Unexplained County Swings?

[lfromnj]

Ironically, Springfield's county (Clark) is one of only 3 counties in OH to trend R.

Honestly one of the more depressing results of the election for me because it suggests the whole media cycle around "they're eating the dogs they're eating the cats" worked to Trump'd benefit there.

I mean it's not really about the whole media cycle about the cats and dogs but the fact it’s the center of a pretty big crisis that the Biden admin is partly at fault for.  Trump probably does even better without the cats/dogs stuff as long as he still mentioned and acted like he gave somewhat of a damn about the city .

[Rhode Islander First, American Second]

Why didn't Clarke County, GA (Athens) move right all that much? It's a southern college town with lots of frats and Greek life (ground zero for Gen Z movement to Trump), has a big sports culture, and was the site of the Laken Riley murder by an illegal immigrant gang member. I would've expected it to shift more than 3.8 points right given this.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Why didn't Clarke County, GA (Athens) move right all that much? It's a southern college town with lots of frats and Greek life (ground zero for Gen Z movement to Trump), has a big sports culture, and was the site of the Laken Riley murder by an illegal immigrant gang member. I would've expected it to shift more than 3.8 points right given this.

A lot of college kids don't actually vote in their school's location. The electorate that usually participates in Athens are the townies, university alumni, professors/researches, and maybe Masters/PHD students. The undergrad UGA crowd isn't a significant portion of the voting pool there, and a lot of southern SEC students are probably less likely to vote than their BIG10, Pac12 counterparts.

[Aurelius2]

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?

Idaho is a very geographically cleaved state with poor connections between the northern panhandle and the south. I wonder if the university in Moscow draws disproportionately from the panhandle rather than drawing fairly evenly from across the state as you might expect from a state flagship. And the panhandle of course is ground zero for politically motivated self-sorting migration.

[Aurelius2]

Summitt UT swinging 4% right is somewhat suprising given what's happenning in the rest of UT.

This one is really bizarre. The only explanation I can think of is demographic changes or maybe people who were working remotely from Park City returned home? Really odd for this county to swing right even by that much.

Aspen did as well in Colorado . Honestly thinking crunchy anti vaxxers .

Yeah. I lived in a ski town (Tahoe City CA) for a couple years after college and my experience was that a lot of people there are sort of natural Democrats while also being big into every conspiracy idea under the sun. Anti vax in particular was huge there, as is all sorts of crunchy food ideology. The Crank Realignment in general, and the Trump-RFK alliance in particular, surely helped Trump big in these kinds of places. And yes this is an anecdote but to get a sense of the depth of this sort of thinking in these places, one of my Tahoe City housemates was a big chemtrails believer and another was into "phantom time" (some old crank's idea that most of the Middle Ages never happened and are a fabrication by later historians).

That doesn't explain Chaffee and its massive leftward swing though - the only thing I can think of is that perhaps ski towns in particular are perhaps bigger attractors of this kind of thing than mountain towns in general. There is only one minor ski area in Chaffee, compare to places like Summit and Eagle that have several major destination resorts apiece. Maybe I'll look at some CO precinct level data once that's available in an easy format to use.

[Aurelius2]

San Juan, the second biggest leftward county swing in CO, also has only one very niche ski area (Silverton, which is for experts only by design and lacks ANY of the amenities of a typical ski area - they cap daily attendance at 475 but most days have under 80 skiers; most ski areas are well into the 4 figures a day, and surely low 5 figures at some). Potentially interestingly in light of my theory that ski towns swung differently than non-ski mountain towns.

[Spectator]

Why didn't Clarke County, GA (Athens) move right all that much? It's a southern college town with lots of frats and Greek life (ground zero for Gen Z movement to Trump), has a big sports culture, and was the site of the Laken Riley murder by an illegal immigrant gang member. I would've expected it to shift more than 3.8 points right given this.

A lot of college kids don't actually vote in their school's location. The electorate that usually participates in Athens are the townies, university alumni, professors/researches, and maybe Masters/PHD students. The undergrad UGA crowd isn't a significant portion of the voting pool there, and a lot of southern SEC students are probably less likely to vote than their BIG10, Pac12 counterparts.

