Chapter 8.1 · Report

Five axes of the county vote

In 2024, college share had the largest correlation with the county two-party margin among five county characteristics, +0.66 vote-weighted, and it is not separated from rural share's −0.65.

Author: Vishal Singh
Affiliation: NYU Stern
Published: 3 October 2026

Every estimate of the chapter with its interval and every figure as a table, generated from the chapter's data files. Table n of this report is figure n of the chapter. The same report as Markdown: report.md.

Identification

Title

Five axes of the county vote

Chapter

8.1 (Part VIII, Places and the people in them; Votes, giving and places)

Question

How do education, income, race and ethnicity, age and rurality rank as correlates of the county vote?

Dek

In 2024, college share had the largest correlation with the county two-party margin among five county characteristics, +0.66 vote-weighted, and it is not separated from rural share's −0.65.

Grain

places

Status

draft

Published

3 October 2026

Updated

not revised

Data sources

County election returns. County presidential returns, 2000-2024: Algara and Amlani (2000-2020) and MIT Election Data and Science Lab (2024), repaired file; years: President 1868-2024 (40 elections); House and Senate 1990-2024; weights: none (full counts of votes); statistics weighted by two-party votes in the election, or county-equal
County demographics panel. County demographics panel, 2000-2024: education, income, race and ethnicity, age and rural share, with the rural-urban continuum code and its edition; years: 2000-2024 (election years, interpolated between census and survey anchors); weights: none (census and American Community Survey estimates, interpolated to election years; sampling error not carried)

Canonical URL

https://vishalsingh.org/politics/five-axes-of-the-county-vote

Markdown

https://vishalsingh.org/politics/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/report.md

BibTeX

@misc{singh2026fiveaxesofthecountyvote,
  author = {Singh, Vishal},
  title = {Five axes of the county vote},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://vishalsingh.org/politics/five-axes-of-the-county-vote},
  note = {In The Public Mind. Published 3 October 2026.}
}

Principal estimates

The facts the dek and the opening prose cite, in order of appearance. Every fact is in the table of all estimates below.

Estimand	Population	Period	Value	Interval	n	Weights	Source	Fact id
correlation of the county two-party margin with college share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	+0.66	95% CI 0.60 to 0.72	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	r_edu_2024_w
correlation of the county two-party margin with rural share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	−0.65	95% CI −0.74 to −0.56	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	r_rural_2024_w
correlation of the county two-party margin with non-Hispanic white share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	−0.57	95% CI −0.71 to −0.44	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	r_race_2024_w
absolute correlation of the first-ranked axis minus that of the second-ranked axis	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	+0.01	95% CI −0.05 to 0.09		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	gap_2024_w
share of resamples in which college share has the largest absolute correlation with the county margin of the five axes	2,000 resamples of states	2024 presidential election	60%		3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	first_edu_2024_w
share of resamples in which rural share has the largest absolute correlation with the county margin of the five axes	2,000 resamples of states	2024 presidential election	38%		3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	first_rural_2024_w
correlation of the county two-party margin with non-Hispanic white share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	−0.52	95% CI −0.68 to −0.36	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	r_race_2000_w
correlation of the county two-party margin with rural share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	−0.46	95% CI −0.56 to −0.36	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	r_rural_2000_w
correlation of the county two-party margin with college share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	+0.28	95% CI 0.18 to 0.38	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	r_edu_2000_w
share of resamples in which non-Hispanic white share has the largest absolute correlation with the county margin of the five axes	2,000 resamples of states	2000 presidential election	87%		3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	first_race_2000_w
R-squared of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	41%	95% CI 30% to 56%	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	r2_2000_w
R-squared of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	69%	95% CI 63% to 78%	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	r2_2024_w
R-squared of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	20%	95% CI 11% to 33%	3,113	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	r2_2000_u
R-squared of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	59%	95% CI 49% to 71%	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	r2_2024_u
R-squared of the county margin on the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	74%	95% CI 65% to 82%	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	r2fe_2000_w
R-squared of the county margin on the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	87%	95% CI 84% to 90%	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	r2fe_2024_w
change between the two elections in the weighted standard deviation of the margin fitted by the five axes (the same states are drawn for both elections)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 to 2024	+10.3	95% CI 7.0 to 13.8		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	chs_explained_2000_2024_w
change between the two elections in the weighted standard deviation of the margin left over after the five axes (the same states are drawn for both elections)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 to 2024	−2.0	95% CI −3.6 to −0.7		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	chs_resid_2000_2024_w
smallest number of counties in an election's sample	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 to 2024	3,103			none (full counts)	County election returns	n_min
largest number of counties in an election's sample	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 to 2024	3,113			none (full counts)	County election returns	n_max
number of bootstrap replicates	resamples of states	2000 to 2024	2,000			none (full counts)	County election returns	n_reps
share of two-party votes cast in the Connecticut counties left out for a missing census measure	two-party votes in counties with returns, Alaska excluded	2020 presidential election	1.16%		8	none (full counts)	County election returns	ct_votes_2020
share of two-party votes cast in the Connecticut counties left out for a missing census measure	two-party votes in counties with returns, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	1.14%		8	none (full counts)	County election returns	ct_votes_2024

Findings

In 2024, college share, rural share and the non-Hispanic white share had the three largest correlations with the county two-party margin among five county characteristics. Vote-weighted, the correlations were +0.66 (95% CI 0.60 to 0.72) for college share, −0.65 for rural share and −0.57 for the white share. The first two are not separated. Their absolute correlations differ by +0.01 (95% CI −0.05 to 0.09), an interval that includes zero, and college share has the largest absolute correlation in 60% of resamples of states, against 38% for rural share. In 2000 the white share led, at −0.52 against −0.46 for rural share and +0.28 for college share, in 87% of resamples. Which axis ranks first depends on the election, on the weighting and on whether the other axes are held fixed, and in several elections the data do not separate the leading axes.

