Unexplained County Swings?

[ProgressiveModerate]

County swings that seem odd given everything going on nationally. Some that stand out to me:

Warren County, IL - it's swing right is notably more aggressive than it's neighbors

Steuben County, IN - seems like a random County to shift left and by as much as it did - stands out from it's neighbors

Monroe County, PA - somewhat surprising this County had the strongest rightwards swing in all of PA given the Poconos mountains being a sort of transplant type of area.

Someone already pointed this out but there are some interesting divergences in swings in the CO Western Slope - places like Pitkin County saw sizeable swings to Trump while Chaffee was one of Harris's biggest swings nationally

Clark, WA - It seems like many of the suburbs of notorious blue cities, especially the more conservative self-sorting ones shifted right but this one shifted left instead. Perhaps high Dem investment from MGP's race could've made the difference?

Waller, TX - Surprising given the County was never that red to begin with and there's a large pre-existing non-white population. I understand it was likely Houston growth pushed the County slightly left but I would've though non-white shift right would've overpowered it given what we saw in other diverse fast-growing parts of TX (places like Kaufman leftshift make more sense because the County was much redder and whiter to begin with).

Loving, TX - this is just because of the small population but it's still funny

Sussex, DE - Again in hindsight it makes some sense, but it's funny that one of the few northeastern/Midatlantic counties Harris improved on Biden in was in Delaware.

Curious if anyone has insight into any of these

[ottermax]

County swings that seem odd given everything going on nationally. Some that stand out to me:

Warren County, IL - it's swing right is notably more aggressive than it's neighbors

Steuben County, IN - seems like a random County to shift left and by as much as it did - stands out from it's neighbors

Monroe County, PA - somewhat surprising this County had the strongest rightwards swing in all of PA given the Poconos mountains being a sort of transplant type of area.

Someone already pointed this out but there are some interesting divergences in swings in the CO Western Slope - places like Pitkin County saw sizeable swings to Trump while Chaffee was one of Harris's biggest swings nationally

Clark, WA - It seems like many of the suburbs of notorious blue cities, especially the more conservative self-sorting ones shifted right but this one shifted left instead. Perhaps high Dem investment from MGP's race could've made the difference?

Waller, TX - Surprising given the County was never that red to begin with and there's a large pre-existing non-white population. I understand it was likely Houston growth pushed the County slightly left but I would've though non-white shift right would've overpowered it given what we saw in other diverse fast-growing parts of TX (places like Kaufman leftshift make more sense because the County was much redder and whiter to begin with).

Loving, TX - this is just because of the small population but it's still funny

Sussex, DE - Again in hindsight it makes some sense, but it's funny that one of the few northeastern/Midatlantic counties Harris improved on Biden in was in Delaware.

Curious if anyone has insight into any of these

Warren looks like a mistake.... Democrats lost 1/3 of their votes in 4 years? I'm not sure if Illinois is done counting?

Steuben is a bit weird, but I wonder if it is in a Michigan media market and received more campaign ads? Combined with being in Indiana which seemed to have a slight Democratic trend overall.

Monroe I believe is in the NYC media market so I'm guessing it didn't get the same level of PA campaign outreach, plus it gets the negative influence of the NYC sphere.

Clark might simply be demographic change with more Democrats moving to the suburbs - Portland had pretty significant population losses in the last four years.

Waller surprised me when I looked at the data - the Black population has not grown as fast as the Hispanic growth. I didn't know there was also a history of disenfranchisement with Prairie A&M students, so maybe that was resolved and increased Democrats' voter numbers? Also growth in Katy might be concentrated with college grads? Definitely stood out compared to the swings in Montgomery County.

[lfromnj]

Yeah Monroe isn’t surprising if you looked PA 2022 , Fetterman did worse than Biden .

[有爭議嘅領土 of The Figgis Agency]

Clark, WA - It seems like many of the suburbs of notorious blue cities, especially the more conservative self-sorting ones shifted right but this one shifted left instead. Perhaps high Dem investment from MGP's race could've made the difference?

