Rural Areas outside of the Northeast that are trending D?

[GregTheGreat657]

Are there any rural Areas outside of the Northeast that are trending D?

[Matty]

Plenty

Southwest kansas

North texas

alaska

central california

[Utah Neolib]

“Rural Areas Outside”
Yes, there are rural areas outside

[Nyvin]

From 2016 to 2020 there's plenty, there's counties in northern Wyoming that trended D. 

Two areas that are kinda interesting are the northwest part of the lower peninsula of Michigan and the western North Carolina area around NC-11.

[Schiff for Senate]

Plenty

Southwest kansas

North texas

alaska

central california

Yeah, some rural counties have also maxed out for the GOP and are now moving marginally leftward. This is the case for counties like Ochiltree in the Panhandle and Sioux in Iowa.

I was also thinking of a very white county that is a Democratic stronghold which trended hard to the left in 2020 - Cook in Minnesota. It's nearly 90% white. It gave Obama a 23.3% and 23.2% margin in 2008 and 2012, Clinton an only slightly smaller 22.2% margin (a leftward trend, actually), and then it somehow gave Biden a massive 34 point margin - a leftward swing from 2008 to 2020 of over 10 points.

[Not Me, Us]

Plenty

Southwest kansas

North texas

alaska

central california

Yeah, some rural counties have also maxed out for the GOP and are now moving marginally leftward. This is the case for counties like Ochiltree in the Panhandle and Sioux in Iowa.

I was also thinking of a very white county that is a Democratic stronghold which trended hard to the left in 2020 - Cook in Minnesota. It's nearly 90% white. It gave Obama a 23.3% and 23.2% margin in 2008 and 2012, Clinton an only slightly smaller 22.2% margin (a leftward trend, actually), and then it somehow gave Biden a massive 34 point margin - a leftward swing from 2008 to 2020 of over 10 points.

I think it's just the sample size. Only 5,000 people live in Cook County, so minor shifts in voting can lead to big swings.

[Schiff for Senate]

Plenty

Southwest kansas

North texas

alaska

central california

Yeah, some rural counties have also maxed out for the GOP and are now moving marginally leftward. This is the case for counties like Ochiltree in the Panhandle and Sioux in Iowa.

I was also thinking of a very white county that is a Democratic stronghold which trended hard to the left in 2020 - Cook in Minnesota. It's nearly 90% white. It gave Obama a 23.3% and 23.2% margin in 2008 and 2012, Clinton an only slightly smaller 22.2% margin (a leftward trend, actually), and then it somehow gave Biden a massive 34 point margin - a leftward swing from 2008 to 2020 of over 10 points.

I think it's just the sample size. Only 5,000 people live in Cook County, so minor shifts in voting can lead to big swings.

I know, but it still makes absolutely no sense given that nearby counties which are only slightly whiter shifted 20-30 points to the right from 2012 to 2020. Neighbouring Lake County, for instance, was Hillary's whitest county, but it trended to the right in 2020 and from 2012 to 2020 it swung 17.5% to the right. Traversing just two more counties westward gives us Koochiching, which went from a 9.4% Obama win in 2012 to a 21.3% Trump win in 2020, and Itasca, with an only slightly smaller rightward swing in that period. What I don't get is how it swung so much to the left when literally every county in the region swung significantly rightward. It's not even urban and has just 4 people a square mile. Duluth is in the much more populous St Louis County, just two counties to the west of Cook, with a much greater density of 32 per square mile...and it swung 14 points to the right from 2012 to 2020. It just makes no sense whatsoever for this random, very white and rural county to swing to the left from 2008 to 2020 - and by no small amount - when every other county in the region, including more urban and dense counties, swung noticeably rightward.

EDIT: Related to the point I'm making, Cook actually saw a leftward swing in 2020 greater than in any other MN county, including those in the Twin Cities wich are allegedly zooming leftward. See this map (Cook is at the far northeast of the state), which shows each MN county's swing from 2016-2020: https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/img.php?year=2020&st=MN&type=map_swing&off=0&elect=0

[SInNYC]

From 2016 to 2020 there's plenty, there's counties in northern Wyoming that trended D. 

Two areas that are kinda interesting are the northwest part of the lower peninsula of Michigan and the western North Carolina area around NC-11.

Not just WY - there are lots of rural counties in the plains (from CO, WY, MT, KS, NE, SD, ND) and upper midwest that trended D between 2016 and 2020. On this shift map (click on shift from 2016), many rural counties in these areas have blue arrows that seem long enough to be trends as well as shifts.

[Adam Griffin]

If we're looking just at 2016-2020, then one of the most consistent parts of the country (i.e. throughout not just counties, but a large majority of precincts) to fit this criteria is Southern Appalachia.

The swings in these parts of GA/NC/TN are quite small in many places but they consistently tilt D (and likely will show up on the precinct level in relevant parts of SC as well).

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

From 2016 to 2020 there's plenty, there's counties in northern Wyoming that trended D.  

Two areas that are kinda interesting are the northwest part of the lower peninsula of Michigan and the western North Carolina area around NC-11.

Those are eco tourism areas where you have left leaning people move there. The same thing happens in rural Colorado in the ski resorts.