Together the five characteristics reproduce 41% (95% CI 30% to 56%) of the variance of the county margin in 2000 and 69% (95% CI 63% to 78%) in 2024, vote-weighted. These shares are in-sample fits of a linear regression, estimated and scored on the same counties, and not forecasts. Counting every county once, the shares are 20% (95% CI 11% to 33%) and 59% (95% CI 49% to 71%), and with a baseline margin for each state the vote-weighted shares are 74% (95% CI 65% to 82%) and 87% (95% CI 84% to 90%). The rise combines a wider fitted part of the margin and a narrower left-over part, by +10.3 (95% CI 7.0 to 13.8) and −2.0 (95% CI −3.6 to −0.7) points of standard deviation, vote-weighted.

This chapter is the common baseline for the county chapters of its part. It ranks five axes, education, income, race and ethnicity, age and rurality, as correlates of the county margin, in three steps. The first is the correlation of each axis alone with the margin, a raw association. The second is the coefficient of each axis when all five are held together, a conditional association. The third is the share of the variance of county margins that the five together reproduce, the fitted variance. Every statement describes an association among counties and not an effect on voters.

Each axis is one measure: the share of adults with a bachelor's degree or more (education), median household income in 2024 dollars (income), the non-Hispanic white share of residents (race and ethnicity), median age (age) and the share of residents living in rural areas as the Census Bureau defines them (rurality). The margin is the Democratic minus the Republican votes over their sum, so a positive correlation means that counties with more of a characteristic voted more Democratic. A vote-weighted statistic counts each county in proportion to its two-party votes in the election, and a county-equal statistic counts each county once. Both are shown throughout, because the largest counties dominate the first and the many small counties the second.

Each election uses 3,103 to 3,113 counties, those with returns and every census measure, and Table 1 lists which comparisons use the same counties, the same weights and the same other variables.Intervals on correlations and coefficients are 95% intervals with standard errors clustered by state [1]. Intervals on R-squared, on spreads, on differences between statistics and on the share of resamples in which an axis leads come from a bootstrap that resamples whole states (2,000 replicates). Returns are full counts, so the intervals say how much a number depends on which states are in the set. The census measures are interpolated between survey years and carry sampling error that no interval includes. Alaska is not in the sample, because it reports returns by election district. Kansas City is added to Jackson County, Missouri in 2024, as it already is in earlier years, so that the unit matches its census measures. The Connecticut counties lack census measures in 2020 and 2024 and are left out, with 1.16% and 1.14% of the two-party votes.

Table 1. Every comparison in the chapter uses the same outcome and the same counties within an election, and differs in what it holds fixed

Table 2 plots the correlation of each axis with the margin in each election from 2000 to 2024. Through 2016 the white share has the largest absolute correlation in every election and both weightings in the point estimates, from −0.52 in 2000 to −0.68 in 2016 vote-weighted. It leads in 76% to 93% of resamples of states vote-weighted (79% in 2016) and in 70% to 98% county-equal (85% in 2016). In 2020 no axis leads clearly. Vote-weighted, rural share (−0.67) leads in 60% of resamples, the white share (−0.63) in 23% and college share (+0.64) in 17%. Counting each county once, college share (+0.53) and the white share (−0.53) are level in the point estimates. The white share leads in 52% of resamples, college share in 34% and rural share in 14%. In 2024 college share has the largest absolute correlation in both weightings, ahead of rural share by +0.01 (95% CI −0.05 to 0.09) vote-weighted and +0.03 (95% CI −0.04 to 0.10) county-equal. Both intervals include zero, and college share leads in 60% and 59% of resamples. The white share, the smallest of the three, exceeds income by +0.18 (95% CI 0.05 to 0.34) vote-weighted, so income and age are separated from the three largest axes.

Table 2. Vote-weighted, the correlation of college share with the county margin rose from +0.28 in 2000 to +0.66 in 2024, while the white share's moved from −0.52 to −0.57

The new order comes from college share rising. Vote-weighted, college share's correlation changed by +0.38 (95% CI 0.31 to 0.47) between 2000 and 2024, rural share's by −0.19 (95% CI −0.27 to −0.11) and the white share's by −0.05 (95% CI −0.13 to 0.03), an interval that includes zero. Income's correlation went from +0.10 to +0.40 and median age's from −0.08 to −0.31. Zingher [2] documents the rise of the education divide after 2000 in surveys and in aggregate alignment, and Companion 8.1a, The diploma map follows the education gradient across counties in detail. Planned, Income and the county vote (planned) takes up income and Planned, Rural counties (planned) takes up rurality. Scala and Johnson [3] found that Democratic candidates did well in densely populated counties and poorly on the rural side of the urban-rural interface in 2000 to 2016, which matches the sign of rural share's correlation here.

The five axes overlap across counties, so a correlation mixes an axis with the others. Table 3 compares each correlation with the coefficient of the same axis in one regression on all five, in standard deviations of the margin per standard deviation of the axis. A fixed effect for each state gives every state its own baseline margin, so a regression with state baselines compares counties within the same state.

