Rural areas that swung towards Clinton and/or trended Democrat?

[AN63093]

Is there something specific you're looking for?

Because otherwise, there are too many examples to narrow this down.  Lots of rural areas swung D, though you'll find most in the West.  Look for almost all of UT (all but one county swung D), eastern ID and western WY had dramatic trends... look at southern AZ and NM, parts of western CO (up in the mountains), southwestern KS, lots of counties in south/western TX, some counties in eastern WA.

East of the Missouri River, it's much more uncommon.  Mid-West states swung hard R in rural areas (IA- all counties but two, MN- all counties outside the Twin Cities, MO- all counties except 3, OH- every county outside of Cincy and Columbus), and it's the same the farther east you go (AR- all counties but 4, WV- every single county (!), ME- every single county (!!), VT- all counties but 1, RI- all counties, NY- every county but 3)... the list goes on and on.  Even states like VA and MD, almost all the rural areas swung R.


So basically- in the eastern US, practically no counties... Trump really ran the table.  I even checked the Black Belt and pretty much everywhere swung R, so you're looking for needles in a haystack.

The Western US is a different story, and you can find lots of examples.

[AN63093]

Going through western TX, some of these results are interesting.  Obviously Trump won most counties, but he actually did a little worse than Romney, believe it or not.  Through the Panhandle, many more counties swung D in '16 than '12.  Some of these counties are sparsely populated, so how much this is telling us is questionable... but on the other hand, both Potter and Randall Counties (Amarillo) and Lubbock both swung and trended D.  This could just be a bounce back from the GOP maxing out the area.. some of the margins had gotten a little ridiculous, over 70% R, or even 80 in a couple instances.

Speaking of Western TX.. not a rural area, but just thought I'd throw it out there- El Paso had a pretty decent D swing this time around... D+10.45.  So while Trump may have done nationally better among Hispanics, El Paso is one place where he must not have.

Along those lines- consider Seward County, KS (42% Hispanic and where the town of Liberal is).  The major employer there is a meat packing plant.  Seward swung D+10.7.  Nearby Finney County also swung D (47% Hispanic).  The major employer there is a Tyson plant.