Largest Counties By Votes for Biden and Trump, 2020

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by PoshSteve

Mahoning County is interesting. The margin for President was thin - 50.38 Trump, 48.44 Biden - but the Mahoning Valley congressional race was not. Tim Ryan, the Dem incumbent, won handedly against his Trump backed challenger, 52.48 to 44.98. Also, in 2018 the Ohio Dem Senator, Sherrod Brown, won a solid victory, 53.4 to 46.6. This included all of the Mahoning Valley counties.

For these reasons, I don't think the Democrats are dead in the Valley. Like a lot of areas in the Midwest/NE that flipped, I think it's more a vote for Trump the man than anything else.

it's kind of like the inverse of what happened in many wealthier/more educated suburban places where they voted against trump but for their local republican reps.

trump's unnecessarily divisive obnoxiousness was just a bridge too far for too many educated people.

but in down on their luck places in the rust belt, his bellicose rhetoric was music to the ears of those who feel like they've been left behind.

[BG918]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

it's kind of like the inverse of what happened in many wealthier/more educated suburban places where they voted against trump but for their local republican reps.

trump's unnecessarily divisive obnoxiousness was just a bridge too far for too many educated people. but in down on their luck places in the rust belt, his bellicose rhetoric was music to the ears of those who feel like they've been left behind.

Same goes for heavily Hispanic areas like the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. Trump's machismo was a selling point vs. milquetoast Biden.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by JManc

I did. Small town/ rural California is inconsequential compared to urban areas unlike the northeast which has loads of rural communities and battered small towns. Plus, the cities tend to be more progressive and further to the left than their counterparts back east.

Exactly. The sheer number of smaller towns in big metropolitan area-dominated states like NY and PA is staggering.

I imagine that without NYC and Philadelphia, NY and PA would be red states.

Many people tend to think of these two Northeast states as liberal democrat bastions, but they are really far from it on the whole state level

Just looking at Buffalo (NY 2nd largest metro area)... Erie County only went for Biden by 20k votes. Same with Rochester and even less of a margin for Syracuse.

Both NY and PA are vast seas of red with blue splotches.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Exactly. The sheer number of smaller towns in big metropolitan area-dominated states like NY and PA is staggering.

I imagine that without NYC and Philadelphia, NY and PA would be red states.

Many people tend to think of these two Northeast states as liberal democrat bastions, but they are really far from it on the whole state level

Just looking at Buffalo (NY 2nd largest metro area)... Erie County only went for Biden by 20k votes. Same with Rochester and even less of a margin for Syracuse.

Both NY and PA are vast seas of red with blue splotches.

Land doesn't vote. Rural areas are Republican pretty much everywhere outside of New England.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Exactly. The sheer number of smaller towns in big metropolitan area-dominated states like NY and PA is staggering.

I imagine that without NYC and Philadelphia, NY and PA would be red states.

Many people tend to think of these two Northeast states as liberal democrat bastions, but they are really far from it on the whole state level

Just looking at Buffalo (NY 2nd largest metro area)... Erie County only went for Biden by 20k votes. Same with Rochester and even less of a margin for Syracuse.

Both NY and PA are vast seas of red with blue splotches.

Tree maps showing counties sized by total vote and colored by margin show this well.

These are from 2016; the 2020 ones will be after final results.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by PoshSteve

Mahoning County is interesting. The margin for President was thin - 50.38 Trump, 48.44 Biden - but the Mahoning Valley congressional race was not. Tim Ryan, the Dem incumbent, won handedly against his Trump backed challenger, 52.48 to 44.98. Also, in 2018 the Ohio Dem Senator, Sherrod Brown, won a solid victory, 53.4 to 46.6. This included all of the Mahoning Valley counties.

For these reasons, I don't think the Democrats are dead in the Valley. Like alot of areas in the Midwest/NE that flipped, I think it's more a vote for Trump the man than anything else.

I grew up on the opposite end of the state, but count me in as being surprised/intrigued by the final results in Mahoning County. I thought that might've flipped back to Biden this time around but apparently the Democrats hadn't invested as much in Ohio as they did elsewhere and whatever they did was too little, too late.