Vote-weighted in 2024, college share goes from +0.66 alone to +0.71 (95% CI 0.63 to 0.79) with the other four axes held fixed, and the white share from −0.57 to −0.43 (95% CI −0.57 to −0.29). College share has the largest coefficient in 100% of resamples vote-weighted and 77% county-equal. Rural share goes from −0.65 to −0.12 (95% CI −0.25 to 0.01), an interval that includes zero. Income changes sign, from +0.40 alone to −0.26 (95% CI −0.40 to −0.11). Among counties with the same college share, white share, median age and rural share, those with higher median household income voted more Republican. Median age goes from −0.31 to +0.04 (95% CI −0.13 to 0.21). In points of margin, one vote-weighted standard deviation of college share (11.8 points of college share) goes with +23.4 (95% CI 20.7 to 26.1) points of margin in the joint model, against +6.7 (95% CI 3.0 to 10.5) in 2000. One standard deviation of the white share (21.1 points of white share) goes with −14.1 (95% CI −18.7 to −9.6) points of margin, against −13.4 (95% CI −17.4 to −9.4) in 2000.

Table 3. Held together, college share's coefficient is +0.71 against a correlation of +0.66, and income's is −0.26 against +0.40, vote-weighted in 2024

The sign of income describes a regression among counties and not households. Counties with higher median incomes also have higher college shares, and the coefficient on income is what remains once college share, the white share, age and rurality are fixed. Gelman and colleagues [4] found that income relates to Republican voting more strongly in poor states than in rich states, and Chapter 3.5, The income ladder reports the income profile of individual voters.

Adding a baseline for each state keeps the order of the point estimates in 2024 and changes some sizes. Vote-weighted, college share is +0.73 (95% CI 0.65 to 0.80), the white share −0.62 (95% CI −0.76 to −0.48), income −0.40 (95% CI −0.48 to −0.33), rural share −0.09 (95% CI −0.14 to −0.04) and median age +0.08 (95% CI 0.02 to 0.13). In 2000 the white share's coefficient is −0.77 with state baselines against −0.50 without them, and it is the largest in 100% of resamples with baselines. In 2024 college share has the largest coefficient with baselines in 90% of resamples vote-weighted. Counting each county once, with state baselines, the white share's coefficient is −0.68 in 2000 and −0.73 in 2024, the largest in 98% of resamples in 2024. College share's is +0.54.

Which coefficient is largest is often unsettled (Table 4). Vote-weighted, college share has the largest coefficient in 65% of resamples in 2016 and 100% in 2024, but in 51% in 2004 and 55% in 2008, when the white share has 49% and 45%. The white share leads in 97% of resamples in 2000 and 73% in 2012. Counting each county once, the white share has the largest coefficient in the point estimates through 2016 and college share from 2020, with college share first in 56% of resamples in 2020 and 77% in 2024. College share's county-equal coefficient rose from +0.03 in 2000 to +0.56 in 2024, and income's is −0.14 in 2024.

Table 4. Held together, college share's coefficient rose from +0.25 in 2000 to +0.71 in 2024 and income's was below zero in every election, vote-weighted

Dropping an axis from the five-axis regression lowers the vote-weighted R-squared in 2024 by 16.9 (95% CI 12.1 to 22.8) points of variance for college share and 11.0 (95% CI 5.1 to 17.5) for the white share, against 2.7 for income, 0.7 for rural share and 0.1 for age. In 2000 the largest loss was the white share's, 15.1 points, and college share's was 2.4. Counting each county once, the white share's loss in 2024 (17.6) exceeds college share's (12.8) in the point estimates, the reverse of the order of the coefficients. The loss also depends on how much of an axis's variation the other axes already contain.

The five axes reproduce more of the county margin than in 2000

The R-squared of a regression is the share of the variance of county margins that its fitted values reproduce. It is an in-sample fit, estimated and scored on the same counties, and not a forecast. Table 5 plots it by election. Vote-weighted, the five axes reproduce 41% (95% CI 30% to 56%) in 2000, 52% in 2012 and 72% (95% CI 67% to 79%) in 2016, then 72% in 2020 and 69% (95% CI 63% to 78%) in 2024. The rise from 2000 to 2016 is +31.3 (95% CI 22.0 to 39.1) points of variance, and the change from 2016 to 2024 is −3.6 (95% CI −7.1 to 1.5), an interval that includes zero. Most of the rise falls between 2012 and 2016, +19.9 (95% CI 15.3 to 23.6) points. Counting each county once the shares are 20% (95% CI 11% to 33%) in 2000, 33% in 2012, 58% in 2016 and 59% (95% CI 49% to 71%) in 2024.

State baselines alone reproduce 34% (95% CI 24% to 43%) of the variance in 2000 and 27% (95% CI 19% to 34%) in 2024, a change of −6.7 (95% CI −16.8 to 4.2) points whose interval includes zero. Adding the five axes to state baselines raises the share to 74% (95% CI 65% to 82%) in 2000 and 87% (95% CI 84% to 90%) in 2024. The share of the variance within states that the five axes reproduce rises from 61% (95% CI 50% to 72%) to 82% (95% CI 77% to 88%). Counting each county once, the five axes with state baselines reproduce 61% in 2000 and 82% in 2024. Nine measures, which add the Black, Hispanic and Asian shares and the foreign-born share to the five axes, reproduce 49% in 2000 and 71% in 2024 vote-weighted, so the extra measures add more in 2000 than in 2024.

