2020 Urban rightward shift and Rural + Suburban leftward shift

[Ragnaroni]

I was messing around with the NYT 2020 election precinct map. I know this isn't a newsflash but I noticed urban centers swung right while rural and suburban centers typically swung left.  Is this because of Clinton's overperformance in urban areas relative to 2020 more than any gains made by Trump in urban areas? Is the leftward shift of rural and suburban areas due to Trump's 2016 overperformance or backlash against him?

Now when was the last time such a thing happened?

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Well the "urban areas swung right" narrative isn't actually that clear cut, because the results were far more mixed than a consistent swing. My understanding is that it is two things:


1. Trump genuinely did do well in major cities; his performances were the best in both raw votes and percentage since Bush in 2004 in some places. If you look at many urban counties like Cook (Chicago), Los Angeles, Wayne (Detroit), Philadelphia, the counties that make up New York City, Miami-Dade, etc. then Trump in 2020 had the best election results for a Republican since Bush in 2004 (whether it be votes, percentages, or both).

2. In 2016, Trump performed terribly in large urban areas compared to Romney in 2012 and McCain in 2008. The collapse in third party voting improved both Biden's and Trump's percentages in 2020 compared to Clinton and Trump in 2016, but this swing was far greater on Trump's side and magnified the swing in #1. In some places, this swing did not represent the best result for Republicans since 2004 or exceed 2008 or 2012 (e.g. Milwaukee, Hennepin, Multnomah, Essex in NJ, Hillsborough in FL, etc.).

And in other cities, they didn't swing to Trump at all, even with the increase in raw votes (e.g. Boston). I'm sure if you aggregated all urban votes, then yes you can say "urban areas swung towards Trump in 2020", but that would miss a lot of nuance.


I don't know of any time in history that cities swung right while suburbs swung left. I'm sure if you go back to pre-WWII America, you would find rural areas swinging left while cities swung right, but with the suburban age, I don't think there were examples until 2020.

[Ragnaroni]

Well the "urban areas swung right" narrative isn't actually that clear cut, because the results were far more mixed than a consistent swing. My understanding is that it is two things:


1. Trump genuinely did do well in major cities; his performances were the best in both raw votes and percentage since Bush in 2004 in some places. If you look at many urban counties like Cook (Chicago), Los Angeles, Wayne (Detroit), Philadelphia, the counties that make up New York City, Miami-Dade, etc. then Trump in 2020 had the best election results for a Republican since Bush in 2004 (whether it be votes, percentages, or both).

2. In 2016, Trump performed terribly in large urban areas compared to Romney in 2012 and McCain in 2008. The collapse in third party voting improved both Biden's and Trump's percentages in 2020 compared to Clinton and Trump in 2016, but this swing was far greater on Trump's side and magnified the swing in #1. In some places, this swing did not represent the best result for Republicans since 2004 or exceed 2008 or 2012 (e.g. Milwaukee, Hennepin, Multnomah, Essex in NJ, Hillsborough in FL, etc.).

And in other cities, they didn't swing to Trump at all, even with the increase in raw votes (e.g. Boston). I'm sure if you aggregated all urban votes, then yes you can say "urban areas swung towards Trump in 2020", but that would miss a lot of nuance.


I don't know of any time in history that cities swung right while suburbs swung left. I'm sure if you go back to pre-WWII America, you would find rural areas swinging left while cities swung right, but with the suburban age, I don't think there were examples until 2020.

This is a good answer. The part in bold, Southern cities in particular seem to have less of a swing than Northern and deep blue states from what I've seen.

Pre-WWII didn't have suburbs to this scale AFAIK.

Bush 2004 isn't really a good benchmark, that was the best a Republican did this century so far. It's like using Reagan 1984 or Johnson 1964.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Looking at the swing while ignoring turnout can give you a very misleading picture of what actually happened in many urban areas. 2020 was the highest turnout election in a century, and many rare voters came out.

Democrats gained net votes in many urban areas even as they swung against them due to the increased turnout.

[有爭議嘅領土 of The Figgis Agency]

Well the "urban areas swung right" narrative isn't actually that clear cut, because the results were far more mixed than a consistent swing. My understanding is that it is two things:


1. Trump genuinely did do well in major cities; his performances were the best in both raw votes and percentage since Bush in 2004 in some places. If you look at many urban counties like Cook (Chicago), Los Angeles, Wayne (Detroit), Philadelphia, the counties that make up New York City, Miami-Dade, etc. then Trump in 2020 had the best election results for a Republican since Bush in 2004 (whether it be votes, percentages, or both).

2. In 2016, Trump performed terribly in large urban areas compared to Romney in 2012 and McCain in 2008. The collapse in third party voting improved both Biden's and Trump's percentages in 2020 compared to Clinton and Trump in 2016, but this swing was far greater on Trump's side and magnified the swing in #1. In some places, this swing did not represent the best result for Republicans since 2004 or exceed 2008 or 2012 (e.g. Milwaukee, Hennepin, Multnomah, Essex in NJ, Hillsborough in FL, etc.).

And in other cities, they didn't swing to Trump at all, even with the increase in raw votes (e.g. Boston). I'm sure if you aggregated all urban votes, then yes you can say "urban areas swung towards Trump in 2020", but that would miss a lot of nuance.


I don't know of any time in history that cities swung right while suburbs swung left. I'm sure if you go back to pre-WWII America, you would find rural areas swinging left while cities swung right, but with the suburban age, I don't think there were examples until 2020.

I wonder how much of this is due to an anti-incumbent effect in historically Dem-dominated urban cores, which would explain 2018-2020-2022 non-presidential swings if you ignore turnout and raw vote numbers.

[Ferguson97]

The reason that the rural areas swung to the Dems and the urban areas swung to the GOP is because the election was extremely high-turnout, which brought out low-propensity voters. It seems reasonable to say that infrequent urban voters are probably more conservative and infrequent rural voters are probably more liberal, because if you're in an area that votes overwhelmingly for one party and you lean the opposite, it can feel hopeless and it would take a lot to convince you to turn out.

[Skill and Chance]

I think we can find a more recent example, but it unambiguously happened at the presidential level in 1948.

[mileslunn]

It seems more due to Trump doing better amongst minorities as many urban areas minority-majority areas.  Could also be dead cat bounce as Trump still did horrible in them.  When at rock bottom levels, it is not hard to get a small bounce while much harder when competitive.  In rural, Dem gains looked like mostly those from third parties as GOP largely maintained or even gained on 2016 support, just Dems gained more.  And Trump in 2020 on balance still did much better in rural areas than Romney did in 2012 or even Bush 2004.