The eight places where the election of 2024 will be decided

There are eight types of counties that will decide the 2024 presidential race.

The U.S. contains more than 3,100 counties, and Split Ticket’s algorithm divided them into clusters that best explain their political behavior using their demographic characteristics and recent electoral history.

These clusters power our game, “You Be the Campaign Manager","_id":"0000018a-85f8-d776-a3ce-e7f9190f0000","_type":"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}">You Be the Campaign Manager,” which asks readers to choose between groups to increase a party’s chances of winning next year’s presidential election.

The eight clusters form an essential blueprint for the nation’s political architecture. The ways in which Americans organize themselves — in cities big and small, dense suburbs and rural expanses — transcend state lines, and so do the clusters. While the clusters contain names of counties, they are really all about the voters who reside there, and the different blocs of the electorate they represent.

And that in turn informs how campaigns target the voters they need. What do Phoenix and Atlanta have in common? What makes Grand Rapids, Mich., more like the blue-trending suburbs of Philadelphia and Milwaukee than like Scranton, Pa.? Why are rural counties in the South different from those across the country’s northern tier?

Here are the eight kinds of counties that comprise the nation’s political and demographic geography, along with examples from the 13 electorally competitive states decided by a single-digit margin in the 2020 presidential race:

The Urban Cores

This cluster contains the cores of the largest metropolitan areas in the nation. These counties are highly educated, very urbanized, very populous, relatively dense and diverse. This cluster is the largest base of support for the Democratic Party and will be crucial to President Joe Biden’s reelection bid.

Examples: Philadelphia (Pa.), Wayne (Mich.), Maricopa (Ariz.), Clark (Nev.), Fulton (Ga.), Milwaukee (Wis.)

The Exurbs

These aren’t metropolitan areas, but they’re not quite rural, either. A lot of people live in these fairly populated, low-density areas, and they’re usually quite white and Republican. This cluster extends beyond the suburbs and generally accounts for the largest raw number of Republican votes — crucial to GOP dominance in states such as North Carolina.

Examples: Union (N.C.), Washington (Wis.), Lancaster (Pa.), Montgomery (Texas), Genesee (Mich.), Lackawanna (Pa.)

The Shifting Suburbs

This cluster broadly consists of suburban counties with very large concentrations of college-educated voters. The counties in this cluster are typically whiter than their urban counterparts but are also more diverse than the exurbs. They have swung heavily toward Democrats since former President Donald Trump’s political emergence, part of the realignment driven by educational polarization that has made states like Texas and Georgia competitive.

Examples: Ozaukee (Wis.), Fayette (Ga.), Collin (Texas), Kent (Mich.), Chester (Pa.)

The Swingy Rurals

This cluster contains two flavors of rural counties: those that were once reliably Democratic but have since moved rapidly into the GOP column and those that have been consistently Republican. As the electorate’s realignment along educational lines accelerated in the Trump era, Republicans made massive gains in these heavily white counties that have low levels of degree attainment. These counties geographically dominate the Midwest and now broadly power Republican wins in the region.

Examples: Trumbull (Ohio), Gogebic (Mich.), Aroostook (Maine), Greene (Pa.), Winneshiek (Iowa), Lake (Minn.)

The Polarized Rurals

These include the majority-Black counties in the geographic Black Belt as well as the counties in the periphery that have sizable Black populations. Voting here is almost completely polarized along racial lines — white voters in these counties vote Republican, while Black voters vote Democratic. These Southern counties have an outsize influence in Georgia and North Carolina.

Examples: Jefferson (Texas), Telfair (Ga.), Scotland (N.C.), Baldwin (Ga.), Halifax (N.C.)

Rural Red America

These are some of the most rural, white, evangelical and Republican counties in the nation. Counties in this cluster are characterized by strong adherence to Evangelical Protestantism, low density and predominantly white populations. Some of them have been Republican for centuries, but most are the site of a half-century explosion in GOP strength in the South and in pockets of the North.

Examples: Sioux (Iowa), Rabun (Ga.), Bedford (Pa.), Liberty (Texas), Wilkes (N.C.)

The Hispanic Heartland

Counties in this cluster are heavily Hispanic and have experienced extreme swings in opposite directions in the last two presidential elections. In 2016, Latino discontent with Republican immigration rhetoric resulted in many of these counties pulling heavily to the left. However, in 2020, Republican outreach to Hispanic voters enabled the GOP to rebound and put up their best margins with Latinos since 2004. These counties are dispersed along the southern border with Mexico, as well as in Florida.

Examples: Osceola (Fla.), Miami-Dade (Fla.), Cameron (Texas), Hidalgo (Texas), Yuma (Ariz.)

The Native Reservations

These counties have the largest Native American populations in the country and are usually based around Native reservations. While Democrats usually win Native voters comfortably (though a few tribes, such as the Lumbee, lean more Republican), this demographic also has some of the lowest voter turnout rates in the nation. Getting voters to the polls is the biggest focal point in these areas. A get-out-the-vote operation focusing on these Native American counties was a huge reason that Biden won Arizona in 2020, and subsequent outreach will be vital to Democratic chances in 2024 as well.

Examples: Menominee (Wis.), Apache (Ariz.), Navajo (Ariz.), Robeson (N.C.)

Chart your own course through the Electoral College by playing our game, “You Be the Campaign Manager","_id":"0000018a-85f7-d816-a5ba-8dffdc620000","_type":"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}">You Be the Campaign Manager!”

Methodology: Split Ticket","_id":"0000018a-8193-dee9-adca-c3bf6f6a0000","_type":"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}">Split Ticket created the clusters by running a k-means clustering algorithm","_id":"0000018a-8193-dee9-adca-c3bfe2090000","_type":"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}">k-means clustering algorithm that grouped counties nationwide based on how similar they are in their demographics and partisanship. The algorithm used the racial composition, urbanization, population, income, educational attainment and presidential voting behavior of each county to create the eight groups. Demographic data was collected from the Census Bureau’s American Communities Survey. At the state level, Split Ticket averaged each cluster’s share of the statewide vote in the last two presidential elections, with 75 percent weight given to 2020 and 25 percent weight given to 2016. These shares were then scaled by the closeness of the state and the variance of a cluster’s swings in those two elections using the same 75/25 weighting scheme. Each state was weighted by each cluster’s total number of electoral votes. Turnout was held constant at 2020 levels.

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By: Lakshya Jain, Harrison Lavelle, Leon Sit, Armin Thomas and Andrew Milligan
Title: The 8 places that will decide the 2024 election
Sourced From: www.politico.com/news/2023/09/12/2024-election-counties-split-ticket-00114940
Published Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2023 04:00:00 EST

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