Table 5. Vote-weighted, the five axes reproduce 41% of the variance of the county margin in 2000 and 69% in 2024, and 87% in 2024 with state baselines

A higher R-squared can come from a wider fitted part of the margin or from a narrower left-over part. Table 6 separates them. Vote-weighted, the standard deviation of county margins rose from 26.5 points in 2000 to 35.9 in 2016 and was 32.8 in 2024. The fitted part went from 16.9 (95% CI 13.4 to 20.9) to 27.2 (95% CI 24.7 to 30.4), a change of +10.3 (95% CI 7.0 to 13.8) points. The left-over part went from 20.4 (95% CI 18.0 to 21.9) to 18.4 (95% CI 15.5 to 19.7), a change of −2.0 (95% CI −3.6 to −0.7) points. Holding the left-over part at its 2000 value would put the 2024 share at 61% (95% CI 53% to 71%) instead of 69%, so the narrower left-over part accounts for 7.2 (95% CI 2.5 to 13.3) of the +27.8 (95% CI 18.9 to 37.3) points of the rise. With state baselines added, the left-over part went from 13.5 to 12.0. Counting each county once, the standard deviation of margins rose from 24.5 to 31.7, the fitted part went from 10.9 to 24.3 and the left-over part from 22.0 to 20.4.

Table 6. Vote-weighted, the part of the county margin that the five axes leave over narrowed from 20.4 to 18.4 points while the part they fit widened from 16.9 to 27.2

The census measures are interpolated, which could change the early R-squared if the early measures are noisier. The last four views of Table 5 hold the measures of one year fixed for every election. With the 2024 measures, the vote-weighted five-axis share is 35% in 2000, 71% in 2016 and 69% in 2024, and with the 2000 measures it is 41%, 72% and 68%. Counting each county once the shares are 18% in 2000 and 59% in 2024 with the 2024 measures, and 20% and 58% with the 2000 measures. The rise from 2012 to 2016 holds under each choice, at +19.9 points with the measures of the year, +20.9 with the 2024 measures and +19.3 with the 2000 measures. Small differences do not hold. The change from 2016 to 2024 is −3.6 points, −2.0 and −4.5 under the three choices. The census definition of rural also changes with the 2020 census, and the county-equal mean rural share goes from 59.6% in 2012 to 64.0% in 2020, while the population-weighted mean goes from 19.4% to 20.0%.

Chapter 6.1, Nationalization of the county vote measures the spread of county swings and Chapter 6.2, Distance from the national vote, 1868 to 2024 the distance of counties from the national margin, which are different quantities from the spread of margins here. Planned, Composition and behavior in county change (planned) separates change in composition from change in behavior.

Weighting changes the level of the correlations and the likeliest 2020 leader

Table 7 compares the vote-weighted and county-equal correlations for 2000 and 2024. In 2000 the vote-weighted correlation of college share exceeds the county-equal one by +0.18 (95% CI 0.09 to 0.26), and that of rural share is more negative by −0.19 (95% CI −0.26 to −0.12). In 2024 the differences are +0.11 (95% CI 0.02 to 0.20) and −0.13 (95% CI −0.20 to −0.05), and the white share's is −0.08 (95% CI −0.17 to 0.04), an interval that includes zero. For income the difference goes from +0.08 (95% CI −0.05 to 0.19) to +0.09 (95% CI −0.04 to 0.22) and for median age from +0.09 (95% CI −0.03 to 0.20) to −0.11 (95% CI −0.20 to −0.01). The R-squared of the five axes is higher vote-weighted in every election, by +21.2 (95% CI 9.5 to 31.9) points in 2000 and +9.9 (95% CI 0.8 to 18.5) in 2024, and by +13.4 (95% CI 5.3 to 20.9) and +4.7 (95% CI 1.2 to 8.6) points with state baselines.

Table 7. The vote-weighted correlation of college share exceeds the county-equal one by +0.18 in 2000 and by +0.11 in 2024

A vote-weighted statistic describes the counties where the votes are, and a county-equal statistic describes the typical county. The 135 counties with 250,000 or more two-party votes cast 46% of the votes in 2024 and 76 such counties cast 35% in 2000, so the vote-weighted figures describe the large counties more than the county-equal ones do. Solon, Haider and Wooldridge [5] discuss the reasons for weighting a regression aimed at causal effects and find that each sometimes does not apply where practitioners assume it does. The regressions here are descriptive, and the chapter reports both weightings and does not choose between them. They agree on the sign of every correlation in every election. They differ in the leader of the point estimates in 2020, where rural share leads vote-weighted and college share and the white share are level county-equal. They also differ in the share of the margin that the five axes reproduce in the early elections.

Each axis is several measures

Table 8 replaces the single measure of each axis with alternatives, for 2024 and the same counties. Within education, the share of adults with a bachelor's degree has a vote-weighted correlation of +0.66 (95% CI 0.60 to 0.72) and the share without a high school diploma has −0.03 (95% CI −0.20 to 0.14), an interval that includes zero, so the education axis here is the top of the schooling distribution. Within income, median household income has +0.40 (95% CI 0.29 to 0.50), per capita income +0.55 (95% CI 0.47 to 0.64) and the poverty rate −0.03 (95% CI −0.14 to 0.09), an interval that includes zero. Within age, median age has −0.31, the share aged 65 or older −0.34 and the share under 30 +0.12 (95% CI 0.00 to 0.25).

Table 8. The correlation depends on the measure within an axis in 2024, from −0.03 for the share without a high school diploma to +0.66 for college share, vote-weighted

Race and ethnicity is measured by five shares here. The white share has −0.57 (95% CI −0.71 to −0.44), and the Black, Hispanic, Asian and foreign-born shares have +0.39, +0.24 (95% CI 0.10 to 0.38), +0.52 and +0.54. Counting each county once, the Hispanic share's correlation is +0.11 (95% CI −0.09 to 0.30), an interval that includes zero. Per capita income (+0.55), the Asian share (+0.52) and the foreign-born share (+0.54) have correlations about the size of the white share's. The ranking of the five axes in the first figure is therefore a ranking of five chosen measures, and a different measure of an axis can change it. Chapter 3.3, Hispanic, Black and Asian voters (planned) and Chapter 8.2, Education, ethnicity and the county shift, 2016 to 2024 follow the group shares, and Chapter 3.7, Age and generation takes up age.

