Which single state had the most shocking result this election?

[iceman]

Which single state for you defied conventional wisdom and gave the most shocking result of the election night?


Personally, I’m torn between Texas and New Jersey.

But I have to give it to Texas as it was a general consensus in this board that Texas was lurching to the left even in the current political environment, but no one expected it to give a 13% margin in the end.

[Samof94]

Which single state for you defied conventional wisdom and gave the most shocking result of the election night?


Personally, I’m torn between Texas and New Jersey.

But I have to give it to Texas as it was a general consensus in this board that Texas was lurching to the left even in the current political environment, but no idy expected it to give a 13% margin in the end.

Virginia was much narrower than expected.

[wbrocks67]

Probably Texas. New Jersey was very surprising but at least Republicans getting close isn't *super* crazy in general after the 2021 result, but TX was just wild at how much it backslided.

Virginia was Harris +6, which was lower than anticipated, but still more than Clinton and not that wild imo, especially given what happened elsewhere. Given 2021 as well, you'd think VA would've moved much more rightward this year than it did.

[He's turned to dust now, one of the chosen few]

Honorable mention to OH for moving that far right without any county flips

[Arizona Iced Tea]

1) TX
2) NJ
3) AZ
4) Blue wall order
5) CA

[有爭議嘅領土 of The Figgis Agency]

TX by a country mile. NJ being that narrow was a bit surprising, but the result there fit my overall priors for Metro NYC.

[TDAS04]

Arizona among swing states.

NJ being so close (for New Jersey anyway, 6% D win is close).

Virginia going D+6 did not surprise much, honestly.

California trending R as much as did did surprise me.

A bit surprised by how far right Deep South states such as Mississippi and South Carolina swung. The African-American vote just was not there or enthusiastic enough to provide Harris with the floor they usually provide Democratic candidates.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Probably TX, because there were a lot of different shocking things that added up:

-Hispanics shifting hard right - not necessarily shocking in itself, but wasn't expecting urban Hispanics to swing right in similar magnitude to rural Hispanics
-Trump sweeping all the South TX border Counties
-Asian voters shifting hard right across the board, including in communities where they appeared to shift decently left in 2020 Pres
-Harris underperforming in the Austin metro where there are a ton of educated liberal whites - some of it was definitely Hispanics pushing things right but even looking at precinct results she underperformed in whiter areas.
-This ties together a lot of the previous points, but suburbs where Dems saw strong gains in 2016/2020 seeing some reversion, often quite substantial (i.e. Fort Bend County)
-Turnout differentials massively deviating from basically all recent Pres cycles and partisan turnout differentials looking more like 2022 than 2012/2016/2020.

And to top it all off Loving County having the strongest leftwards shift in the state is pretty funny

This of course cumulated to a Trump + 14 topline result I don't think anyone, even the most hackish Republicans, saw coming, but then on the same ballot the Senate race being R+8 and Allred putting up the best performance relative to the nation for a statewide TX Dem and having some of his biggest overperformances in the TX suburbs is just wild. I don't think anyone saw him outrunning Harris by over 5%.


I think one result that was really misleading was the 2022 TX results, specifically for Gov, Lt Gov, and AG. In these races, Democrats largely got close to Biden numbers in most urban/suburan areas, and places like the RGV even shifted left - this was all despite Dems basically not investing and being heavily outspent. I think many (myself included) assumed that in a Presidential year, the turnout differential gap would close by default, and Harris would largely match or do better on persuasion, and so these results were close to Harris's floor in the state, especially in the more urban/suburban areas. Even with hindsight, it's still hard to square how these elections exist in the same timeline. I think 2026 should help give us a sense of if TX may just be a different state in midterms on modern coalitions, or if TX really just did have some massive shift right between 2022 and 2024.


In other states like CA, FL, and NY, Dems extreme underperformances in 2022 kind of set up the potential for Harris to underperform Biden, perhaps somewhat substantially.


The only thing I did get right in TX was that Kaufman County was a contender for one of the strongest left shifts nationally, and in the end, it was one of just a handful of counties to shift over 5% to Harris.



