the 2020 election. 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). 10. Warren and Henry Counties appear to be the least swingy of those counties from 2008 to 2012. Bonus points if you also keep track of the trends from 2016 to 2020. Second, the meme includes the number of counties each candidate won Obama at 873, Trump at 2,497 and Biden at 477. That might mean needing to factor that in by a couple points. 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. 2016 winners: Bernie Sanders (Democratic caucus); Ted Cruz (GOP state convention) . More than one-in-four votes cast for Obama and Romney in 2012 came from Hillsborough. Like Jefferson (but slightly more populous), Arapahoe was once a GOP stronghold that voted for Obama twice. Latest voter registration totals: 618,420 No party registration. If you find this article meaningful and convincing, please share it far and wide. America's most accurate bellwether counties, regions that have a reputation for accurately picking the president, got the presidential election completely wrong. Clinton needs to be closer to Obama's 57 percent in 2008 than his 55 percent in 2012. The most populous county in the state and home to Manchester and Nashua, Hillsborough twice voted narrowly for Bush and twice for Obama. How Does The Electoral College Work And Is It Fair? It has gone with the statewide winner in every presidential election since 2000. "They followed through the whole four years. Obama won comfortably here in 2008 but only squeaked to victory four years later. Republican county chairman Michael Barnett said hed celebrate if Trump could do better than Romneys 41 percent total here in 2012. Fifth, it listswhether each candidate's politicalparty won seats in the House of Representatives which occurred withObama andTrump, but not Biden. If they are tipping to Clinton, it's over. The probability is hard to comprehend, so lets figure it out for real. They have a rare and unique property of having a perfect demographic mix that allows them to vote for either party based on the merits of each election, and always get it right. The same can be said for the three states listed in the meme. Bellwether counties are already extremely rare, but some bellwether counties are better than others at highlighting a change in sentiment. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. 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. Team up with others in your region, and help out by 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. These are the bellwether counties. our Gitlab account where you can 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. 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. Want to dive deeper? That Trump did so well in the remaining 19 bellwether counties in 2020 should come as no surprise, then. (The highest value being again 66.1%). Statewide results: 2012: Obama 50%-49% - 2008: Obama 51%-48%. Re-doing the analysis we obtain 35 modern bellwether counties after the 2016 election. Click here, for more. It's true that both Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2020 won in Florida, Ohio and Iowa. What results did you discover? Here is a look at the bellwether counties for the 2020 presidential race. 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% ! Other counties to watch: Wake, in the heart of the Research Triangle, used to be considered a swing county. They were particularly representative in 2012, when the average 1980-to-2016 bellwether county was just 0.8 points more Democratic than the nation. 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.". The users have not responded to requests from USA TODAY for comment. Help raise awareness within your community about the lingering, unresolved issues with election integrity. Bellwether counties are important, and their significance should not be downplayed. 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. More: Fact check: What's true and what's false about the 2020 election. The fact that there were 19 demonstrates the incredible predictive abilities of these counties.). 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. Scott Walker all three times his name appeared on the ballot. Explore the pages of this site and the links to further reports. Really stop reading. "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. For a county to be considered a bellwether it would have to vote for the winning party at each of the following elections: That is 4 switches in 8 election cycles! In total, Trump won 18 of the 19 former bellwether counties, winning the average such county by 13.7 points in 2020. But when word got out, Trump supporters crashed it. Keep in mind that if we started the attrition from the 1980 election, there would still be 19 counties standing after the 2016 election. 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 matters that way on their minds are real. Iowa (6 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. Or even better, if you have children, get them to do it for you. It went in a big way for Trump in the primary, but Obama won it, and the margin was similar to his statewide spread. 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. Marcela Stewart speaks to a voter at an event to encourage minority voter turnout n Cutler Bay, Fla., on Sunday. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-47% - 2008: Obama 55%-44%. Latest voter registration totals: Unaffiliated: 49,026Democrats: 40,563Republicans: 35,146. 1 County 61947 People 2012 Predicting since One county. For a minute in this campaign, it looked like it could be a fairly close race in Texas, even within 5 points. History suggests not: just two-thirds of historic bellwether counties. Ron Elving . Other counties to watch: Often early results in Michigan will show a close race or Republicans ahead, until the Detroit area votes come in. The magnitude of the gap (or difference) is an indicator of the strength of the change in sentiment. | AP Photo, By Darren Samuelsohn, Katie Glueck, Kyle Cheney and Daniel Strauss. 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. 2016 primary winners: Clinton, Cruz2012: Obama 53%, Romney 46%, Latestvoter registration totals:Democrats: 101,967Republicans: 75,145Unaffiliated:65,344Libertarian: 1,022. 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. The statistics also are not indicative of electoral fraud. 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. To get an idea as to whether Clinton could win it, watch Tarrant County. And as was true in 2016, those counties voted substantially to the right of the nation. Affluent, well-educated Wake County, home to Raleigh and part of the Research Triangle, was once Republican territory. Election bellwether counties in the United States are counties that vote in alignment with the country as a whole in United States presidential elections, so that the county votes for the candidate who ultimately wins the election. Other counties to watch: Counties where Clinton has to drive up the score include Bexar (San Antonio), Hidalgo (McAllen) and Travis (Austin). It provided the second highest vote totals of any county and a significant share for Democrats. Also key is Volusia, which represents a large county that has been close to the overall vote. 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. A Changing America Faces A Stark Choice This Election. 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. 