And anyhow, only about 30% of UGA is in Greek Life. My guess is that the student body would vote roughly how Clarke County did. A little more than 2-1 blue. UGA is essentially a new school compared to how it used to be. It takes Ivy-level stats to get in.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Summitt UT swinging 4% right is somewhat suprising given what's happenning in the rest of UT.

This one is really bizarre. The only explanation I can think of is demographic changes or maybe people who were working remotely from Park City returned home? Really odd for this county to swing right even by that much.

Aspen did as well in Colorado . Honestly thinking crunchy anti vaxxers .

Yeah. I lived in a ski town (Tahoe City CA) for a couple years after college and my experience was that a lot of people there are sort of natural Democrats while also being big into every conspiracy idea under the sun. Anti vax in particular was huge there, as is all sorts of crunchy food ideology. The Crank Realignment in general, and the Trump-RFK alliance in particular, surely helped Trump big in these kinds of places. And yes this is an anecdote but to get a sense of the depth of this sort of thinking in these places, one of my Tahoe City housemates was a big chemtrails believer and another was into "phantom time" (some old crank's idea that most of the Middle Ages never happened and are a fabrication by later historians).

That doesn't explain Chaffee and its massive leftward swing though - the only thing I can think of is that perhaps ski towns in particular are perhaps bigger attractors of this kind of thing than mountain towns in general. There is only one minor ski area in Chaffee, compare to places like Summit and Eagle that have several major destination resorts apiece. Maybe I'll look at some CO precinct level data once that's available in an easy format to use.

One of the geniuses of the Trump campaign this cycle is pulling in a ton of otherwise possibly left leaning voters using single wedge issues like anti-vax, I/P, ect.

In general, it feels like a lot of the people who at face value may seem 60D/40R or even 80D/20R in their ideology ended up voting for Trump for one or two specific wedge issues - you don’t really see this happening as much the other way with single-issue pro-choice voters or something, and I think Democrats really need to figure it out - I think there’s a perception you need greater ideological purity to be a Democrat

[Nhoj]

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

Sharkey had a devastating tornado just last year and was already one of the fastest declining places in MS, plus only has maybe 3500people living there.  most likely explanation is more whites have left with maybe some people happy with the federal response as a secondary factor.

[Raccoon]

I explained the Pitkin County swing..

a lot of local issues.. and the pro expansion votes were associated with democrats.

Why is Aspen Colorado having a noticeable rightward swing? It’s barely trending D

Was just thinking the same thing - there seems to be a lot of interesting divergences in some of these western slope ski counties, especially because Aspen is relatively white. It is worth noting in 2020 Pitkin County's swing left was noticeably weaker than it's neighbors as well.

Why is Aspen Colorado having a noticeable rightward swing? It’s barely trending D

I live and work in the area.

Various reasons.

1) A lot of the work from home people have went back home or moved to the front range.

2) Some of the long time residents are resisting growth here, and a debate on growth has put a lot them resist Democratic policies (NIMBY's still lost their preferred side on local votes on housing, airport expansion, etc)

3) the nation as a whole shifted right wing, and Pitkin County made a close uniform swing.

4) A lot of people here saw Harris as pretty "fake" and bleh.

5) Inflation had an outsized impact in colorado mountain towns.

6) Democrats already hit a wall in 2020 in Aspen.

7) Some local backlash due to environmental zealots who are going to far to the left even for me.. and much of the community doing extremely language policing.

people in the area moving to the more affordable grand junction area.

9) Hotel management in the area has always been GOP-leaning but went hard GOP this year.

10) the homeless in the area are VERY entitled and extremely aggressive.

Ironically, with the nimbys being disappointed in localized election results, I have anecdotally heard they want move out the area. So expect a mini Dem-trend in pitkin.

Some of the language policing here is insane. I have made cry here before due to my very blunt language.

but yes.. i know some people who voted against expansion votes are going to leave the area

[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.