I'm probably biased because the people I know IRL who live there are almost all nonwhite (mostly immigrants and/or domestic transplants), but growth in Clark County WA is very favorable to Dems.

What really surprises me is Trump's % in Multnomah County dropping from 2020; I expected him to hit 20% there. I predicted 74-24 Harris assuming a 3rd party 2020 ->Trump 2024 shift, population loss during the pandemic, and possible persuasion in Portland's West Hills and in the areas suburbs east of I-205.

I expected a pretty big R swing in Multnomah County that hasn’t materialized. According to DDHQ, Multnomah is 90% in with Harris matching Biden’s 79.2% but Trump underperforming his 17.9% from 2020 (he’s currently at 17.3%!)

Washington County is 80% in right now and it’s a similar story. Harris is barely underperforming Biden’s 65.5%, but Trump is doing 0.6% better. I’m guessing the R swing is stronger in downscale and more Latino areas, but we’ll have to wait until precinct results are available to say for sure.

[RBH]

Someone already pointed this out but there are some interesting divergences in swings in the CO Western Slope - places like Pitkin County saw sizeable swings to Trump while Chaffee was one of Harris's biggest swings nationally

weren't there some pretty strong swings towards Biden in parts of CO that might be explained as "COVID wrecked our tourism industry"?

meanwhile.. appears that some of the swing in Conejos/Costilla can be read about in the book "Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America's Edge" by Ted Conover. Those counties are also olde time Colorado Hispano country.

[cg41386]

County swings that seem odd given everything going on nationally. Some that stand out to me:

Warren County, IL - it's swing right is notably more aggressive than it's neighbors

Steuben County, IN - seems like a random County to shift left and by as much as it did - stands out from it's neighbors

Monroe County, PA - somewhat surprising this County had the strongest rightwards swing in all of PA given the Poconos mountains being a sort of transplant type of area.

Someone already pointed this out but there are some interesting divergences in swings in the CO Western Slope - places like Pitkin County saw sizeable swings to Trump while Chaffee was one of Harris's biggest swings nationally

Clark, WA - It seems like many of the suburbs of notorious blue cities, especially the more conservative self-sorting ones shifted right but this one shifted left instead. Perhaps high Dem investment from MGP's race could've made the difference?

Waller, TX - Surprising given the County was never that red to begin with and there's a large pre-existing non-white population. I understand it was likely Houston growth pushed the County slightly left but I would've though non-white shift right would've overpowered it given what we saw in other diverse fast-growing parts of TX (places like Kaufman leftshift make more sense because the County was much redder and whiter to begin with).

Loving, TX - this is just because of the small population but it's still funny

Sussex, DE - Again in hindsight it makes some sense, but it's funny that one of the few northeastern/Midatlantic counties Harris improved on Biden in was in Delaware.

Curious if anyone has insight into any of these

Warren looks like a mistake.... Democrats lost 1/3 of their votes in 4 years? I'm not sure if Illinois is done counting?

Steuben is a bit weird, but I wonder if it is in a Michigan media market and received more campaign ads? Combined with being in Indiana which seemed to have a slight Democratic trend overall.

Monroe I believe is in the NYC media market so I'm guessing it didn't get the same level of PA campaign outreach, plus it gets the negative influence of the NYC sphere.

Clark might simply be demographic change with more Democrats moving to the suburbs - Portland had pretty significant population losses in the last four years.

Waller surprised me when I looked at the data - the Black population has not grown as fast as the Hispanic growth. I didn't know there was also a history of disenfranchisement with Prairie A&M students, so maybe that was resolved and increased Democrats' voter numbers? Also growth in Katy might be concentrated with college grads? Definitely stood out compared to the swings in Montgomery County.

Steuben is in the Fort Wayne market.

[Don't Tread on Me]

I figured that it would be counties like Bucks & Monroe that would save Pennsylvania from becoming a safe "R" state even if WI/MI became one. But that area didn't see the shift left I expected from similarly upscale areas. Perhaps the Dem collapse in Southern NJ could explain the shift right, although if Dems recover there it could shift back to the left if that's the case, we'll see.