Also, Hamilton County (Cincinnati) has gone blue the last three or four presidential elections, despite the suburbs (and counties) being hardcore conservative.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Docere

Land doesn't vote. Rural areas are Republican pretty much everywhere outside of New England.

That doesn't follow... I'm not talking about land. Like I said, there are huge numbers of small towns in NY and PA... they're two of the largest states, ya know.

And without Philly and NYC, the other metros in PA and NY are likely not enough to counter the large Republican vote from everywhere else in the state, because those other metros are nowhere near as blue.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

Tree maps showing counties sized by total vote and colored by margin show this well.

These are from 2016; the 2020 ones will be after final results.

Cool, thank you.

I imagine Illinois, without Chicago, would look much more like Indiana.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Cool, thank you.

I imagine Illinois, without Chicago, would look much more like Indiana.

Here is the directory for them.

[Steely Dan]

^ LOL, chicagoland just eats illinois.

downstaters have not a prayer.

Originally Posted by pj3000

I imagine Illinois, without Chicago, would look much more like Indiana.

for sure.

what's kinda funny is that biden's 2nd highest county in indiana in terms of vote total was lake county, IN, which is just chicagoland spillover across the border.

so without chicagoland, indiana would be even more red than it already is as well, if you can imagine that (not that anyone wants to ).

[iheartthed]

Is there any state with a major city (or cities) that would NOT be Republican if it weren't for the big city?

Also, it seems like states with more than one major city are more likely to vote Republican? Ohio, Florida, Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina, come to mind. California is the only one that strongly bucks the trend. And Pennsylvania is somewhere in between.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

for sure.

what's kinda funny is that biden's 2nd highest county in indiana in terms of vote total was lake county, IN, which is just chicagoland spillover across the border.

so without chicagoland, indiana would be even more red than it already is as well, if you can imagine that (not that anyone wants to ).

That's very telling... though I guess we shouldn't be surprised considering that total wild man Mike Pence was governor.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Is there any state with a major city (or cities) that would NOT be Republican if it weren't for the big city?

Also, it seems like states with more than one major city are more likely to vote Republican? Ohio, Florida, Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina, come to mind. California is the only one that strongly bucks the trend. And Pennsylvania is somewhere in between.

I imagine Massachusetts without Boston, Maryland without Baltimore...

I was bringing up NY and PA specifically because there are other cities in the states that probably would not be able to make up for the loss of NYC and Philly... and since those northeastern states are widely viewed as "blue"

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by pj3000

That's very telling... though I guess we shouldn't be surprised considering that total wild man Mike Pence was governor.

LOL!

but Lake County is the 2nd most populated county in indiana after Marion County (indianapolis), and it's been blue for like forever (nixon '72 was the last time it went red), so even without the pence bump, it always delivers the 2nd most blue votes in the state.

that said, it was a lot bluer in the recent past (2008: 67% obama, 2012: 65% obama), so it's another example of a hard luck rust-belt county going redder under trump, even though it still stayed predominately blue overall (2016: 58% hillary, 2020: 57% biden).

[ocman]

Originally Posted by JManc

I did. Small town/ rural California is inconsequential compared to urban areas unlike the northeast which has loads of rural communities and battered small towns. Plus, the cities tend to be more progressive and further to the left than their counterparts back east.

Not really true of states like Vermont and Rhode Island. Back in 2012, they voted Obama by bigger margins than he won California. Even Massachusetts was slightly more and they legalized gay marriage around the time Californians went to the polls to outlaw it. Vermont being the only state where it's population voted for it. California has a history of being more conservative than given credit for.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

LOL!

but Lake County is the 2nd most populated county in indiana after Marion County (indianapolis), and it's been blue for like forever (nixon '72 was the last time it went red), so even without the pence bump, it always delivers the 2nd most blue votes in the state.

that said, it was a lot bluer in the recent past (2008: 67% obama, 2012: 65% obama), so it's another example of a hard luck rust-belt county going redder under trump, even though it still stayed predominately blue overall (2016: 58% hillary, 2020: 57% biden).

What's interesting to me about the down-on-their-luck workers in rustbelt counties is: what is it about Trump that made them think he would be any different than all of the local, state, and national politicians over the past 40 years that have all talked about "bringing jobs back"? i.e., what did/do they believe about Trump, in particular, to cause these places to go redder in presidential elections (in many cases since Obama)?

