Journalism and analysis about voters in the Obama-Obama-Trump Pivot Counties
From Ballotpedia
This article is about long-form reporting, narrative journalism, and essays about the Pivot Counties: The counties that voted Obama-Obama-Trump from 2008-2016. These counties are sometimes referred to as swing counties by media and political observers. To nominate an article or essay for inclusion on this list, please email us.
December 2016
- How Trump ended Democrats' 144-year winning streak in one county. This CNN article, published on December 9, 2016, is about Elliott County, Kentucky. It includes a video produced by Jeff Simon. Elliott County voted for the Democratic Party's nominee in every presidential election from its formation in 1869 until the 2016 presidential election, when it voted 70-26 for Republican nominee Donald Trump. That was the longest Democratic presidential voting streak of any county in the United States. Elliott County is the only Pivot County in Kentucky.
January 2017
- What Do You Do if a Red State Moves To You?. Politico Magazine; January/February 2017; author Michael Kruse. This article is about Pepin County, which is one of twenty-three Pivot Counties in Wisconsin.
February 2017
- Rural Wisconsin voters await economic revival in a part of now pro-Trump America. This article is from the Chicago Tribune. Published on February 7, 2017, and written by Claire Galofaro of the Associated Press, it is based on interviews with former Obama voters who voted for Trump in Crawford County, Wisconsin. (Crawford County is one of twenty-three Pivot Counties in Wisconsin.)
- Garafola also wrote How a community changed by refugees came to embrace Trump for the Associated Press on April 19, 2017, about Androscoggin County, Maine, and Trump won places drowning in despair. Can he save them? on August 19, 2017, about voters in Grays Harbor County, Washington.
- I'm Still All Trumped Up. Politico Magazine; February 13, 2017; author Adam Wren. This article is about Vigo County, which is one of five Pivot Counties in Indiana.
- These Iowans voted for Trump. Many of them are already disappointed. The Washington Post, February 26, 2017; by Jenna Johnson. The reporter talked to roughly 100 Iowa voters in the 3rd week of February for this piece. (There are thirty-one Pivot Counties in Iowa.)
March 2017
- Pockets of strong Trump support in deep blue Democrat Chicago. Chicago Tribune, March 21, 2017. This article by Ted Gregory is not about a Pivot County per se, but it is about neighborhoods in the Chicago area that may mirror voter sentiment in the Pivot Counties. Gregory also reported a series on Trump voters in Henry County, Illinois, which is a Pivot County:
- "Western Illinois county reveals the Land of Lincoln's electoral divide" (November 11, 2016)
- "After 100 days, residents in bellwether Illinois county weigh in on Trump" (April 29, 2017)
- "In rural Henry County, support for Trump remains but some cracks starting to show" (October 9, 2017).
April 2017
- Trump Voters in a Swing District Wonder When the ‘Winning’ Will Start, New York Times, April 17, 2017. This article by Matt Flegenheimer is about voters in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Bucks County is not one of Pennsylvania's three Pivot Counties, but it is a swing county.
May 2017
- How Donald Trump seized the mantle of hope and change, Washington Examiner, May 22, 2017. This article by Daniel Allott focuses on Robeson County, North Carolina. Allott describes the county this way: "Robeson County is the most racially diverse rural county in America: roughly 38 percent American Indian, 33 percent white and 25 percent black. It is also traditionally Democratic. Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 2 to 1. Until last November, the county hadn't voted for a Republican for president since 1972 or for a Republican state senator since Reconstruction after the Civil War." Robeson County is one of six Pivot Counties in North Carolina.
June 2017
- This New Hampshire County Switched From Obama to Trump. How the Opioid Crisis May Have Influenced That. This article by Josh Siegel was published at The Daily Signal on June 2, 2017. It is about voters in Coos County, New Hampshire, which is one of three Pivot Counties in New Hampshire. According to the article, Coos County has "the highest combined death rate due to drugs, alcohol, or suicide in all of New England."