[ottermax]

Clark, WA - It seems like many of the suburbs of notorious blue cities, especially the more conservative self-sorting ones shifted right but this one shifted left instead. Perhaps high Dem investment from MGP's race could've made the difference?

I'm probably biased because the people I know IRL who live there are almost all nonwhite (mostly immigrants and/or domestic transplants), but growth in Clark County WA is very favorable to Dems.

What really surprises me is Trump's % in Multnomah County dropping from 2020; I expected him to hit 20% there. I predicted 74-24 Harris assuming a 3rd party 2020 ->Trump 2024 shift, population loss during the pandemic, and possible persuasion in Portland's West Hills and in the areas suburbs east of I-205.

I expected a pretty big R swing in Multnomah County that hasn’t materialized. According to DDHQ, Multnomah is 90% in with Harris matching Biden’s 79.2% but Trump underperforming his 17.9% from 2020 (he’s currently at 17.3%!)

Washington County is 80% in right now and it’s a similar story. Harris is barely underperforming Biden’s 65.5%, but Trump is doing 0.6% better. I’m guessing the R swing is stronger in downscale and more Latino areas, but we’ll have to wait until precinct results are available to say for sure.

The Multnomah number is really surprising... will need to see how it wraps up in final numbers but I would've expected a rightward swing with Latino voters from the eastside or a loss from Democrats to Stein or non-voting... maybe the Republicans really did move to Idaho.

[cvparty]

Coahoma and Sharkey counties in MS were the only rural Black Belt counties to swing left when all the others had consistent moderate swings to the right, I found that very random. Both majority black

[RBH]

one thing that Portland had going for it that some safely blue areas didn't?

competitive local elections on the same day as the Presidential election (Portland municipal elections are RCV now so there were a lot of candidates too)

If you're in NYC and you're unhappy with the administration, it's very possible you just stayed home. It'll be interesting to see if there's any parts of NYC that have more votes in a 2025 election than on election day 2024 because of the difference in urgency.

But if you're in Portland, you might not necessarily see Oregon as a competitive state (it has been more competitive recently than NYS) but Oregon has a high voter turnout and there's other reasons to vote.

[ottermax]

Coahoma and Sharkey counties in MS were the only rural Black Belt counties to swing left when all the others had consistent moderate swings to the right, I found that very random. Both majority black

I do wonder if there was any meaningful swing towards Republicans by Black voters in Mississippi or the rural South in general... it looks like turnout might have just improved among White voters and dipped with Black voters. The precinct level data will be very telling when we see it. It's pretty clear that Black majority areas did not trend right, even if they did swing to Trump.

[cg41386]

I figured that it would be counties like Bucks & Monroe that would save Pennsylvania from becoming a safe "R" state even if WI/MI became one. But that area didn't see the shift left I expected from similarly upscale areas. Perhaps the Dem collapse in Southern NJ could explain the shift right, although if Dems recover there it could shift back to the left if that's the case, we'll see.

Bucks is quite diverse in terms of income- southern part in particular is more WWC, central is quite affluent, northern is more exurban upscale.

[RBH]

Coahoma and Sharkey counties in MS were the only rural Black Belt counties to swing left when all the others had consistent moderate swings to the right, I found that very random. Both majority black

I do wonder if there was any meaningful swing towards Republicans by Black voters in Mississippi or the rural South in general... it looks like turnout might have just improved among White voters and dipped with Black voters. The precinct level data will be very telling when we see it. It's pretty clear that Black majority areas did not trend right, even if they did swing to Trump.

Mississippi has one of the worst elections sites in the nation but one thing they have going for them is that they photocopy precinct returns so someone with the patience to do data entry and contrast and compare totals here

[cvparty]

Coahoma and Sharkey counties in MS were the only rural Black Belt counties to swing left when all the others had consistent moderate swings to the right, I found that very random. Both majority black

I do wonder if there was any meaningful swing towards Republicans by Black voters in Mississippi or the rural South in general... it looks like turnout might have just improved among White voters and dipped with Black voters. The precinct level data will be very telling when we see it. It's pretty clear that Black majority areas did not trend right, even if they did swing to Trump.