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. The meme compares information about former President Barack Obama in 2008 and President Donald Trump and Biden in 2020. "Mathematically impossible," wrote a user who shared it on Facebook. Jeff. In Valencia County, Mr Trump beat Mr Biden by six points more than he defeated Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. used to vote more like the country as a whole, huge gains with white voters without a college degree, just 303 counties were decided by single-digit margins in 2016, How The Federal Reserve Is The Shadow Branch Of The Government, Why Original Predictions About The War In Ukraine Were So Off. The 2020 election appears to illustrate that the partisanship that's defined politics in Washington for years has now spread to small-town America. And this is the state with the highest share of whites with college degrees in the country. 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. Especially since Biden received million more votes than Obama did in 2008. Seriously. In the end, only Clallam County retained its streak this year. A bellwether county that includes Canton, its part of a heavily blue collar region where Trumps message could resonate. Go on, look them up! Marcela Stewart speaks to a voter at an event to encourage minority voter turnout n Cutler Bay, Fla., on Sunday. Split-Ticket Voters Helped Biden, Republicans in Nebraska, Maine, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. This Gulf Coast county is home to Tampa and has gone with the statewide winner in every presidential election since 1960. "Especially considering there's a lot of things that has been done that don't get reported at all.". Arapahoe County. Trumps local ties notwithstanding, Clinton is likely to run up her numbers here in the northernmost part of the South Florida region. It clearly shows they hold no allegiances and will vote for whichever party makes the most sense to them at each election. Free and open-source. 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. How many of these 150 switch counties voted Democrat in 2020? We wanted to provide an easy-to-use guide of which counties to keep tabs on that could tell you how states might vote that are crucial to the election. That is 19 counties still standing after 10 elections! Salt Lake City elected its first lesbian mayor this year, and Obama actually won Salt Lake County by a few hundred votes in 2008. 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. 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. Trump gave them hope. 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. A bellwether is a leader or an indicator of trends.. This favors the Democrat party since we are excluding counties that voted Republican in 1988. In 2008, Obama received69,498,516 votes, per the Federal Election Commission. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 53%-46% - 2008: Obama 56%-42%. Trump also needs to drive up margins in Republican-leaning Western counties like Kent (Grand Rapids) and Ottawa (on the shores of Lake Michigan). Arizona (11 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. hide caption. Their ability and sensitivity to dramatically switch parties in 2000, 2008 and 2016, is outstanding. Suburban Denvers Arapahoe and Jefferson counties have moved in tandem for the past four elections. Democrats Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Grover Cleveland (twice) won elections while losing ground in the House, per The Atlantic. Co., as its sometimes referred to, has gone more closely for the statewide winner than any other big county. These counties arent the only ones that matter most swing states have a handful of critical counties, not just one or two but these 25 stand out, either for their voting history, population size or traditional impact on swing-state election results. Potential canaries in the coal mine, aside from Montgomery, include Wood, south of Toledo, and Stark, home to Canton and the pro-football Hall of Fame in northeastern Ohio. 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. 2. Take the time to ponder and realize that this is no mean feat! It abuts Clevelands Cuyahoga County to the east and went narrowly to Mitt Romney in 2012. George W. Bush twice won comfortably in Forsyth County, the home of Winston-Salem. According to PolitiFact, voter turnout was66.2% in 2020 and 61.6% in 2008. Once you have found all the results and looked at the trends, remember, these counties are the best counties at predicting an election outcome! Statewide results: 2012: Romney 51%-49% - 2008: Obama 50%-49%. 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. 9. ET. Read about our approach to external linking. Mike Pence, could marshal his supporters to cross the border and provide support. 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. 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. Key bellwether counties in the swingiest states appeared during the 2016 and 2018 cycles that can help serve as a guide for 2020. A swing county is a county that voted correctly for the winning party at one election and then voted for the other winning party at the next election. Mr Biden "never thought he was going to bring Ohio; he didn't put the effort in," says Democrat John Brikmanis from Oak Harbor in Ottawa County, and who ran unsuccessfully for the position of county clerk last month. 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. 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. But there was only one county Clallam, Washington which voted Democrat. 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. who in 2016 won Caswell and other rural counties in North Carolina by tapping those feelings of abandonment. 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. That means, watch Bucks and Northampton counties. 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. 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. And speak out if youve been a witness to election tampering. But it's also not unprecedented. Twitter Twitter Nobody forgot about politics.". The state's demographics suggest it could go blue one day. "I asked if they were from the Republican Party, and they said they were," she says. Below are 10 bellwether counties that could give signs as to how the electorate feels this cycle and in future races. 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.). or even dive into the markdown files yourself to submit improvements. 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. These are places that are demographically strong for Republicans in the abstract, but might have had something that kept them closer to 50-50.". If it's close here, Georgia could be in play. Wood County is a decent bellwether of the state: Mr. Trump carried it by eight points in 2016, matching his statewide margin. To make things more interesting we will only look at swing counties since the 2004 election. So, even though they got it wrong in 2020, it is still worth figuring out how much they got it wrong by. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 258,050Unaffiliated: 228,638Republicans: 185,694Libertarian: 3,711. Their concerns are real. And as was true in 2016, those counties voted substantially to the right of the nation. Ottawa County in Ohio has been on target every four years since 1964, and Bexar County in . 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. November 8, 2016 9:29 AM ET. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-46% - 2008: Obama 54%-45%. Nineteen of these counties continued their streak in 2016 by voting for Trump, but the remaining 16 counties ended their bellwether streak by voting for Hillary Clinton. These former bellwether counties are much whiter and less college-educated than the country as a whole. 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. 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. One of the big four suburban collar counties ringing Philadelphia and the fourth-most populous county in the state Bucks is always competitive. 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).