The most impressive of those was Valencia County, New Mexico, which voted for the victor in. 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). 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. Jeff. In other words, only 54 percent of bellwether counties from 1980 to 2012 kept their status in 2016. The following 111 counties have deviated from the winner of the presidential election in two elections since 1980: Allamakee County, Iowa, in 1992 and 2020 [3] Alamosa County, Colorado, in 2016 and 2020 [3] Baldwin County, Georgia, in 1980 and 2016 [3] Benzie County, Michigan, in 2012 and 2020 [3] Blue Earth County, Minnesota, in 1988 and 2004 [3] That Trump did so well in the remaining 19 bellwether counties in 2020 should come as no surprise, then. One of the big four suburban collar counties ringing Philadelphia and the fourth-most populous county in the state Bucks is always competitive. What are your thoughts on this article? What does Terre Haute know about America 2016? Nobody forgot about politics.". 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. All other 21 counties voted Republican. In 2020, a single. 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. Outstanding. 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. Election-Integrity.info provides over 25 thoroughly-researched, scientifically-approached reports. This fact check is available at IFCNs 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. In fact, of the 19 pivot counties across America to correctly pick the president every time over the past 10 election cycles, only one - Clallam County in Washington state - saw a majority back Joe Biden for president. Re-doing the analysis we obtain 35 modern bellwether counties after the 2016 election. 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. But when word got out, Trump supporters crashed it. Latestvoter registration totals:Democrats: 521,881Republicans: 248,934Unaffiliated: 66,775Other: 45,567. Or want to contribute to our open-source collection of articles and statistics? In their . These key counties tell the story of America's shifting political landscape. If you'd like to assist or contribute in some way, learn how. That said, they will look to get out as many voters as they can here to help compensate for expected losses in other northern parts of the state. Much of the rest of the state is rural and ruby red Republican. It's whiter and less Hispanic than the rest of the state, but it has a higher share of residents with college degrees. Obama won Monroe County 49.6-49.1 in 2012 and 52-47 in 2008. Ventura County, California - two misses since 1920 (in 1976 and 2016). Bellwether Counties Historical Performance 1984 to 2020 Obama won comfortably here in 2008 but only squeaked to victory four years later. Answer (1 of 33): Because "bellwether counties" are a load of horse manure. Until this year. Other counties to watch: Clark County (Las Vegas, Henderson), Democrats have to drive up big margins in Las Vegas, something they have lots of experience doing. To get an idea as to whether Clinton could win it, watch Tarrant County. Its also loaded with government contractors and defense companies hit hard by the sequester. 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. Compiled by Si Williams, non-US resident, and other contributors. 10. Salt Lake City elected its first lesbian mayor this year, and Obama actually won Salt Lake County by a few hundred votes in 2008. 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. America's most accurate bellwether counties, regions that have a reputation for accurately picking the president, got the presidential election completely wrong. "This is an added benefit for security and resilience," they wrote. (Think about what it takes, and what is required for a county to always get the election right. These are the bellwether counties. These counties could play an . You have probably noticed by now that with each new section we write, we are relaxing the constraints to make it easier to build a case for the Democrats winning the 2020 election. They are not a statistical curiosity, but the perfect distillation or embodiment of the whole countrys sentiment. 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. 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.). Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. But what if we told you that only 1 of these 22 counties voted for Biden in 2020? So those suburban whites are key here and might tell a story not just about who wins the state, but who wins nationally. In total, Trump won 18 of the 19 former bellwether counties, winning the average such county by 13.7 points in 2020. In 2018, Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, carried it by 11 points. 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. All Rights Reserved. 2016 primary winners: Sanders, Trump2012: Romney 52%, Obama 47%, Latest voter registration totals:Undeclared: 82,008Republicans: 80,068Democrats: 63,257. In total, Trump won 18 of the 19 former bellwether counties, winning the average such county by 13.7 points 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. Key Counties: The race here is not binary, so watching the margins in the biggest counties will be important. Here, local Republican candidates fuelled by Mr Trump's firebrand style almost wiped Democrats off the local political map. To flip Pennsylvania, Trump has to start in Bucks and expand in places like Northampton. Just one Clallam County, Washington voted for President Joe Biden. Election night is going to be information overload. 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. Where did all the bellwether counties go? - HotAir They are: Notice RANSOM, SARGENT, and MARSHALL in particular. (The highest value being again 66.1%). Georgia (16 electoral votes) - Lean Republican. Since only Clallam County voted Democrat in 2020, we know they all voted for the Republican party in 2020 and got it wrong. What are bellwether counties and can they actually predict elections How could 16 out of 17 bellwether counties predict a Trump win - Quora A total of 35 counties voted for the winner of each presidential election from 1980 through 2012. 1 County 61947 People 2012 Predicting since One county. Kerry Sheridan/AFP/Getty Images After 8 elections, the number of counties left standing defy the odds, and it is this fact that makes them bellwether counties. When is Eurovision and how do you get tickets? "These counties, they're not real representations of America," says Mr Kreisberg of BlueLabs Analytics. 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. a suburban Philadelphia county that went for Hillary Clinton in 2016 with 52.6% of the vote, and that . Latest voter registration totals: 937,155 No party registration. This county voted with the popular vote each time. These bellwether counties mirror close NC race for president Help raise awareness within your community about the lingering, unresolved issues with election integrity. