How counties are shifting in the 2024 presidential election
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Note: Arrows depicting percentage-point changes in margin are shown in counties with at least 35 percent of the estimated vote counted.
Former president Donald Trump won the presidency after widespread gains across the country delivered him victory over Vice President Kamala Harris early Wednesday.
Most of the nation’s 3,000-plus counties swung rightward compared with 2020. The Republican shift appeared across rural border communities in Texas, the wealthy suburbs of Washington, D.C., and even reliably Democratic counties in New York City.
Trump widened his margins in rural areas, while Harris underperformed compared with Biden in safely blue cities. This combination, and a rightward lurch in major suburbs and midsize metros, amounted to a Trump victory in every battleground state.
In the 2016 election, Trump rode a wave of enthusiasm in rural areas and small cities to flip traditionally blue states. In 2020, Trump continued to gain in rural areas, but President Joe Biden won off gains with suburban voters and strong margins in urban counties.
This time, Trump kept the cities and suburbs from swinging left while gaining even larger margins in medium metros, small cities and rural areas.
See more detail on how counties shifted in each of the seven battleground states below.
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Ga.
N.C.
Pa.
Mich.
Ariz.
Wis.
Nev.
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Georgia
16 electoral votes
Margin of victory from 2016 to 2024
In 2020, Biden won Georgia with less than 12,000 votes, and for Harris to hold on to the state, she would have needed to expand on Biden’s margins in Atlanta (Fulton County) and the surrounding suburbs. She lost some ground in Fulton but was able to expand Democratic advantage in some Atlanta suburbs — some of the only counties in the country that shifted left. Trump improved his vote share in rural areas and small cities dramatically, by about 80,000 votes.
a
North Carolina
16 electoral votes
Margin of victory from 2016 to 2024
The state of North Carolina was Trump’s narrowest win in 2020, with its population centers — Charlotte (Mecklenburg County) and Raleigh (Wake County) plus Durham — posting big shifts toward Democrats in both 2016 and 2020. This year, rural areas swung even more toward Trump.
Harris held the big Democratic advantage in the state’s growing major metro areas, but did not expand it. Meanwhile, Trump added another 30,000 votes to his margin in the state’s most rural areas.
The Democratic margins in the cities had expanded by 100,000 votes in each of the last two elections, a trend that seemed to put the state in reach. But the Democratic advantage plateaued. And Harris dropped to 38 percent in the rural areas, compared to Biden’s 41 percent.
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Pennsylvania
19 electoral votes
Margin of victory from 2016 to 2024
The former president expanded his 2020 margins in Pennsylvania by about three points in the state’s medium metros, rural areas and small cities. He added about 60,000 votes to his 2020 margins in medium-sized cities like Erie and Allentown. Harris’s share of the votes in Allegheny County was about what Biden earned in 2020 while Philadelphia continued to move slightly toward Republicans. Additionally, the suburbs — a set of counties where Harris needed a strong performance to secure a win — moved toward Trump.
V
Michigan
15 electoral votes
Margin of victory from 2016 to 2024
Trump outperformed his 2020 margins across Michigan, including in Detroit (Wayne County) and Grand Rapids (Kent County). He also added substantially to his vote margins in the state's suburbs and rural areas.
D
Arizona
11 electoral votes
Margin of victory from 2016 to 2024
Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, is far-and-away the biggest county in Arizona. Democrats went from losing Maricopa by almost 150,000 votes in 2012 to winning by 44,000 in 2020, helping Biden flip the traditionally red state. But in 2024 the county swung sharply back to Republicans.
v
Wisconsin
10 electoral votes
Margin of victory from 2016 to 2024
With Trump’s latest win of Wisconsin all three of the state’s past elections were decided by less than 30,000 votes. Trump improved on his 2020 margins in rural areas and small cities as well as medium metros. Even Milwaukee County swung toward Trump.
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Nevada
6 electoral votes
Margin of victory from 2016 to 2024
Nearly three-quarters of Nevadans live in Clark County, home to Las Vegas. The county swung sharply toward Trump, nearly eliminating Democrats’ usual advantage there while improving margins in small cities and rural areas.
Dan Keating and Aaron Blake contributed to this report.
correction
A previous version of this analysis incorrectly estimated the 2020 margins in Connecticut, where new electoral jurisdictions were used in 2024. Past voting results have been recalculated.
About this story
2024 unofficial results from Associated Press. Certified 2020 county election results are from Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections.
Vote margins are calculated as the difference between Republican and Democratic vote totals in an area, and swings in percentage-point margins are the changes in those margins between elections.
Counties are identified as urban, suburban, midsize and rural based on the National Center for Health Statistics classification system. Major urban cores are the central counties of metropolitan areas with at least 1 million people. Suburbs are the counties within those largest metropolitan areas surrounding the urban core. Medium-size cites are in metropolitan areas with less than 1 million people but more than 250,000. Small city and rural areas are in smaller metropolitan areas or outside metropolitan areas altogether.