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Pivot counties: How Obama-Obama-Trump counties voted in the 2018 U.S. House elections

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2016 Pivot Counties

Analysis
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List of counties
Historical voting patterns
Historical voting analysis, 1992-2004
Demographics
Reverse-Pivot Counties
Voter turnout
Pivot Counties by state
Pivot Counties in congressional districts
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2018 elections analysis
Pivot counties in U.S. House elections
Pivot counties in state legislative elections
Reverse pivot counties in U.S. House elections

Last updated: May 15, 2020
There are 206 pivot counties in the country: those that voted for Barack Obama (D) in both 2008 and 2012 and Donald Trump (R) in 2016. Thus, they voted Republican in 2016 after voting Democrat in 2008 and 2012. A small number of these counties could be considered bellwethers in modern elections. These counties are sometimes referred to as swing counties by media and political observers.

What happened in those counties in the 2018 elections?

Democratic U.S. House candidates won 113 (55 percent) of the pivot counties in 2018. Republican candidates won 93. In one other race, for North Carolina's 9th Congressional District, the state Board of Elections did not certify the election results and voted unanimously to call for a new election. In 184 pivot counties, the Republican U.S. House candidate had either a lesser margin of victory than Trump did in 2016 or lost the county to the Democratic U.S. House candidate.

Across all 435 districts, Republicans lost a net of 40 of their 235 seats (17 percent). In the 99 districts that intersected pivot counties at the time of the 2018 elections, Republicans lost a net eight of their 63 seats (13 percent).[1]

Twelve districts that intersected with a pivot county changed partisan hands in 2018: 10 from Republican to Democratic, and two from Democratic to Republican. Following the election, Republicans controlled 54 seats and Democrats controlled 44 seats, for a total net change of eight seats in favor of Democrats.

This page includes:

For further analysis of pivot counties in the 2018 elections, see:

The following map displays 2018 U.S. House results in pivot counties:

Results by county

Democratic candidates won 113 of the 2016 pivot counties in the 2018 Congressional elections, while Republican candidates won 93 of the counties. Those Democratic candidates won by an average of 3,115 votes and had a margin of victory of 12.3 percent, while Republican candidates won their counties by an average of 1,705 votes and a margin of victory of 10.1 percent. In counties where a Democratic candidate won, the Republican candidate performed worse than Trump's 2016 numbers by an average of 21 percent. In counties where a Republican candidate won, they underperformed Trump's 2016 numbers by an average of 6.9 percent.

Pivot counties in the 2018 Congressional elections
Party Counties Won Average MoV # Average MoV % Average Change 16-18 Median MoV # Median MoV % Median Change 16-18
Electiondot.png Democratic 113 3,115 12.3% -21.0% 1,360 9.2% -18.1%
Ends.png Republican 93 1,705 10.1% -6.88% 707 8.1% -5.6%

The table below shows how each pivot county voted for U.S. House candidates in 2018, including the party it voted for, the number of total votes of the margin of victory, the margin of victory percentage, and the change in the margin of victory percentage from 2016 to 2018. A positive number in the 2016 to 2018 change in the margin of victory percentage means that the Republican U.S. House candidate in 2018 overperformed compared to Trump in 2016. A negative number indicates that the Republican U.S. House candidate performed worse than Trump in 2016.

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Click [show] below to view the full data for all 206 pivot counties in the 2018 elections.

Results by district

There are 99 Congressional districts that intersect with pivot counties.[1][2]

Heading into the 2018 election, 63 of these Congressional seats were held by Republicans and 36 were controlled by Democrats. Twelve of these seats switched parties, with 10 of them changing from Republican to Democratic hands, and two of them going from Democratic to Republican. Following the 2018 elections, Republicans controlled 54 of these Congressional districts and Democrats controlled 44. The state board of elections declined to certify results for the election in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District.

In seven districts, Democrats picked up seats that had been held by Republicans since at least 2012. Democrats gained three other seats across the 99 districts.

Republicans were able to flip two seats in this set of districts, claiming a pair of seats in Minnesota with Democratic incumbents that Donald Trump (R) won in 2016.

Across all 435 districts, Republicans lost a net of 36 of their 235 seats (15 percent). In the 99 districts that contain pivot counties, Republicans lost a net of eight of their 63 seats (13 percent).

Note: There are four districts in Pennsylvania that intersected with a pivot county as of November 2018: the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 16th districts. They are not included in this study due to redistricting that occurred in 2018.

Partisan breakdown of districts overlapping with pivot counties
Party As of November 2018 After the 2018 Election
     Democratic Party 36 44
     Republican Party 63 54
     Vacant 0 1[3]
Total 99 99

The table below shows the districts intersecting with pivot counties that changed partisan hands in 2018.

Districts that changed partisan hands in 2018
District Party of incumbent Winning party
Florida 26 Ends.png Republican Electiondot.png Democratic
Iowa 1 Ends.png Republican Electiondot.png Democratic
Iowa 3 Ends.png Republican Electiondot.png Democratic
Maine 2 Ends.png Republican Electiondot.png Democratic
Minnesota 1 Electiondot.png Democratic Ends.png Republican
Minnesota 2 Ends.png Republican Electiondot.png Democratic
Minnesota 8 Electiondot.png Democratic Ends.png Republican
New Jersey 2 Ends.png Republican Electiondot.png Democratic
New Mexico 2 Ends.png Republican Electiondot.png Democratic
New York 19 Ends.png Republican Electiondot.png Democratic
New York 22 Ends.png Republican Electiondot.png Democratic
South Carolina 1 Ends.png Republican Electiondot.png Democratic

The table below details election results for the Congressional districts in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018. Click [show] below to view the full data for the Congressional districts that intersect with pivot counties in the 2018 elections.

About the data

The election results data by county for this study were provided by Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Some pivot counties overlap with multiple Congressional districts. In those cases, the county's total votes are applied to the results totals of both Congressional districts. Some races may have only had a candidate from one of the two major parties. They may have included an independent or third-party candidate instead. There may be some cases where only one candidate ran at all. There are some cases where a margin of victory change in a county is close to or above -100.00% or 100.00%. This is because a county only had one major party candidate running in a U.S. House race, or one major party candidate and write-in candidates.

See also

Footnotes

  1. 1.0 1.1 There are five districts in Pennsylvania that were included in 2016 analysis that are not included here due to redistricting.
  2. Two of these districts, Virginia’s 4th Congressional district and 9th Congressional district, contain Chesapeake City and Covington City, respectively. These are independent cities, which are considered the equivalent of counties. Both cities voted for Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012 and then voted for Donald Trump in 2016, and are considered pivot counties in the table below.
  3. North Carolina's 9th Congressional District
  4. In this race, the state Board of Elections did not certify the election results and voted unanimously to call for a new election.