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton need to shore up their bases here in a place where there are more unaffiliated voters than Republicans or Democrats and major party registration is at near parity. Washoe County2016 caucus winners: Sanders, Trump2012: Obama 51%, Romney 47%, Latest voter registration totals:Republican: 105,410Democrats: 102,422Unaffiliated: 53,048Others: 19,815. The more people can work out and see for themselves that the data clearly indicates a different outcome, the better. Suggest an improvement, report an issue, Follow the Data Identify Electoral Fraud Using Trend Analysis . Clinton has to drive up the score in Philadelphia with its significant share of black voters. Co., as its sometimes referred to, has gone more closely for the statewide winner than any other big county. Fifth, it listswhether each candidate's politicalparty won seats in the House of Representatives which occurred withObama andTrump, but not Biden. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 52%-47% - 2008: Obama 55%-44%. Read about our approach to external linking. According to PolitiFact, voter turnout was66.2% in 2020 and 61.6% in 2008. Published Nov. 8, 2016 at 5:30 a.m. Weeks after Election Day, there have still been no discoveriesof widespread voter fraud. 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. Still, the key for Democrats is Salt Lake, which gave Obama more than half his statewide vote there. Oct. 28, 2021, 11:05 AM PDT. From 1980 through 2016, 19 of the nation's more than 3,000 counties voted for the eventual president in every election. The 13 Bellwether Counties That Could Decide The Election - NPR.org 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. Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) - Lean Democratic. TIP: Democrats need to drive up the margins in Fulton and DeKalb. 6. 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. 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. Somehow we jumped from 22 to 1 county in one election cycle and we are supposed to believe that is normal? This Gulf Coast county is home to Tampa and has gone with the statewide winner in every presidential election since 1960. 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. (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. 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). 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. It's happened before. The Bellwether County to Watch in Pennsylvania . It also backed Gov. Copyright 2023 HotAir.com/Salem Media. We believe this was a mistake. But that's no longer the case. 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. We organized this by poll-closing time (all in Eastern time for the latest poll-closing times in that state), so you can follow along as the night goes: 1. In Westmoreland County, Virginia - a small, rural community south of Washington DC that's failed to be a bellwether only twice since 1928, and is home to twice the number of African Americans than the national average - he beat Mr Biden by 16 points. George W. Bush twice won comfortably in Forsyth County, the home of Winston-Salem. 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. Statewide results: 2012: Obama 53%-46% - 2008: Obama 56%-42%. But in 2020, 18 of these 19 bellwether counties voted for former President Donald Trump. Wilkes-Barres Luzerne County is traditionally Democratic territory in northeastern Pennsylvania but its also an aging, working-class county where Trumps message is resonating. Really stop reading. Still, the state's worth watching. | AP Photo, By Darren Samuelsohn, Katie Glueck, Kyle Cheney and Daniel Strauss. Republicans are bullish that the suburban county will stay in their column this time, in part because of frustration with Washington. Stephen Starr is an Irish journalist and author who reported from the Middle East for a decade before moving to Ohio in 2018. Democrats Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Grover Cleveland (twice) won elections while losing ground in the House, per The Atlantic. It is easy to gloss over this. 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. 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 following 111 counties have deviated from the winner of the presidential election in two elections since 1980: List of election bellwether counties in the United States. 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. While Trump won every county in the state in the GOP primary, he posted his best result in Luzerne 77 percent. 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. This populous, longtime Republican county has shifted in the last two presidential elections, as demograpic change has swept the metro Atlanta area. 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. GOP Chairman Dale Fellows noted that the population has been steadily aging in recent years. 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. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 316,586Republicans: 258,725No Party Affiliation: 206,457Others: 22,695. 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. Other counties to watch: Palm Beach and Miami-Dade are both places where Clinton has to drive up the score. Clinton has to hit that margin in this county where more than half a million people voted. But its also home to the largest concentration of registered Republicans in the state. "We had to quietly move our parade," she says. Just how big is it? On Dec. 1, formerAttorney General William Barr also told the Associated Pressthe U.S. Justice Department had uncovered no such evidence. Do you know this baby? But Northampton went closely with the statewide margin in 2012. This article is part of a series on Identifying Electoral Fraud Using Trend Analysis. For a minute in this campaign, it looked like it could be a fairly close race in Texas, even within 5 points. 2016 primary winners: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Latest voter registration totals: Democrats: 230,401Republicans: 211,817No Party Affiliation: 102,635Others: 16,526. It requires a lot more than pure luck.). "End of day, the solution is complicated but the problem is very simple," wrote a user who shared the meme on Instagram. So the question is, how many of them switched back to the Democrat party in 2020? He would have to really drive up big margins in the less populous counties in the mountainous Western part of the state, as well as Chesterfield (south of Richmond) and Virginia Beach. Latest voter registration totals:Democrats: 480,926Republicans, 323,870Unaffiliated: 229,298Others: 65,281. Watch the Philadelphia suburbs, and that means white women. As the country's demographics shift and the rural-urban divide becomes more pronounced, the chances appear slim. Like Texas, Utah looks like it's receded from the battleground, so we don't include it in our 13 battlegrounds. Bellwether - Wikipedia 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. It is the only county to go twice for Bush and twice for Obama. Demographics (84) A total of 35 counties voted for the winner of each presidential election from 1980 through 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. President-elect Biden on Electoral College vote: Clear victory. From 1980 through 2016, there were19 counties that consistently voted for the eventual president. More: Fact check: What's true and what's false about the 2020 election. @ryanmatsumoto1, Donald Trump (1624 posts) In 2008, Obama received69,498,516 votes, per the Federal Election Commission. Will they vote for the winner in 2016? The most impressive of those was Valencia County, New Mexico, which voted for the victor in every presidential election from 1952 to 2016. Trump, who has tended to run better with voters without college degrees, got trounced in the primary in Wake earlier this year. In other words, only 54 percent of bellwether counties from 1980 to 2012 kept their status in 2016.