Some other honorable mentions:

AZ - Similar reasons to TX
MA - Pre-election was sort of stereotyped as the type of place where Harris would largely hold up well
OR - Doesn't match the theme of "Harris underperforming in poorly run blue state where Dems did badly in 2022"
PA - Less so the topline result but the internal coalition shifts. Was not expecting Harris to largely get Biden numbers in central PA while underperforming in the Philly collar counties. Also, Monroe County having the biggest rightwards shift just seems so out of place.

[New World Man]

Trump coming very close to winning 3 wards in Chicago(he won the 41st easily.

Door County,WI ends being a bellwether.

[Mr. Smith]

North Carolina.

It should've been a Trump +6 state. And Robinson managing to lose by as much as he did on the gubernatorial level.


Other HMs: Texas, Utah, Indiana

[krb08]

Definitely Texas. I never would've imagined Trump doing far better than he did in 2016 there. Blexas is not happening anytime soon.

New Jersey was also surprising, but a bit less so because I was already expecting the entire NYC metro to swing right.

[Zenobiyl]

New Jersey

[jaichind]

New Jersey

[インターネット掲示板ユーザー Punxsutawney Phil]

Rhode Island

[rabidPolitico]

North Carolina.

It should've been a Trump +6 state. And Robinson managing to lose by as much as he did on the gubernatorial level.


Other HMs: Texas, Utah, Indiana

NC didn't surprise me because it's pretty inelastic at the federal level. I don't think NC has the capacity to elect a republican at > than 3-4% at the national level.  It's going to be competitive for a while and has been since 2008.  Trump did better there than in 2020.  But I also think if it weren't for Hurrican Helene, he would've done slightly better and won it by nearly 4% if it didn't impact western NC to the extent it did.

[インターネット掲示板ユーザー Punxsutawney Phil]

North Carolina.

It should've been a Trump +6 state. And Robinson managing to lose by as much as he did on the gubernatorial level.


Other HMs: Texas, Utah, Indiana

NC didn't surprise me because it's pretty inelastic at the federal level. I don't think NC has the capacity to elect a republican at > than 3-4% at the national level.  It's going to be competitive for a while and has been since 2008.  Trump did better there than in 2020.  But I also think if it weren't for Hurrican Helene, he would've done slightly better and won it by nearly 4% if it didn't impact western NC to the extent it did.

Welcome to the forum!

[ProgressiveModerate]

Rhode Island

Curious as to RI - I feel like the state has always been viewed as one of the New England states with the most potential to shift/trend R, and Harris only did marginally worse than Clinton 2016 there.

I personally find MA more surprising because it had a larger shift right than RI but was seen as one of the New England states with the most longterm upside for Dems.

[インターネット掲示板ユーザー Punxsutawney Phil]

Rhode Island

Curious as to RI - I feel like the state has always been viewed as one of the New England states with the most potential to shift/trend R, and Harris only did marginally worse than Clinton 2016 there.

I personally find MA more surprising because it had a larger shift right than RI but was seen as one of the New England states with the most longterm upside for Dems.

RI shocked me hugely in Election Night with it being so close. Of course the margin widened but RI being so close completely cut against the narratives heading into the election, so I felt RI topped the list. RI makes sense in retrospect but without hindsight it hits differently.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Rhode Island

Curious as to RI - I feel like the state has always been viewed as one of the New England states with the most potential to shift/trend R, and Harris only did marginally worse than Clinton 2016 there.

I personally find MA more surprising because it had a larger shift right than RI but was seen as one of the New England states with the most longterm upside for Dems.

RI shocked me hugely in Election Night with it being so close. Of course the margin widened but RI being so close completely cut against the narratives heading into the election, so I felt RI topped the list. RI makes sense in retrospect but without hindsight it hits differently.

I think part of it is because RI has an R counting bias and takes forever to call. I remember in 2020 it took them forever to call it even though Biden ultimately won it by a healthy 20% margin, but for a while it had some Ds panicking.

