How the Other Half Votes: The United States, Part One
Dear Readers: In the latest edition of our Politics is Everything podcast, we discuss the third indictment of former President Trump as well as today’s Crystal Ball article. Listen and subscribe here or wherever you get your podcasts. — The Editors KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — Just about 150 of the nation’s more than 3,100 counties cast half of the nation’s presidential vote in 2020. — As we typically see at the state level, the more vote-rich counties are more Democratic, while the thousands of smaller counties that make up the bottom half are more Republican. — This political gulf has widened. Despite similar overall national presidential margins in 2012 and 2020, the difference between the top and bottom halves expanded about 10 points from 2012 to 2020. — Joe Biden won 126 of the 151 top half counties, while Donald Trump won 2,548 of the remaining 2,960 counties in the bottom half. — Trump’s wins among the top half counties were concentrated among the smaller pieces of that group — Biden won all but one of the nearly 50 counties that cast 500,000 votes or more. Top half vs. bottom half at the national level Earlier this year,