Imaginary state of all county flips

[bagelman]

The imaginary state of all 2016 county flips, both Obama-Trump and Romney-Clinton counties, had a population of 23.5 million in 2000 and 25.25 million in 2010. It voted like this from 2004-2016:

*Bush +5.1 (2004)
*Obama +6.2, swing of D+11.3, trend of D+1.57
*Obama +2.9, swing of R+3.4, no significant trend
*Trump +3.5, swing of R+6.4, trend of R+4.66

The state would narrowly flip for Joe Biden in 4 years, see here.

[Schiff for Senate]

It mostly makes sense. 2020 it voting blue makes sense - several counties flipped blue, including huge ones (Maricopa, for example) and smalller ones (Erie in PA and Door and Sauk in WI, to name just three). Only 15 counties nationally were Clinton/Trump counties (interestingly most were in South Texas), and most had small enough populations. In 2016 there were very few Romney/Clinton counties, but the margin should still stay small because larger counties, like Chester in PA, and Cobb and Gwinnett in GA, flipped blue. Despite this, the number of tiny Obama/Trump counties (32 in Iowa, 23 in Wisconsin, and several more), was so much more that this fictional 'state' voted Republican (albeit by just 3.5%). In 2012, it voting for Obama makes sense, since this included many stolidly Democratic counties circa 2012 that went for Trump in 2016 by, in some cases, narrow margins, with many such counties in IA and WI - for example, an IA county gave both Obama and Trump margins of more than 20% (the only such county nationally). Interesting map...thanks for showing!