The rural-urban continuum code is the other common measure of rurality. Its 2013 edition covers the elections through 2016 and its 2023 edition covers 2020 and 2024. Vote-weighted, its correlation with the margin is −0.51 in 2016 and −0.52 in 2020, and that of rural share is −0.65 and −0.67, so the change of edition leaves both series without a break. The code's correlation in 2024 is −0.51 (95% CI −0.58 to −0.44), smaller in size than rural share's −0.65 (95% CI −0.74 to −0.56).

The gaps from the fit run by region

Table 9 maps the gap between each county's margin and the margin fitted by the vote-weighted five-axis regression, estimated separately for 2000 and 2024. A negative gap means the county voted more Republican than the five axes fit. The standard deviation of the gap is 20.4 points in 2000 and 18.4 in 2024, and counties more than 20 points from the fit cast 35% of the votes in 2000 and 25% in 2024.

Table 9. In 2024 the mean gap between a county's margin and the five-axis fit is −10.8 points in the Census South and +6.7 points in the rest of the country, vote-weighted

The gaps run by region. In 2024 the vote-weighted mean gap is −10.8 points in the Census South, the Census Bureau's South region, and +6.7 in the rest of the country, against −11.5 and +6.0 in 2000. By state, Texas is −21.7 and Vermont +42.6 in 2024. State baselines absorb the state-level part of these gaps, and the vote-weighted five-axis R-squared goes from 69% to 87% in 2024 when they are added. Among counties with 100,000 or more two-party votes, the three largest gaps above the fit in 2024 are Clayton County, Georgia (+52.2), Sonoma County, California (+48.2) and Prince George's County, Maryland (+48.1). The three largest below are Forsyth County, Georgia (−52.9), Williamson County, Tennessee (−52.1) and Shelby County, Alabama (−47.4). Miami-Dade County, Florida, is fitted at +35.3 and voted −11.5, a gap of −46.8 points.

A gap compares votes with the characteristics of residents, so it can reflect candidates, campaigns, turnout and characteristics the five axes omit as well as place. Chapter 8.3, Party and place compares partisans in counties with different margins, and Chapter 8.2, Education, ethnicity and the county shift, 2016 to 2024 follows the high-Hispanic counties across 2016 to 2024.

What these data cannot show

Every statistic above is a property of counties. A pattern across places can differ from the pattern among the people who live in them, a limit known as ecological inference. Robinson [6] showed that a correlation across areas can have the opposite sign from the correlation across individuals. The characteristics describe residents, including residents who are not citizens or not of voting age, and the margin describes voters. A sign such as income's negative coefficient is a feature of one regression among counties and says nothing about how households of different incomes voted.

The five axes are five chosen measures. The ranking changes with the measure within an axis (Table 8), and the axes omit religion, occupation, density, the age of housing and every characteristic that is not in the county panel. A standardized coefficient depends on the spread of the axis across counties, which differs between the weightings and between elections, so a coefficient that rises can reflect a change in spread as well as a steeper slope. The R-squared values are in-sample fits of linear regressions and not forecasts. State baselines absorb every difference between states, including differences in composition that sit at the state level, so the within-state results describe counties compared inside states and not the effect of removing state context.

The census measures are decennial census and American Community Survey estimates interpolated to election years. Only 2000 and 2024 are close to a direct measurement, and the elections between are blends of adjacent releases, so the measures for those years carry sampling error and interpolation error that no interval includes. Rural share is anchored to the decennial censuses and has one value for 2020 and 2024. The county set is not harmonized across boundary changes, a few small counties lack measures in some years, and the counties are the units of the returns and not of any community.

The intervals show dependence on which states are in the set. They are not sampling error of the vote, which is a full count, and the bootstrap intervals for differences between statistics treat the states as the only source of variation. The chapter has no data on turnout by group, on candidates or on campaigns, so it cannot say why the order of the axes changed after 2016 or why the fit improved.

Tables

Table 1. Every comparison in the chapter uses the same outcome and the same counties within an election, and differs in what it holds fixed

The outcome, sample, period, weights and other variables of each comparison; the outcome is the county two-party margin, Democratic minus Republican

Comparison	Counties	Elections	Weights	Other variables held fixed
Correlation of one axis with the margin	Counties with returns and every census measure; the same counties for every comparison in an election	Each presidential election, 2000 to 2024	Vote-weighted and county-equal	Nothing else
Regression of the margin on the five axes	Same counties	Each election, 2000 to 2024	Vote-weighted and county-equal	The other four axes
The same regression with state baselines	Same counties	Each election, 2000 to 2024	Vote-weighted and county-equal	The other four axes and a baseline margin for each state
Share of the variance of the margin reproduced (R-squared)	Same counties	Each election, 2000 to 2024	Vote-weighted and county-equal	Five axes; five axes with state baselines; state baselines alone; nine measures
Checks with fixed census measures	Counties that also have the fixed measures, a few fewer	Each election, 2000 to 2024	Vote-weighted and county-equal	The 2024 census measures, or the 2000 census measures, used for every election
Alternative measures within each axis	The 2024 counties of the main sample	2024	Vote-weighted and county-equal	Nothing else
Map of the gap between margin and fit	The 2000 and 2024 counties of the main sample	2000 and 2024	Fit weighted by two-party votes	The five axes

