In this New Year Edition we highlight the bellwether counties that voted to the left in the 2020 election.
Part 3 – The Bellwether That Went to the Left
As noted in the previous analysis, Bellwether Blues takes a deep dive into Wood County, Ohio to investigate millennial voting patterns in mainland America.
Here is a short recap of the results from Wood County in 2020:
- Record Turnout: 68,103 in ’20 vs. 64,826 in ’16
- Precincts: Trump won 63% of Wood County precincts
- Overall: Trump won Wood County by 7.6% points
The bellwether counties in our analysis are the 58 of 3,142 counties or similar subdivisions which voted 2x Bush, 2x Obama, 1x Trump. Last week, we investigated the 51 bellwether counties which voted for Trump once again. This analysis looks at the handful of bellwether counties which voted for Biden.
Here is a recap of the overall results in 2020:
- Bellwether Total: 58, 100%
- Biden in ’20: 7, 12%
- Trump in ’20: 51, 88%
These seven counties which hail from AZ, DE, MN, MO, NH, VA, and WI, voted for Trump in ’16 by 2.81%. In ’20, these counties flipped to vote for Biden by 3.58%. Voter turnout increased by a staggering 35% from 1.87MM in ’16 to 2.52MM voters in ’20.
7 Biden Counties:
- Trump: 122574, 47.25%, 3.58%
- Biden: 130203, 50.83%
- Trump: 961745, 48.16%, 2.81%
- Clinton: 910584, 45.36%
6 Biden Counties (Without Maricopa):
- Trump: 38346, 45.94%, 6.2%
- Biden: 43455, 52.16%
What drove the shift?
The growing urban/rural divide discussed in Bellwether Blues and highlighted in our first analysis of Wood County grew further in the ’20 election. The 7 counties which voted for Biden had an average of 361,111 voters, however, there is one outlier which skews the average voter size significantly. This county is Maricopa County in Arizona. which had 2.03MM voters in ’20. When removing Maricopa from the data set, the average number of voters for the six remaining counties drops more than 4x to 83,476 voters which is more 3x the size of the average voting population of the 51 counties which voted for Trump. In over four of the seven counties, health care is the primary source of employment. The economics of these counties is close to the national median household income at $62k which is $2k below the national average. The poverty rate is slightly lower than the national average at 13.39%.
All Seven Counties:
- Average Population: 674,035
- Average Median HH Income Poverty %: $62,880.71, 13.55%
- Average Area: 2704 SQ Miles
Six Counties (Without Maricopa):
- Average Population: 150,188
- Average Median HH Income Poverty %: $62,485.50, 13.35%
- Average Area: 1617 SQ Miles
What’s Next?
In next week’s Exclusive Bellwether Analysis, we will discuss the implications of the Bellwether response in the 2020 election for future elections.
Author Jonathan Jakubowski
Twitter and Parler – @jonjakubowski
With special thanks to Brant Kitchen for data support.
Sources: Bellwether Blues, Chapter 2 and 10, https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-270.html#:~:text=Median%20household%20income%20was%20%2468%2C703,and%20Table%20A%2D1).https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/saipe/#/?map_geoSelector=aa_c, https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results, https://www.co.wood.oh.us/boe/Election%20Archives.html
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