Because he is a not a DC politician?
Because they thought he was actually a good businessman who knew what to do?
Because he promised to bring specific industries (coal, steel, auto) back depending on who he was talking to?
Because he does the whole tough guy act?
Because he says nasty, racist things?

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by pj3000

What's interesting to me about the down-on-their-luck workers in rustbelt counties is: what is it about Trump that made them think he would be any different than all of the local, state, and national politicians over the past 40 years that have all talked about "bringing jobs back"? i.e., what did/do they believe about Trump, in particular, to cause these places to go redder in presidential elections (in many cases since Obama)?

Because he is a not a DC politician?
Because they thought he was actually a good businessman who knew what to do?
Because he promised to bring specific industries (coal, steel, auto) back depending on who he was talking to?
Because he does the whole tough guy act?
Because he says nasty, racist things?

Had to go to racism, didn't you?

Funny how there was about 15 counties that won Trump the election in 2016. These were all formerly Obama counties. So we have to assume these people were ok voting for a black guy twice but then turned extremely racist in 2016. It doesn't pass the bullshit measure but it sure makes liberals feel better about how they have lost the white working class.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Had to go to racism, didn't you?

Funny how there was about 15 counties that won Trump the election in 2016. These were all formerly Obama counties. So we have to assume these people were ok voting for a black guy twice but then turned extremely racist in 2016. It doesn't pass the bullshit measure but it sure makes liberals feel better about how they have lost the white working class.

Well yeah, considering that racism is an issue and and undeniably worked its way into the tenor of the 2016 campaign, and was amplified over the past 4 years, it seems that it is a rather appropriate question to pose.

I didn't claim trump's saying nasty, racist things was the reason. It was one of the many questions that could be considered about what was/is rationale for trump's broad appeal in particular areas.


And... 15 counties did not win the election for trump. Just because particular counties in the rustbelt flipped from blue to red in 2016 in no way means that those counties specifically delivered the election to him. The media loves to create certain narratives, but that does not mean they are true.

Presidential candidates don't get a point for winning a county and then the candidate with the most counties/points at the end wins.

The candidate with the most total VOTES wins the state... doesn't matter where in the state the votes come from. I think we need to start remembering this, and quit with all the county BS.

In rustbelt Pennsylvania for instance, 3 counties flipped blue to red for trump in 2016 (I listed them in this very thread). Media went apeshit, as if those counties are what delivered PA to trump.

Those counties flipping blue to red on a map had ZERO more to do with the outcome of Trump winning PA than the fact that Hillary did significantly worse than Obama did in some of the heavily-populated counties outside of Philly (Delaware and Bucks) and in Philadelphia County itself and in Allegheny County (Pittsburgh).

These counties have way bigger populations, and thus votes, and thus an outsized effect on the total election numbers than do the much smaller counties that flipped on a map from blue to red.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by ocman

Not really true of states like Vermont and Rhode Island. Back in 2012, they voted Obama by bigger margins than he won California. Even Massachusetts was slightly more and they legalized gay marriage around the time Californians went to the polls to outlaw it. Vermont being the only state where it's population voted for it. California has a history of being more conservative than given credit for.

Vermont is still pretty hickish outside the cities and quaint small towns. It's just that there are a lot of quaint small towns with progressive/ affluent populations to offset the rednecks throughout the state. Rhode Island is essentially greater Providence.

Originally Posted by Docere

Land doesn't vote. Rural areas are Republican pretty much everywhere outside of New England.

They are in New England as well but as I mentioned above, there are more non rural people living there to offset the local rural folks. People who moved from Boston, New York or wherever and bought a farm house in rural Vermont aren't really 'rural' and they vote accordingly.

[PersonOfInterest]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Had to go to racism, didn't you?

Funny how there was about 15 counties that won Trump the election in 2016. These were all formerly Obama counties. So we have to assume these people were ok voting for a black guy twice but then turned extremely racist in 2016. It doesn't pass the bullshit measure but it sure makes liberals feel better about how they have lost the white working class.

Post the voter turnout numbers. Lots of places had a spike of red after obama.