Source: County presidential returns, 2000-2024 (Algara and Amlani; MIT Election Data and Science Lab), full counts of votes; county demographics panel (census and American Community Survey); both weightings reported

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/comparisons.json

Table 2. Vote-weighted, the correlation of college share with the county margin rose from +0.28 in 2000 to +0.66 in 2024, while the white share's moved from −0.52 to −0.57

Correlation between a county characteristic and the county two-party margin in the same presidential election, 2000 to 2024, counties weighted by two-party votes

Election	Axis	Measure	Weighting	Correlation	Interval low	Interval high	Share of resamples with the largest absolute correlation (%)	Counties
2000	Education	College share	Vote-weighted	+0.28	+0.18	+0.38	0	3,113
2004	Education	College share	Vote-weighted	+0.38	+0.28	+0.47	2	3,113
2008	Education	College share	Vote-weighted	+0.43	+0.34	+0.51	1	3,113
2012	Education	College share	Vote-weighted	+0.41	+0.34	+0.49	0	3,112
2016	Education	College share	Vote-weighted	+0.58	+0.51	+0.64	1	3,111
2020	Education	College share	Vote-weighted	+0.64	+0.58	+0.70	17	3,103
2024	Education	College share	Vote-weighted	+0.66	+0.60	+0.72	60	3,103
2000	Income	Median household income	Vote-weighted	+0.10	−0.01	+0.20	0	3,113
2004	Income	Median household income	Vote-weighted	+0.12	+0.01	+0.23	0	3,113
2008	Income	Median household income	Vote-weighted	+0.17	+0.05	+0.28	0	3,113
2012	Income	Median household income	Vote-weighted	+0.16	+0.04	+0.27	0	3,112
2016	Income	Median household income	Vote-weighted	+0.32	+0.19	+0.44	0	3,111
2020	Income	Median household income	Vote-weighted	+0.39	+0.29	+0.49	0	3,103
2024	Income	Median household income	Vote-weighted	+0.40	+0.29	+0.50	0	3,103
2000	Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	Vote-weighted	−0.52	−0.68	−0.36	87	3,113
2004	Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	Vote-weighted	−0.50	−0.65	−0.35	77	3,113
2008	Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	Vote-weighted	−0.55	−0.67	−0.42	76	3,113
2012	Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	Vote-weighted	−0.59	−0.72	−0.47	93	3,112
2016	Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	Vote-weighted	−0.68	−0.79	−0.57	79	3,111
2020	Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	Vote-weighted	−0.63	−0.75	−0.51	23	3,103
2024	Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	Vote-weighted	−0.57	−0.71	−0.44	2	3,103
2000	Age	Median age	Vote-weighted	−0.08	−0.19	+0.04	0	3,113
2004	Age	Median age	Vote-weighted	−0.11	−0.22	−0.01	0	3,113
2008	Age	Median age	Vote-weighted	−0.22	−0.32	−0.12	0	3,113
2012	Age	Median age	Vote-weighted	−0.24	−0.35	−0.13	0	3,112
2016	Age	Median age	Vote-weighted	−0.36	−0.46	−0.26	0	3,111
2020	Age	Median age	Vote-weighted	−0.34	−0.43	−0.24	0	3,103
2024	Age	Median age	Vote-weighted	−0.31	−0.41	−0.21	0	3,103
2000	Rurality	Rural share	Vote-weighted	−0.46	−0.56	−0.36	13	3,113
2004	Rurality	Rural share	Vote-weighted	−0.46	−0.55	−0.38	22	3,113
2008	Rurality	Rural share	Vote-weighted	−0.52	−0.60	−0.43	24	3,113
2012	Rurality	Rural share	Vote-weighted	−0.52	−0.61	−0.44	7	3,112
2016	Rurality	Rural share	Vote-weighted	−0.65	−0.74	−0.56	20	3,111
2020	Rurality	Rural share	Vote-weighted	−0.67	−0.76	−0.58	60	3,103
2024	Rurality	Rural share	Vote-weighted	−0.65	−0.74	−0.56	38	3,103
2000	Education	College share	County-equal	+0.10	+0.01	+0.20	0	3,113
2004	Education	College share	County-equal	+0.21	+0.13	+0.29	2	3,113
2008	Education	College share	County-equal	+0.31	+0.24	+0.37	12	3,113
2012	Education	College share	County-equal	+0.30	+0.23	+0.38	1	3,112
2016	Education	College share	County-equal	+0.46	+0.38	+0.55	6	3,111
2020	Education	College share	County-equal	+0.53	+0.45	+0.61	34	3,103
2024	Education	College share	County-equal	+0.56	+0.47	+0.64	59	3,103
2000	Income	Median household income	County-equal	+0.02	−0.10	+0.14	0	3,113
2004	Income	Median household income	County-equal	+0.03	−0.08	+0.14	0	3,113
2008	Income	Median household income	County-equal	+0.12	+0.01	+0.22	0	3,113
2012	Income	Median household income	County-equal	+0.08	−0.05	+0.21	0	3,112
2016	Income	Median household income	County-equal	+0.19	+0.05	+0.33	0	3,111
2020	Income	Median household income	County-equal	+0.28	+0.14	+0.41	0	3,103
2024	Income	Median household income	County-equal	+0.30	+0.17	+0.43	0	3,103
2000	Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	County-equal	−0.40	−0.54	−0.26	98	3,113
2004	Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	County-equal	−0.36	−0.52	−0.20	92	3,113
2008	Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	County-equal	−0.36	−0.51	−0.21	70	3,113
2012	Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	County-equal	−0.44	−0.61	−0.28	88	3,112
2016	Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	County-equal	−0.57	−0.73	−0.41	85	3,111
2020	Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	County-equal	−0.53	−0.73	−0.33	52	3,103
2024	Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	County-equal	−0.50	−0.71	−0.28	30	3,103
2000	Age	Median age	County-equal	−0.17	−0.28	−0.05	0	3,113
2004	Age	Median age	County-equal	−0.14	−0.25	−0.03	0	3,113
2008	Age	Median age	County-equal	−0.16	−0.26	−0.07	0	3,113
2012	Age	Median age	County-equal	−0.18	−0.27	−0.08	0	3,112
2016	Age	Median age	County-equal	−0.26	−0.33	−0.18	0	3,111
2020	Age	Median age	County-equal	−0.23	−0.30	−0.15	0	3,103
2024	Age	Median age	County-equal	−0.20	−0.27	−0.12	0	3,103
2000	Rurality	Rural share	County-equal	−0.27	−0.36	−0.18	2	3,113
2004	Rurality	Rural share	County-equal	−0.26	−0.34	−0.18	6	3,113
2008	Rurality	Rural share	County-equal	−0.33	−0.40	−0.26	19	3,113
2012	Rurality	Rural share	County-equal	−0.35	−0.42	−0.29	11	3,112
2016	Rurality	Rural share	County-equal	−0.49	−0.56	−0.42	9	3,111
2020	Rurality	Rural share	County-equal	−0.52	−0.59	−0.45	14	3,103
2024	Rurality	Rural share	County-equal	−0.53	−0.59	−0.46	11	3,103