It doesn't seem likely they trended R. But still, those two counties are obviously not the only majority-black counties in the Black Belt, and nowhere near the blackest, so it feels random either way

[kwabbit]

Monroe County, PA is surprisingly diverse. Pretty high Black and Hispanic population and the Black population is decently Caribbean too IRRC. The swing isn't too surprising with that in mind.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Clark, WA - It seems like many of the suburbs of notorious blue cities, especially the more conservative self-sorting ones shifted right but this one shifted left instead. Perhaps high Dem investment from MGP's race could've made the difference?

I'm probably biased because the people I know IRL who live there are almost all nonwhite (mostly immigrants and/or domestic transplants), but growth in Clark County WA is very favorable to Dems.

What really surprises me is Trump's % in Multnomah County dropping from 2020; I expected him to hit 20% there. I predicted 74-24 Harris assuming a 3rd party 2020 ->Trump 2024 shift, population loss during the pandemic, and possible persuasion in Portland's West Hills and in the areas suburbs east of I-205.

I expected a pretty big R swing in Multnomah County that hasn’t materialized. According to DDHQ, Multnomah is 90% in with Harris matching Biden’s 79.2% but Trump underperforming his 17.9% from 2020 (he’s currently at 17.3%!)

Washington County is 80% in right now and it’s a similar story. Harris is barely underperforming Biden’s 65.5%, but Trump is doing 0.6% better. I’m guessing the R swing is stronger in downscale and more Latino areas, but we’ll have to wait until precinct results are available to say for sure.

The Multnomah number is really surprising... will need to see how it wraps up in final numbers but I would've expected a rightward swing with Latino voters from the eastside or a loss from Democrats to Stein or non-voting... maybe the Republicans really did move to Idaho.

There honestly is a decent amount of evidence this election to suggests there is some level of increased political self-sorting going on:

-OR/WA/CO barely budging, with many of the bluest areas of those states only getting bluer
-AZ had the largest shift right of any swing state, and there's been a lot of media about Conservatives moving there to "escape" California or whatever.
-Fast growing parts of ID and to a lesser extent MT having further right swings. Kootenai, Canyon, and Ada counties all stand out for their rightwards swings
-Florida
-Possibly TX growth becoming favorable to Rs again, but TX has so many dynamics at play it's hard to get a good sense of what happened there.

[ottermax]

Clark, WA - It seems like many of the suburbs of notorious blue cities, especially the more conservative self-sorting ones shifted right but this one shifted left instead. Perhaps high Dem investment from MGP's race could've made the difference?

I'm probably biased because the people I know IRL who live there are almost all nonwhite (mostly immigrants and/or domestic transplants), but growth in Clark County WA is very favorable to Dems.

What really surprises me is Trump's % in Multnomah County dropping from 2020; I expected him to hit 20% there. I predicted 74-24 Harris assuming a 3rd party 2020 ->Trump 2024 shift, population loss during the pandemic, and possible persuasion in Portland's West Hills and in the areas suburbs east of I-205.

I expected a pretty big R swing in Multnomah County that hasn’t materialized. According to DDHQ, Multnomah is 90% in with Harris matching Biden’s 79.2% but Trump underperforming his 17.9% from 2020 (he’s currently at 17.3%!)

Washington County is 80% in right now and it’s a similar story. Harris is barely underperforming Biden’s 65.5%, but Trump is doing 0.6% better. I’m guessing the R swing is stronger in downscale and more Latino areas, but we’ll have to wait until precinct results are available to say for sure.

The Multnomah number is really surprising... will need to see how it wraps up in final numbers but I would've expected a rightward swing with Latino voters from the eastside or a loss from Democrats to Stein or non-voting... maybe the Republicans really did move to Idaho.

