The 2020 vote was very similar to 2016 -- and slightly LESS polarized.
Correlation of county vote margin between 2016 and 2020 was 0.99 (not a typo). And Trump-voting counties in 2016 swung more to Biden than Clinton-voting counties in 2016 did.
Urban counties were slow to report, but now it looks like urban counties swung MOST toward Trump -- a full point. Rural counties moved little, and suburbs swung toward Biden.
That means the urban-suburban AND urban-rural divides narrowed.
Lots of local factors mattered too: home-state advantages cut both ways, some religious communities swung toward Trump, and military areas swung away from Trump.
Plenty left for precinct and survey data to reveal!
Job postings on @indeed are 11% below last year's trend. Very slight improvement vs week ago (-11.5% vs -11.6%). Gains have slowed, especially relative to summer rebound.
Food prep and childcare job postings have slowed in the past couple of weeks as the virus spreads. But loading & stocking jobs are well above last year's trend.
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.
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.
Core unemployment remained high in October -- falling just slightly from Sept.
Core unemployment excludes temporary layoffs and remains near its pandemic high.
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Although the headline unemployment rate is far down from its peak, core unemployment remains near its pandemic high. Temporary layoffs are fading. Permanent unemployment is not.
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The temporary share of unemployment is down to 29% in October, from a high of 78% in April. Normal is in the 10-15% range.
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Some preliminary and incomplete thoughts about preliminary and incomplete data.
Let's not over-generalize about Hispanic/Latino vote patterns. Yes, there was a big shift toward Trump between 2016 and 2020 in Miami and the Texas border. But, details ...
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In the Texas counties where a majority of the population is of Mexican origin (Census definition), Trump did 6.6 points better in 2020 than in 2016. But outside of Texas, majority-Mexican-origin counties (mostly California) actually swung about half a point away from Trump.
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Another way to see this:
county-level correlation between % Hispanic/Latino and swing toward Trump (excl clearly incomplete counties):
0.32 overall
0.16 without Miami-Dade
0.01 without Miami-Dade or Texas
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