July 2017
- ‘Love Thy Neighbor?’. This article by Stephanie McCrummen was published in The Washington Post on July 1, 2017. It is about a Muslim physician in Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota, which is one of nineteen Pivot Counties in Minnesota. The subtitle of the article is: "When a Muslim doctor arrived in a rural Midwestern town, 'it felt right.' But that feeling began to change after the election of Donald Trump."
September 2017
- Democrats: Don't Blame the Voters Who Are Not Racist. This article by Mark Shields, published on September 17, 2017, was syndicated and published in a number of newspapers around the country. It argues, "What those switching counties had in common was that they were disproportionately composed of white working-class voters without a college degree who mostly lived in small towns and cities or rural areas. In their neighborhoods, the recovery from the Great Recession had still not arrived. Here families often earned just about the nation's median household income, which, they painfully knew, was less than it had been in 1999. Wall Street and the big banks had all been bailed out (by a Democratic administration) and were more than thriving. But many of these counties had continued to hemorrhage good jobs, and many of their residents lived with an understandable sense of abandonment."
October 2017
- The Bellwether County that Explains Eminem and Kid Rock. This article, by Zack Stanton, was published in Politico Magazine on October 11, 2017. It is about Macomb County, Michigan.
- On Safari in Trump's America: The country’s elites are desperate to figure out what they got wrong in 2016. But can they handle the truth?. This article, by Mollie Ball, was published in The Atlantic on October 23, 2017. It describes an extended visit to parts of western Wisconsin, including Vernon County, by the think tank Third Way: "Hale, who is 65 and lives in San Francisco, is a career activist who got her start protesting nuclear plants and nuclear testing in the 1970s. In 2005, she was one of the founders of Third Way, a center-left think tank, and it was in that capacity that she and four colleagues had journeyed from both coasts to the town of Viroqua, Wisconsin, as part of a post-election listening tour."
November 2017
- Democrats will struggle to win back Obama-Trump voters. This article was published in The Economist on November 2, 2017. It explores why voters from northeastern Pennsylvania who had tended to vote for Democratic candidates in the past voted for Donald Trump in 2016. It argues, "Even without Mrs Clinton weighing on their appeal, the Democrats will need more than a new economic message to respond to that. They must show they are sufficiently in touch with their lost voters’ cultural worries to warrant a fair hearing."
- The One County In America That Voted In A Landslide For Both Trump And Obama. This article, which was written by David Wasserman and published in FiveThirtyEight on November 9, 2017, examined Howard County, Iowa, a Pivot County that Barack Obama carried by a 21 percent margin in 2012 and Donald Trump carried by a 20.5 percent margin in 2016.
- The Real Lesson From the Virginia Governor's Race. This article, written by Ross Baird and published in RealClearPolitics on November 10, 2017, examined the results of the 2016 presidential election and the 2017 Virginia gubernatorial election and argued that "The fight we have today in America is not only left versus right, or Democrat versus Republican. It’s also big versus small, and national hegemony versus community consensus. The political party that best learns this lesson will be successful, and may play a role in making places across the country that are searching for economic success and community identity great again."
December 2017
- In the heart of Trump Country, his base’s faith is unshaken. This article was published by the Associated Press on December 28, 2017, about Elliott County, Kentucky. Author Claire Galofaro wrote, "Everyone in town comes to his diner for nostalgia and homestyle cooking. And, recently, news reporters come from all over the world to puzzle over politics — because Elliott County, a blue-collar union stronghold, voted for the Democrat in each and every presidential election for its 147-year existence. Until Donald Trump came along and promised to wind back the clock."
January 2018
- One year in a county that flipped for Trump. This article, written by Mark Makela for The Guardian and published on January 20, 2018, features photographs and brief interviews with residents of Northampton County, Pennsylvania, over the course of a year. A related article by Tom McCarthy, A year after a county flipped for Trump, support has been lost—but not much, features a longer sketch of the county.
Ongoing
- The Race to 2020: The nine counties that will define the fate of a presidency. This is a multi-part series courtesy of the Washington Examiner. The principal author is Daniel Allott. The counties examined in this series include a number of Pivot Counties.
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