[インターネット掲示板ユーザー Punxsutawney Phil]

Rhode Island

Curious as to RI - I feel like the state has always been viewed as one of the New England states with the most potential to shift/trend R, and Harris only did marginally worse than Clinton 2016 there.

I personally find MA more surprising because it had a larger shift right than RI but was seen as one of the New England states with the most longterm upside for Dems.

RI shocked me hugely in Election Night with it being so close. Of course the margin widened but RI being so close completely cut against the narratives heading into the election, so I felt RI topped the list. RI makes sense in retrospect but without hindsight it hits differently.

I think part of it is because RI has an R counting bias and takes forever to call. I remember in 2020 it took them forever to call it even though Biden ultimately won it by a healthy 20% margin, but for a while it had some Ds panicking.

Huh.
I guess RI being so small and practically never mattering doesn't help here. I didn't really even piece together RI having a big R vote counting bias until you posted this.

[CentristRepublican]

Definitely Texas. I never would've imagined Trump doing far better than he did in 2016 there. Blexas is not happening anytime soon.

New Jersey was also surprising, but a bit less so because I was already expecting the entire NYC metro to swing right.

This. There was a consensus that NJ would swing/trend right given the 2021/2022 elections there and in NYC. But TX was totally out of left field. the DFW counties having the same-sized rightward swing as the Bay Area (and the nation as a whole) was certainly quite a surprise.

[CentristRepublican]

Rhode Island

Curious as to RI - I feel like the state has always been viewed as one of the New England states with the most potential to shift/trend R, and Harris only did marginally worse than Clinton 2016 there.

I personally find MA more surprising because it had a larger shift right than RI but was seen as one of the New England states with the most longterm upside for Dems.

RI shocked me hugely in Election Night with it being so close. Of course the margin widened but RI being so close completely cut against the narratives heading into the election, so I felt RI topped the list. RI makes sense in retrospect but without hindsight it hits differently.

I think part of it is because RI has an R counting bias and takes forever to call. I remember in 2020 it took them forever to call it even though Biden ultimately won it by a healthy 20% margin, but for a while it had some Ds panicking.

I wasn't aware of this fact and it drove me absolutely insane on Election Night.

Rhode Island

Curious as to RI - I feel like the state has always been viewed as one of the New England states with the most potential to shift/trend R, and Harris only did marginally worse than Clinton 2016 there.

I personally find MA more surprising because it had a larger shift right than RI but was seen as one of the New England states with the most longterm upside for Dems.

I will say I personally was always a bit more skeptical of MA trending/swinging D. I did think NE as a whole and definitely states like MA would see Biden as a better fit than Harris.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Definitely Texas. I never would've imagined Trump doing far better than he did in 2016 there. Blexas is not happening anytime soon.

New Jersey was also surprising, but a bit less so because I was already expecting the entire NYC metro to swing right.

This. There was a consensus that NJ would swing/trend right given the 2021/2022 elections there and in NYC. But TX was totally out of left field. the DFW counties having the same-sized rightward swing as the Bay Area (and the nation as a whole) was certainly quite a surprise.

With reguards to DFW, Collin County was especially shocking. Super-fast growing, highest educational attainment in the state, had pretty consistently been getting bluer even pre-2016, ect. Seems like part of problem was the fairly large Asian population in the County, but I'm still not sure why the County as a whole saw so much reversion.

One theory is that a lot of TX suburbs are more diverse than people give them credit for. I bet more don't realize Collin and Denton Counties are only ~50% white. Williamson County outside Austin is only 55% white. This cycle, Trump's gains amongst non-whites were pretty universal, but it also seems like there was an element of Dem turnout amongst non-whites just being really bad - and that uneven turnout is going to be felt most heavily in a County who's electorate is closer to 50% white/50% non-white.

Like go on the NYT swing map and look at the Counties in the southeast that had the largest 2020-->2024 swings - they tend to be closely divided between white and black populations, whereas more homogenously white and black counties had smaller shifts right. This suggests that a lot of Harris's problem in this region wasn't bad particularly bad persuasion with white or black voters, rather white voters turning out at higher rates relative to blacks.