There honestly is a decent amount of evidence this election to suggests there is some level of increased political self-sorting going on:

-OR/WA/CO barely budging, with many of the bluest areas of those states only getting bluer
-AZ had the largest shift right of any swing state, and there's been a lot of media about Conservatives moving there to "escape" California or whatever.
-Fast growing parts of ID and to a lesser extent MT having further right swings. Kootenai, Canyon, and Ada counties all stand out for their rightwards swings
-Florida
-Possibly TX growth becoming favorable to Rs again, but TX has so many dynamics at play it's hard to get a good sense of what happened there.

These trends are difficult to disaggregate from the Hispanic trends though - all of the fast growing places you named except maybe some of the Northern Idaho and Montana ones also have massive Hispanic growth.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Clark, WA - It seems like many of the suburbs of notorious blue cities, especially the more conservative self-sorting ones shifted right but this one shifted left instead. Perhaps high Dem investment from MGP's race could've made the difference?

I'm probably biased because the people I know IRL who live there are almost all nonwhite (mostly immigrants and/or domestic transplants), but growth in Clark County WA is very favorable to Dems.

What really surprises me is Trump's % in Multnomah County dropping from 2020; I expected him to hit 20% there. I predicted 74-24 Harris assuming a 3rd party 2020 ->Trump 2024 shift, population loss during the pandemic, and possible persuasion in Portland's West Hills and in the areas suburbs east of I-205.

I expected a pretty big R swing in Multnomah County that hasn’t materialized. According to DDHQ, Multnomah is 90% in with Harris matching Biden’s 79.2% but Trump underperforming his 17.9% from 2020 (he’s currently at 17.3%!)

Washington County is 80% in right now and it’s a similar story. Harris is barely underperforming Biden’s 65.5%, but Trump is doing 0.6% better. I’m guessing the R swing is stronger in downscale and more Latino areas, but we’ll have to wait until precinct results are available to say for sure.

The Multnomah number is really surprising... will need to see how it wraps up in final numbers but I would've expected a rightward swing with Latino voters from the eastside or a loss from Democrats to Stein or non-voting... maybe the Republicans really did move to Idaho.

There honestly is a decent amount of evidence this election to suggests there is some level of increased political self-sorting going on:

-OR/WA/CO barely budging, with many of the bluest areas of those states only getting bluer
-AZ had the largest shift right of any swing state, and there's been a lot of media about Conservatives moving there to "escape" California or whatever.
-Fast growing parts of ID and to a lesser extent MT having further right swings. Kootenai, Canyon, and Ada counties all stand out for their rightwards swings
-Florida
-Possibly TX growth becoming favorable to Rs again, but TX has so many dynamics at play it's hard to get a good sense of what happened there.

These trends are difficult to disaggregate from the Hispanic trends though - all of the fast growing places you named except maybe some of the Northern Idaho and Montana ones also have massive Hispanic growth.

Fair point, which is why in TX I made the note there are other dynamics making it hard to disaggregate, especially because in TX Hispanics are spread out nearly everywhere (as opposed to AZ and FL where you have lots of plces that have very low Hispanic populations).

[Banana Republican]

Steuben County, IN - seems like a random County to shift left and by as much as it did - stands out from it's neighbors

An aside - this was one of the first counties to report a substantial amount of the vote on election night, and also is right next to Michigan.

So initially it made it look like Harris might be on track to do well (especially in MI). Alas, twas not to be:

Steuben county IN (first county on the MI border with results)

2024 (56% in):

Trump 66.9%
Harris 31.5%

2020:

Trump 70.0%
Biden 27.9%


Promising for MI for Harris unless there is a substantially unexpected blue mirage in IN.

Also isn't this year supposed to be less of a blue mirage since Trump was pushing his sheeple to vote early anyway?

Yes.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Steuben County, IN - seems like a random County to shift left and by as much as it did - stands out from it's neighbors

An aside - this was one of the first counties to report a substantial amount of the vote on election night, and also is right next to Michigan.