Views: Vote-weighted (weighting = Vote-weighted); County-equal (weighting = County-equal); Education, both weightings (axis = Education); Share of resamples in which an axis leads, vote-weighted (weighting = Vote-weighted); Share of resamples in which an axis leads, county-equal (weighting = County-equal).

Note: Election returns are full counts of votes, so they carry no sampling error. The 95% intervals use errors clustered by state, so they show how much a number depends on which states are in the set. They do not include the sampling error of the county characteristics, which are census and American Community Survey estimates interpolated between years.

Note: Each county's measures are those of the election year, interpolated between census and survey years; see Methods.

Source: County presidential returns, 2000-2024 (Algara and Amlani for 2000 to 2020; MIT Election Data and Science Lab for 2024), full counts of votes; county characteristics from the decennial census and American Community Survey, interpolated to election years; estimates weighted by two-party votes or counting each county once, as stated

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/corr_by_year.json

Table 3. Held together, college share's coefficient is +0.71 against a correlation of +0.66, and income's is −0.26 against +0.40, vote-weighted in 2024

Standardized coefficients for the county two-party margin in 2024: each axis alone, all five axes together, and all five with a baseline for each state; two weightings

Election	Weighting	Axis	Model	Coefficient	Interval low	Interval high	Counties
2024	Vote-weighted	Education	Each axis alone	+0.66	+0.60	+0.72	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Education	Each axis alone	+0.28	+0.18	+0.38	3,113
2024	Vote-weighted	Income	Each axis alone	+0.40	+0.29	+0.50	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Income	Each axis alone	+0.10	−0.01	+0.20	3,113
2024	Vote-weighted	Race and ethnicity	Each axis alone	−0.57	−0.71	−0.44	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Race and ethnicity	Each axis alone	−0.52	−0.68	−0.36	3,113
2024	Vote-weighted	Age	Each axis alone	−0.31	−0.41	−0.21	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Age	Each axis alone	−0.08	−0.19	+0.04	3,113
2024	Vote-weighted	Rurality	Each axis alone	−0.65	−0.74	−0.56	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Rurality	Each axis alone	−0.46	−0.56	−0.36	3,113
2024	County-equal	Education	Each axis alone	+0.56	+0.47	+0.64	3,103
2000	County-equal	Education	Each axis alone	+0.10	+0.01	+0.20	3,113
2024	County-equal	Income	Each axis alone	+0.30	+0.17	+0.43	3,103
2000	County-equal	Income	Each axis alone	+0.02	−0.10	+0.14	3,113
2024	County-equal	Race and ethnicity	Each axis alone	−0.50	−0.71	−0.28	3,103
2000	County-equal	Race and ethnicity	Each axis alone	−0.40	−0.54	−0.26	3,113
2024	County-equal	Age	Each axis alone	−0.20	−0.27	−0.12	3,103
2000	County-equal	Age	Each axis alone	−0.17	−0.28	−0.05	3,113
2024	County-equal	Rurality	Each axis alone	−0.53	−0.59	−0.46	3,103
2000	County-equal	Rurality	Each axis alone	−0.27	−0.36	−0.18	3,113
2024	Vote-weighted	Education	All five together	+0.71	+0.63	+0.80	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Education	All five together	+0.25	+0.11	+0.39	3,113
2024	Vote-weighted	Income	All five together	−0.26	−0.40	−0.11	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Income	All five together	−0.17	−0.28	−0.06	3,113
2024	Vote-weighted	Race and ethnicity	All five together	−0.43	−0.57	−0.29	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Race and ethnicity	All five together	−0.50	−0.66	−0.35	3,113
2024	Vote-weighted	Age	All five together	+0.04	−0.13	+0.21	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Age	All five together	+0.29	+0.10	+0.49	3,113
2024	Vote-weighted	Rurality	All five together	−0.12	−0.25	+0.01	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Rurality	All five together	−0.25	−0.38	−0.11	3,113
2024	County-equal	Education	All five together	+0.56	+0.48	+0.64	3,103
2000	County-equal	Education	All five together	+0.03	−0.09	+0.14	3,113
2024	County-equal	Income	All five together	−0.14	−0.23	−0.06	3,103
2000	County-equal	Income	All five together	−0.01	−0.12	+0.10	3,113
2024	County-equal	Race and ethnicity	All five together	−0.47	−0.67	−0.28	3,103
2000	County-equal	Race and ethnicity	All five together	−0.39	−0.55	−0.22	3,113
2024	County-equal	Age	All five together	+0.13	+0.07	+0.20	3,103
2000	County-equal	Age	All five together	+0.09	−0.02	+0.20	3,113
2024	County-equal	Rurality	All five together	−0.20	−0.30	−0.10	3,103
2000	County-equal	Rurality	All five together	−0.20	−0.28	−0.12	3,113
2024	Vote-weighted	Education	All five with state baselines	+0.73	+0.65	+0.80	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Education	All five with state baselines	+0.26	+0.14	+0.38	3,113
2024	Vote-weighted	Income	All five with state baselines	−0.41	−0.48	−0.33	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Income	All five with state baselines	−0.25	−0.32	−0.17	3,113
2024	Vote-weighted	Race and ethnicity	All five with state baselines	−0.62	−0.76	−0.48	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Race and ethnicity	All five with state baselines	−0.77	−0.90	−0.64	3,113
