Thread by @JedKolko

The election scrambled some local partisan differences, but the red-blue economic divide hardened.

My latest in @UpshotNYT

nytimes.com/2020/11/11/ups…

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Places with brighter future economic prospects swung toward Biden. Higher college attainment, higher median household income, faster projected job growth, and fewer routine jobs were all correlated with a bigger Democratic margin in 2020 than 2016.

nytimes.com/2020/11/11/ups…

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Places with better economic outcomes swung toward Biden in 2020. Faster job growth and lower unemployment pre-pandemic -- as well as pandemic-era milder job losses and smaller unemployment increases -- went hand-in-hand with bigger Democratic margins.

nytimes.com/2020/11/11/ups…

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America continues to pull apart economically. The 2020 vote widened red-blue gaps in education, income, and future job-growth prospects -- gaps that were wide to begin with.

nytimes.com/2020/11/11/ups…

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Places whose economies have suffered more in the pandemic voted more strongly for Biden: that's where the hardest-hit sectors are concentrated. And, from election to election, local voting patterns change little (county-level correlation = 0.99!)

nytimes.com/2020/10/30/ups…

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But the swing to Biden was bigger in counties whose economies:
* did better under Trump before the pandemic
* have done better during the pandemic
* are likely to do better in the future.

America's partisan economic divide is wide and widening.

nytimes.com/2020/11/11/ups…

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From the methodological basement and the cutting-room floor ...

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Votes are still being reported. I included only counties with at least 98% reporting as of this morning, but the correlations and pattern are very similar using counties with at least 90% reporting.

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Other kinds of analyses could be more sensitive to the vote-reporting threshold. Bluer places (based on complete 2016 results) are less complete. The population-weighted correlation between Trump's margin and % expected 2020 votes reported is 0.3. So, beware.

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It's not just New York State and California that have reported less than 98%. Some of the places driving the news, like Miami-Dade county and many Texas border counties, are also still below 98% reporting. Again, beware.

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Places that swung toward Trump in 2020 (vs 2016) tended to have swung toward Trump in 2016 (vs 2012) -- the swing correlation is 0.28. On average, places continued moving in the same direction as last time rather than reversing course.

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Thanks, as always, to @MonkovicNYT and the rest of the @UpshotNYT team -- especially in the midst of so much news and so many data updates.

nytimes.com/2020/11/11/ups…

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