So initially it made it look like Harris might be on track to do well (especially in MI). Alas, twas not to be:

Steuben county IN (first county on the MI border with results)

2024 (56% in):

Trump 66.9%
Harris 31.5%

2020:

Trump 70.0%
Biden 27.9%


Promising for MI for Harris unless there is a substantially unexpected blue mirage in IN.

Also isn't this year supposed to be less of a blue mirage since Trump was pushing his sheeple to vote early anyway?

Yes.

The first few results really gave Dems a lot of false hopium - a few of the early finishing counties in IN ended up being oddballs and Harris was briefly leading in Hamilton County only for e-day to shift the County nearly back to where it was in 2020.

[インターネット掲示板ユーザー Punxsutawney Phil]

Steuben County, IN - seems like a random County to shift left and by as much as it did - stands out from it's neighbors

An aside - this was one of the first counties to report a substantial amount of the vote on election night, and also is right next to Michigan.

So initially it made it look like Harris might be on track to do well (especially in MI). Alas, twas not to be:

Steuben county IN (first county on the MI border with results)

2024 (56% in):

Trump 66.9%
Harris 31.5%

2020:

Trump 70.0%
Biden 27.9%


Promising for MI for Harris unless there is a substantially unexpected blue mirage in IN.

Also isn't this year supposed to be less of a blue mirage since Trump was pushing his sheeple to vote early anyway?

Yes.

The first few results really gave Dems a lot of false hopium - a few of the early finishing counties in IN ended up being oddballs and Harris was briefly leading in Hamilton County only for e-day to shift the County nearly back to where it was in 2020.

It is a bit cruel to the Dems' expectations that the typical rules (IN and KY set the tone for the night) utterly failed us.
Only the multitudes of rural counties reporting notable Trump swings combined with Hamilton moving back towards a small D swing finally gave a clear picture.

[ProgressiveModerate]

To add another one that was discussed a bit in the general results page is Brazos County, TX, which saw a 11% swing to the right. This County is home to College Station and Texas A & M University, and is generally quite Conservative for a college town.

One theory I pointed out is perhaps increased self-sorting and a general swing right in the youth vote contributed to the hard rightwards swing, but another poster pointed out how just 2 years ago O' Rourke put up impressive numbers in the County.

Part of what makes it odd overall is while some colleges and college towns did swing a bit right overall, it seems like Harris generally held up better in these communities given the national environment, but not here.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Latah County UT is another one - home to University of Idaho, and swung 12% right. Is it college students self-sorting such that Conservative students are increasingly sorting into a few red state state schools?

[Tekken_Guy]

Steuben County, IN - seems like a random County to shift left and by as much as it did - stands out from it's neighbors

An aside - this was one of the first counties to report a substantial amount of the vote on election night, and also is right next to Michigan.

So initially it made it look like Harris might be on track to do well (especially in MI). Alas, twas not to be:

Steuben county IN (first county on the MI border with results)

2024 (56% in):

Trump 66.9%
Harris 31.5%

2020:

Trump 70.0%
Biden 27.9%


Promising for MI for Harris unless there is a substantially unexpected blue mirage in IN.

Also isn't this year supposed to be less of a blue mirage since Trump was pushing his sheeple to vote early anyway?

Yes.

The first few results really gave Dems a lot of false hopium - a few of the early finishing counties in IN ended up being oddballs and Harris was briefly leading in Hamilton County only for e-day to shift the County nearly back to where it was in 2020.

It is a bit cruel to the Dems' expectations that the typical rules (IN and KY set the tone for the night) utterly failed us.
Only the multitudes of rural counties reporting notable Trump swings combined with Hamilton moving back towards a small D swing finally gave a clear picture.

Then the bomb dropped out of Loudoun.

[lfromnj]

Latah County UT is another one - home to University of Idaho, and swung 12% right. Is it college students self-sorting such that Conservative students are increasingly sorting into a few red state state schools?

https://twitter.com/Lemommeringue/status/1856422684877537728

Yeah not Latah Id but still crazy . Looks like it swung D but actually R .