Analysis: Urban-Rural Divide In Pivot Counties Reveals Voting Trends For 2024 Election‌ ‌

Insight into Retained and Boomerang Pivot Counties sheds light on educational, demographic disparities and voting patterns.‌

Ballotpedia staff

September 20, 2024 4 min read

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With an eye on November’s presidential election, we wanted to remind our readers of our extensive data on Pivot Counties. Pivot Counties is one of the 206 counties nationwide that voted for Barack Obama (D) in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections and Donald Trump (R) in 2016.

One hundred and eighty-one of these counties voted for Trump again in 2020. We call these Retained Pivot Counties. We call the other 25 counties Boomerang Pivot Counties because Joe Biden (D) won those in 2020.

Voters in these Pivot Counties cast 8.4 million in 2020—5.4% of all votes that year.

The analysis shows that there is a clear urban-rural divide between Retained and Boomerang Pivot Counties. Retained Pivot Counties tend to have a smaller population, with an average of 62,980 compared to 186,852 for Boomerang Pivot Counties. Moreover, Boomerang Pivot Counties exhibit higher levels of educational attainment, with 92% of them exceeding the national rate of high school graduation, compared to 68% of Retained Pivot Counties. When it comes to bachelor’s degrees or higher, 32% of Boomerang Pivot Counties exceed the national rate, while only 3% of Retained Pivot Counties do so. Additionally, both Retained (79.6%) and Boomerang Pivot Counties (78.2%) have a higher-than-average non-Hispanic white population compared to the nationwide percentage of 60.1%. In total, 82% of Retained Pivot Counties and 88% of Boomerang Pivot Counties exceed the national rate.

The 206 Pivot Counties are located in 34 states, 11 of which political commentators view as battleground states. Iowa’s 31 Pivot Counties—out of 99 counties statewide—is the most of any state. Half of Maine’s 16 counties are Pivot Counties, the greatest proportion of any state. Maine also has the greatest percentage of its population—47.1%—residing in Pivot Counties. Nine states have 10% or more of their population living in Pivot Counties.

The New York Times’ Trip Gabriel wrote that Trump did well in Pivot Counties in the northern Midwest: “The greatest concentration of pivot counties hug the Mississippi River in Iowa and three other states: Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. It is a region of small, postindustrial cities that have suffered manufacturing losses, where largely white voters, after years of voting for Democrats, embraced Mr. Trump’s nationalism and culturally backward-gazing message.”

According to Gabriel, Biden had success in suburban Pivot Counties. He wrote of four counties in Minnesota: “Each has a small or medium-sized city that is an island of blue voters in a sea of red ones.” Citing Todd Kerner, the then-chair of the Saratoga County [New York] Democrats, Gabriel said Kerner “attributed the about-face to misgivings about the president by college-educated voters in the affluent suburbs of Albany.”

In 2020, Trump won 181 Retained Pivot Counties across 32 states with a median margin of victory of 13.2 percentage points. Biden won 25 Boomerang Pivot Counties across 16 states with a median margin of victory of 3.4 percentage points.

Looking back to 2016, Trump won the 206 Pivot Counties with a median margin of victory of 9.4 percentage points. Obama won these same counties in 2008 and 2012, with a median margin of victory of 11.9 and 7.3 percentage points, respectively.

Trump’s margin of victory decreased in 68 Retained Pivot Counties and increased in 113. Compared to Obama’s results in 2012, the last time a Democrat won in these counties, Biden’s margin of victory in Boomerang Pivot Counties represents a decrease in 22 and an increase in three.

The table below highlights the five counties with the largest swings in the margin of victory for Democrats and Republicans each since 2016. Obama’s margins from 2012 are included for reference.

We’ll watch how the Pivot Counties vote in the 2024 presidential election and update our coverage with the latest details as they are available!

At the start of the week, we told you about our 2024 Election Help Desk, a major component of our Voter Toolkit. The Help Desk provides reliable, nonpartisan answers to more than 50 election-related questions on topics ranging from voter registration to casting a ballot to the certification of final results. We started the project in 2020 and are excited to bring it back for this election cycle.

Today, let’s look at a topic covered in the Help Desk: same-day voter registration.

Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia have same-day registration provisions, allowing voters to register and vote at the same time. Alaska and Rhode Island allow same-day registration to vote only for president and vice president. North Carolina is the only state that allows same-day registration during the early voting period but not on Election Day.

In states that allow same-day registration, voters must generally provide proof of residency (e.g., utility bill or pay stub) and identity (e.g., driver’s license) at the time of registration.