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

Sharkey had a devastating tornado just last year and was already one of the fastest declining places in MS, plus only has maybe 3500people living there.  most likely explanation is more whites have left with maybe some people happy with the federal response as a secondary factor.

looking at the precinct results from Sharkey

Anguilla 4th District: 161/106 Harris
Anguilla 5th District: 127/31 Harris
Cary 2nd District: 189/66 Harris
Delta City 5th District: 119/84 Harris
Rolling Fork 1st District: 226/170 Harris
Rolling Fork 2nd District: 34/0 Harris
Rolling Fork 3rd District: 246/24 Harris
Rolling Fork 4th District: 73/2 Harris
Spanish Fort 1st District: 22/2 Trump
Straight Bayou 4th District: 46/24 Trump

total: Harris 1201/551

and in 2020

Anguilla 4th: 181/124 Biden
Anguilla 5th: 167/34 Biden
Cary 2nd: 222/79 Biden
Delta City 5th: 151/87 Biden
Rolling Fork 1st: 254/249 Biden
Rolling Fork 2nd: 42/5 Biden
Rolling Fork 3rd: 315/24 Biden
Rolling Fork 4th: 96/6 Biden
Spanish Fort 1st: 29/3 Trump
Straight Bayou 4th: 51/34 Trump

total: Biden 1465/688

so the gains/losses
Anguilla 4th: -20 Harris, +18 Trump
Anguilla 5th: -40 Harris, -3 Trump
Cary 2nd: -33 Harris, -13 Trump
Delta City 5th District: -32 Harris, -3 Trump
Rolling Fork 1st District: -28 Harris, -79 Trump
Rolling Fork 2nd District: -8 Harris, -5 Trump
Rolling Fork 3rd District: -69 Harris, same total for Trump
Rolling Fork 4th District: -23 Harris, -4 Trump
Spanish Fort 1st District: -1 Harris, -7 Trump
Straight Bayou 4th District: -10 Harris, -6 Trump

total: -264 Harris, -137 Trump

looking at the tornado path, it went through Rolling Rock 1 and Rolling Rock 3. Both precincts go West/East from Issaquena to Yazoo County

Sharkey swung a bit in a few 2023 races too

MS PSC: went from 62/38 Dem to 68/32 Dem in a race between the same two candidates
MS Transportation Commissioner: 65/35 Dem to 73/27 Dem
MS Gov: 72/27 Dem to 75/23 Dem

And it swung from 64/36 Dem for the US Senate to 69/31 from 2018 to 2024

[ponderosa peen 🌲]

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?

Idaho is a very geographically cleaved state with poor connections between the northern panhandle and the south. I wonder if the university in Moscow draws disproportionately from the panhandle rather than drawing fairly evenly from across the state as you might expect from a state flagship. And the panhandle of course is ground zero for politically motivated self-sorting migration.

This has been my exact hunch but I have pretty limited anec-data to back it up (I don't remember meeting any UofI grads when I was living Boise save for one coworker who grew up in Bonners Ferry, and I think three of the four victims in the student murder were from the Panhandle while the fourth was from California). I tried digging into the UofI enrollment numbers and, predictably, there wasn't anything differentiating what part of the state students were coming from. The contrast with Pullman/Whitman is interesting but Pullman still pulls in a lot of students from the Puget trough areas so the student body, while different from U-Dub, feels distinct from Idaho's.

The self-sorting with out of state students feels right to me. I don't know the tuition/cost of living breakdown but, assuming they're equal (big if!) I still think Boise and Moscow are going to be pulling in fairly different kinds of students.

[Aurelius2]

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?

Idaho is a very geographically cleaved state with poor connections between the northern panhandle and the south. I wonder if the university in Moscow draws disproportionately from the panhandle rather than drawing fairly evenly from across the state as you might expect from a state flagship. And the panhandle of course is ground zero for politically motivated self-sorting migration.

This has been my exact hunch but I have pretty limited anec-data to back it up (I don't remember meeting any UofI grads when I was living Boise save for one coworker who grew up in Bonners Ferry, and I think three of the four victims in the student murder were from the Panhandle while the fourth was from California). I tried digging into the UofI enrollment numbers and, predictably, there wasn't anything differentiating what part of the state students were coming from. The contrast with Pullman/Whitman is interesting but Pullman still pulls in a lot of students from the Puget trough areas so the student body, while different from U-Dub, feels distinct from Idaho's.

The self-sorting with out of state students feels right to me. I don't know the tuition/cost of living breakdown but, assuming they're equal (big if!) I still think Boise and Moscow are going to be pulling in fairly different kinds of students.

MT and ID being much alike in their culture and reputation, the handful of people I've known who went to Montana State as Californians corroborate your point about out-of-state student sorting, to the extent such anecdotes can.