I could see the argument she suffered from a similar problem in many of these large urban/suburban TX counties - even though it's not deep south levels of polarization, in all of them (except Travis and Hays), the white vote is still pretty far to the right of the non-white vote.

[インターネット掲示板ユーザー Punxsutawney Phil]

Definitely Texas. I never would've imagined Trump doing far better than he did in 2016 there. Blexas is not happening anytime soon.

New Jersey was also surprising, but a bit less so because I was already expecting the entire NYC metro to swing right.

This. There was a consensus that NJ would swing/trend right given the 2021/2022 elections there and in NYC. But TX was totally out of left field. the DFW counties having the same-sized rightward swing as the Bay Area (and the nation as a whole) was certainly quite a surprise.

With reguards to DFW, Collin County was especially shocking. Super-fast growing, highest educational attainment in the state, had pretty consistently been getting bluer even pre-2016, ect. Seems like part of problem was the fairly large Asian population in the County, but I'm still not sure why the County as a whole saw so much reversion.

One theory is that a lot of TX suburbs are more diverse than people give them credit for. I bet more don't realize Collin and Denton Counties are only ~50% white. Williamson County outside Austin is only 55% white. This cycle, Trump's gains amongst non-whites were pretty universal, but it also seems like there was an element of Dem turnout amongst non-whites just being really bad - and that uneven turnout is going to be felt most heavily in a County who's electorate is closer to 50% white/50% non-white.

Like go on the NYT swing map and look at the Counties in the southeast that had the largest 2020-->2024 swings - they tend to be closely divided between white and black populations, whereas more homogenously white and black counties had smaller shifts right. This suggests that a lot of Harris's problem in this region wasn't bad particularly bad persuasion with white or black voters, rather white voters turning out at higher rates relative to blacks.

I could see the argument she suffered from a similar problem in many of these large urban/suburban TX counties - even though it's not deep south levels of polarization, in all of them (except Travis and Hays), the white vote is still pretty far to the right of the non-white vote.

My thinking re: Collin is Rs basically swept up most of the persuadables, while also having favorable differential turnout.

[Tekken_Guy]

Definitely Texas. I never would've imagined Trump doing far better than he did in 2016 there. Blexas is not happening anytime soon.

New Jersey was also surprising, but a bit less so because I was already expecting the entire NYC metro to swing right.

This. There was a consensus that NJ would swing/trend right given the 2021/2022 elections there and in NYC. But TX was totally out of left field. the DFW counties having the same-sized rightward swing as the Bay Area (and the nation as a whole) was certainly quite a surprise.

With reguards to DFW, Collin County was especially shocking. Super-fast growing, highest educational attainment in the state, had pretty consistently been getting bluer even pre-2016, ect. Seems like part of problem was the fairly large Asian population in the County, but I'm still not sure why the County as a whole saw so much reversion.

One theory is that a lot of TX suburbs are more diverse than people give them credit for. I bet more don't realize Collin and Denton Counties are only ~50% white. Williamson County outside Austin is only 55% white. This cycle, Trump's gains amongst non-whites were pretty universal, but it also seems like there was an element of Dem turnout amongst non-whites just being really bad - and that uneven turnout is going to be felt most heavily in a County who's electorate is closer to 50% white/50% non-white.

Like go on the NYT swing map and look at the Counties in the southeast that had the largest 2020-->2024 swings - they tend to be closely divided between white and black populations, whereas more homogenously white and black counties had smaller shifts right. This suggests that a lot of Harris's problem in this region wasn't bad particularly bad persuasion with white or black voters, rather white voters turning out at higher rates relative to blacks.

I could see the argument she suffered from a similar problem in many of these large urban/suburban TX counties - even though it's not deep south levels of polarization, in all of them (except Travis and Hays), the white vote is still pretty far to the right of the non-white vote.

The big swings in the Nashville suburban counties were pretty shocking too.