How Did Trump Do in Counties That Backed Him in 2016?

By Denise Lu and Karen YourishNov. 11, 2020

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the popular vote by more than five million — and his margin is expected to grow as states finish counting. Still, results so far show that President Trump’s support remained strong in most of the counties that voted for him in 2016. Here’s how.

Shifts in margin of victory, over time, in counties that Trump won in 2016

Mr. Trump won more than 2,600 counties in 2016. Each of them is represented here by a line, which shows the county’s margin in presidential elections since 2008. The line’s width is sized to the county’s voting population.

This black line shows the overall margin in each election from 2008 to 2016. Four years ago, Mr. Trump won these counties by about 28 percentage points.

He won most of them again in 2020, but his overall margin shifted slightly to the left — by nearly three points so far.

Let’s now look just at where Mr. Trump had the most enthusiastic support in 2016 — the more than 1,400 counties that swung 10 points or more to the right from 2012.

Some of these counties snaked to the left this year. Mr. Biden even flipped about a dozen of them ...

… including some of the counties that voted twice for Barack Obama before flipping to Mr. Trump in 2016.

But a vast majority of the counties that swung hard for Mr. Trump in 2016 continued to firmly support him this year, or shifted even further to the right.

How Trump counties shifted by demographics

The 2020 shifts in Mr. Trump’s 2016 counties parallel many of the demographic trends that are playing out across the country.

Mr. Trump’s strongest supporters four years ago tended to live in counties with fewer college-educated residents. These counties solidly backed Mr. Trump again in 2020, while many of those with a more educated populace shifted toward Mr. Biden.

Note: Based on the 2018 five-year American Community Survey. Counties with more educated residents include ones where the share of their residents aged 25 or older who attained a bachelor’s degree or higher is higher than the national average. Counties with less educated residents include ones where the share of their residents aged 25 or older who did not go to college is higher than the national average.

The same divide can be seen in the votes from suburban and rural America. Mr. Trump maintained his strong support in many of the country’s less-populous, rural counties while suburban voters collectively swung toward Mr. Biden.

Note: Based on a classification developed by the economist Jed Kolko, which takes into account household density of counties within metro areas.

Correction:

Nov. 12, 2020

An earlier version of a chart in this article showing shifts in counties with less educated residents excluded some counties and gave an incorrect overall margin. The overall margin shifted about zero points from 2016 to 2020, not three points to the right.