Thread by @DashiellShapiro

Did Democrats in big cities steal the 2020 election?

We previously looked at Wisconsin and Michigan, to see if Biden's margins spiked more in blue counties.

They didn't. In fact Biden improved on Clinton's margins more in red counties than in blue! Now let's look at PA.

With more than 99% of precincts reporting, we can see how each candidate did throughout the state. Biden leads Trump 49.8% to 49.1% in Pennsylvania (+0.7).

How did Clinton do? In 2016, Trump beat Clinton 48.2% to 47.5% (+0.7). So Biden completely reversed Trump's 2016 edge.

If Democrats in Philly and Pittsburgh stole the 2020 election, we might see an unusual spike in Biden's numbers in PA's blue counties (but not in the red counties).

Did this occur?

It did not.

Biden is apparently much more popular than Clinton throughout the state, and the difference is indeed more noticeable in red counties than in blue counties. Hardly what you would expect to see if Democrats in the cities were harvesting extra votes for Biden.

For example, in PA counties Biden won, his share of the heads-up vote was 62.1% (vs. 61.5% for Clinton). In PA counties Biden lost, his share of the heads-up vote was 35.01% (vs. 33.51% for Clinton). Here is the breakdown by county: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

What does this show? Biden only improved on Clinton's vote share by 0.58 pts in PA counties he won. Yet he improved on Clinton's vote share by 1.5 pts in counties he lost. We simply do not see a spike in Biden's margins in the blue counties.

The idea that big city Democrats stole the 2020 election does not seem to have any basis in the data. Biden's numbers are better on a relative basis compared to Clinton's in red counties than they are in blue counties. And this pattern is evident throughout the midwest.