Thread by @TheValuesVoter

When you compare the Presidential elections of 2012 and 2020, there have been a lot of changes at the county level in both directions.

184 counties shifted 10 points or more to the left.

1,627 counties shifted 10 points or more to the right.

HOWEVER …

The median voting age population of those 184 counties that shifted 10 points or more to the left is 180,583.

And the median voting age population of those 1,627 counties that shifted 10 points or more to the right is 13,820.

Believe it or not, there are more people who are old enough to vote in the 184 counties that got 10 points or more bluer in the last three elections then there are in the 1,627 counties that got 10 points or more redder.

65 million adults in blue shifting counties vs 51 million.

The counties that got 10 points or more bluer have a median household income of $161,282.21.

The counties that got 10 points or more redder have a median income of $15,034.10.

The counties that got bluer are not only more ethnically diverse but in which whites with college degrees comprise a median 30.41% of the voting age population.

In the redder counties, whites with college degrees comprise a median 14.31% of the voting age population.

In 2012, Mitt Romney won Pike County, Ohio by ONE VOTE. Romney beat Obama there by 0.01 points.

In 2020, Trump beat Biden in Pike County 48.67 points.

Pike county is a relatively small county in terms of voting age population. Not very diverse, relatively poor and not many people, percentage wise, attained degrees.

In contrast, Hamilton County, Indiana, while still a red county in 2020, has shifted 27 points to the left since 2012. Romney won it by 34.31 points in 2012. Trump won it by only 6.78 points in 2020.

Hamilton County is not extremely diverse. But it is relatively affluent and has a large percentage of white voting age residents with degrees. It’s home to a number of the Indianapolis suburbs.

And that’s an example of the shift at the county level that has taken place over the last three elections. Democrats have lost a lot of ground in smaller, whiter, more blue collar counties. And Republicans have lost a lot of ground in the larger, affluent, suburban counties.

There has always been a racial divide in American politics, sadly and to our own shared detriment. And it’s unnecessary because when you get away from the partisan labels, people agree on more than they think they do.

But the recent decade has seen a new divide crop up among white voters with educational attainment being one of the most obvious dividing lines.

To the point where you can almost always correctly guess some things about a county’s demographics just from the way that it votes.