Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day for April 25, 2017
The Number of the Day columns published on Ballotpedia reflect the views of the author.
April 25, 2017: Ten U.S. counties voted for the losing presidential candidate in each of the last three presidential elections. They voted for John McCain in 2008, Mitt Romney in 2012, and Hillary Clinton in 2016. Four are tiny counties in Alaska, three are in Georgia, and the others are found in California, Maryland, and Texas.
The voting pattern in these counties is the exact opposite of the 206 Pivot Counties that voted for the winning candidate in each of the last three elections (President Obama twice, then President Trump). The first Number of the Day column looked at those Pivot Counties.
The most distinguishing characteristic of these counties is that they have been reliably Republican for half a century. With just two exceptions, these 10 counties voted for every Republican candidate since 1980. (One small Alaska county voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988, and one Georgia county voted for the favorite son candidate Jimmy Carter in 1980.)
It’s also worth noting that none of these 10 counties were from contested states in the 2016 election. The Trump campaign, focused on the Midwestern states, largely ignored these areas in terms of campaign advertising down the stretch. They were confident of victory in Texas, Alaska, and Georgia and recognized that they had no chance in California or Maryland. On the other hand, Clinton’s team ran advertising in both California and Texas.
However, the larger story is that while reliably Republican for a long time, these 10 counties have been trending towards the Democratic Party over the past generation. From 1964 to 1988, the victory margins in these counties averaged 26.1 percentage points more Republican than the nation at large. The gap would have been even larger except for the Georgia counties support for Carter in the 1976 and 1980 elections.
From 1992 to 2004, these counties were still very Republican, but they averaged just 20.3 percentage points more Republican than the nation at large. That fell to 12 percentage points in 2008, 11 percentage points in 2012, and finally to 4 percentage points less Republican than the nation at large in 2016.
| Presidential election results for the 10 counties that voted for the losing presidential candidate in last three presidential elections | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ten counties | 2016 | 2012 | 2008 | 2004 | 2000 | 1996 | 1992 | 1988 | 1984 | 1980 | 1976 | 1972 | 1968 | 1964 |
| Rep | 44% | 52% | 52% | 60% | 57% | 53% | 46% | 68% | 74% | 63% | 58% | 70% | 58% | 53% |
| Dem | 50% | 46% | 47% | 39% | 39% | 38% | 32% | 31% | 26% | 28% | 40% | 26% | 29% | 47% |
| Margin | 6% | -7% | -5% | -22% | -18% | -15% | -14% | -37% | -48% | -36% | -18% | -44% | -28% | -7% |
| National Margin | 2% | 4% | 7% | -3% | 1% | 9% | 6% | -8% | -18% | -10% | 2% | -23% | -1% | 23% |
| Sources: Ballotpedia, Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential elections | ||||||||||||||
The largest of these 10 counties—Orange County, California—had voted for a Republican in every presidential election since 1936 before Hillary Clinton won the county in 2016.
One of these formerly Republican counties that voted for Clinton—Cobb County, Georgia—has been in the news due to a special election in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District. While many have viewed the election as an early referendum on Donald Trump, it might be hard to draw too many conclusions from a county that bucked the national trend in Election 2016.
The other eight counties that voted for a losing presidential candidate in each of the last three elections are:
- District 4, Alaska
- District 20, Alaska
- District 21, Alaska
- District 33, Alaska
- Gwinnett County, Georgia
- Henry County, Georgia
- Anne Arundel County, Maryland
- Fort Bend County, Texas
- April 24, 2017 62.6 million volunteers in the United states use their freedom to work together in community
- April 21, 2017 656.4 billion dollars spent in restaurants and bars in 2016; tops grocery spending for first time ever
- April 20, 2017 2,226 solid Republican counties won by McCain, Romney, and Trump
- April 19, 2017 449 solid Democratic counties won by Obama twice and by Clinton; Clinton earned bigger margins but smaller share of vote
- April 18, 2017 70 billion dollars: Annual spending on federal regulatory agencies
- To see other recent numbers, check out the archive.
Scott Rasmussen’s Number of the Day is published by Ballotpedia weekdays at 8:00 a.m. Eastern. Click here to check out the latest update.
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Columns published on Ballotpedia reflect the views of the author.
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See also
- Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day
- Pivot Counties: The counties that voted Obama-Obama-Trump from 2008-2016
- Presidential election, 2016
- Large counties in the United States by population
Footnotes
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