Democrats gained in nearly every battleground state, running up margins in cities
See how your county swung over the past three elections
Joe Biden flipped several battleground states en route to winning the presidency, thanks to a surge of support in heavily populated parts of the country. While President Trump did improve in some areas, it wasn’t enough to offset the former vice president’s gains.
We are tracking how winning margins have shifted throughout the U.S. Select a county below to see how it voted in the 2012, 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.
Vote margin shift by county
Note: Alaska's presidential election results are reported by state legislative district and are not included here.
While most 2020 ballots have been tallied, these margins are still preliminary and could change. But they show widespread gains for Democrats in key areas.
Now that the dust has settled, it appears that Florida will be the only battleground state where Trump made a significant improvement over his 2016 margin.
Battleground states
Ranked from largest Biden swing to largest Trump swing
In Ohio and Nevada his margin was nearly identical to four years ago, and in the other nine battlegrounds he lost ground. If Florida had been one of the last states to finish counting instead of one of the first, Election Night reactions may have been quite different.
More detailed patterns are starting to emerge from among the thousands of counties that have counted votes.
Biden gained in and around big cities
The nation’s major cities, often objects of Trump’s scorn, turned away from him. Across the counties home to those cities and suburbs, Biden’s lead is already millions more than Hillary Clinton’s was four years ago, and is growing as final ballots are counted.
The large part of Biden’s big urban gain is coming from center-city areas, those dozens of counties at the core of metropolitan areas with populations of more than 1 million — places such as Michigan’s Wayne County, home to Detroit, and Milwaukee County in Wisconsin, where Democratic margins grew by tens of thousands of votes and helped flip the states for Biden.
Beyond the center cities, Trump is still winning across the suburban counties he carried four years ago, but he has lost ground there despite significantly higher overall turnout. Meanwhile, in the suburbs that went for Clinton four years ago, Democrats have added twice as many voters there as Republicans in the turnout surge. The Clinton counties in these suburbs tend to have higher incomes, education and racial diversity, and this time their vote margins are almost large enough to offset margins in Republican counties.
Although Trump has strengthened his already wide margins in rural counties by less than one percentage point, those gains often don’t make up for shifts in more-populated areas.
Coronavirus showed little impact
The rising numbers of coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and covid-19 deaths, as well as Trump’s management of the virus crisis, was a main theme of the Biden campaign. Counties that since the start of the pandemic have reported the most cases of the disease, on a population basis, are scattered mostly from Florida to Texas and up to the Dakotas and include many smaller counties. Trump won them overall four years ago by a large margin. Although virus concerns may have hurt Trump elsewhere, his margins here are wider.
Counties with the lowest coronavirus case rates are arrayed in a far different geographic pattern, concentrated around the upper Northeast, Colorado and Oregon. They also tend to have smaller populations, and Trump is winning again there, although by less.
Areas hit hard economically stuck with Trump
The rising numbers of coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and covid-19 deaths, as well as Trump’s management of the virus crisis, was a main theme of the Biden campaign. Counties that since the start of the pandemic have reported the most cases of the disease, on a population basis, are scattered mostly from Florida to Texas and up to the Dakotas and include many smaller counties. Trump won them overall four years ago by a large margin. Although virus concerns may have hurt Trump elsewhere, his margins here are wider.
Counties with the lowest coronavirus case rates are arrayed in a far different geographic pattern, concentrated around the upper Northeast, Colorado and Oregon. They also tend to have smaller populations, and Trump is winning again there, although by less.
Some 2016 factors shifted
The rising numbers of coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and covid-19 deaths, as well as Trump’s management of the virus crisis, was a main theme of the Biden campaign. Counties that since the start of the pandemic have reported the most cases of the disease, on a population basis, are scattered mostly from Florida to Texas and up to the Dakotas and include many smaller counties. Trump won them overall four years ago by a large margin. Although virus concerns may have hurt Trump elsewhere, his margins here are wider.
Counties with the lowest coronavirus case rates are arrayed in a far different geographic pattern, concentrated around the upper Northeast, Colorado and Oregon. They also tend to have smaller populations, and Trump is winning again there, although by less.