Bellwether Counties Had a Clear Favorite for the 2020 Election
Presidential bellwethers are by no means scientific, but hey, they can’t do any worse than “scientific” polls, right?
So, with the election results still in dispute, what exactly did the presidential bellwether counties say about who would win the election?
Let’s just say it wasn’t even close.
Of the nineteen counties that have consistently voted for the presidential winner since 1980, only one of them, Washington state’s Clallam County, supported former Vice President Joe Biden, according to analysis from the Wall Street Journal.
Vigo County in Indiana has picked the winner correctly since 1956. Vigo has only missed two since 1888: 1952 and 1908.
Curiously, the WSJ noted that “only 2.5% of the nation’s counties flipped from one party in 2016 to the other in 2020,” and most of those that flipped were only by small margins.
Similarly, state bellwethers Ohio and Florida also chose Trump over Biden. Ohio has only chosen the losing candidate twice since 1896: voting for Richard Nixon in 1960, and Thomas Dewey in 1944.
So, while there’s still some doubt about who will ultimately be the victor of the 2020 elections, our nation’s bellwethers chose President Trump.
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