2024	Vote-weighted	Age	All five with state baselines	+0.08	+0.02	+0.14	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Age	All five with state baselines	+0.22	+0.11	+0.33	3,113
2024	Vote-weighted	Rurality	All five with state baselines	−0.09	−0.14	−0.04	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Rurality	All five with state baselines	−0.10	−0.19	−0.01	3,113
2024	County-equal	Education	All five with state baselines	+0.54	+0.47	+0.60	3,103
2000	County-equal	Education	All five with state baselines	+0.15	+0.06	+0.24	3,113
2024	County-equal	Income	All five with state baselines	−0.18	−0.23	−0.13	3,103
2000	County-equal	Income	All five with state baselines	−0.15	−0.23	−0.08	3,113
2024	County-equal	Race and ethnicity	All five with state baselines	−0.73	−0.84	−0.61	3,103
2000	County-equal	Race and ethnicity	All five with state baselines	−0.68	−0.76	−0.60	3,113
2024	County-equal	Age	All five with state baselines	+0.10	+0.06	+0.15	3,103
2000	County-equal	Age	All five with state baselines	+0.12	+0.06	+0.17	3,113
2024	County-equal	Rurality	All five with state baselines	−0.11	−0.15	−0.06	3,103
2000	County-equal	Rurality	All five with state baselines	−0.11	−0.17	−0.05	3,113

Views: 2024 (year = 2024); 2000 (year = 2000).

Note: Standardization uses the weighted mean and standard deviation of the weighting shown, in the election shown.

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/rank_ladder.json

Table 4. Held together, college share's coefficient rose from +0.25 in 2000 to +0.71 in 2024 and income's was below zero in every election, vote-weighted

Standardized coefficients from a regression of the county two-party margin on all five axes, 2000 to 2024, counties weighted by two-party votes

Election	Weighting	Model	Axis	Coefficient	Interval low	Interval high	Share of resamples with the largest absolute coefficient (%)	Counties
2000	Vote-weighted	All five together	Education	+0.25	+0.11	+0.39	1	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	All five together	Education	+0.49	+0.35	+0.62	51	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	All five together	Education	+0.51	+0.40	+0.62	55	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	All five together	Education	+0.51	+0.40	+0.63	27	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	All five together	Education	+0.62	+0.54	+0.71	65	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	All five together	Education	+0.66	+0.58	+0.74	99	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	All five together	Education	+0.71	+0.63	+0.80	100	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	All five together	Income	−0.17	−0.28	−0.06	0	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	All five together	Income	−0.31	−0.42	−0.20	0	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	All five together	Income	−0.29	−0.41	−0.17	0	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	All five together	Income	−0.30	−0.43	−0.17	0	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	All five together	Income	−0.25	−0.37	−0.13	0	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	All five together	Income	−0.23	−0.36	−0.10	0	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	All five together	Income	−0.26	−0.40	−0.11	0	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	All five together	Race and ethnicity	−0.50	−0.66	−0.35	97	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	All five together	Race and ethnicity	−0.47	−0.61	−0.33	49	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	All five together	Race and ethnicity	−0.49	−0.62	−0.36	45	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	All five together	Race and ethnicity	−0.56	−0.69	−0.42	73	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	All five together	Race and ethnicity	−0.59	−0.70	−0.48	35	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	All five together	Race and ethnicity	−0.51	−0.63	−0.39	1	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	All five together	Race and ethnicity	−0.43	−0.57	−0.29	0	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	All five together	Age	+0.29	+0.10	+0.49	1	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	All five together	Age	+0.28	+0.09	+0.47	0	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	All five together	Age	+0.20	+0.02	+0.38	0	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	All five together	Age	+0.20	+0.01	+0.40	0	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	All five together	Age	+0.10	−0.04	+0.24	0	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	All five together	Age	+0.07	−0.09	+0.22	0	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	All five together	Age	+0.04	−0.13	+0.21	0	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	All five together	Rurality	−0.25	−0.38	−0.11	2	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	All five together	Rurality	−0.18	−0.33	−0.03	0	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	All five together	Rurality	−0.18	−0.31	−0.04	0	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	All five together	Rurality	−0.14	−0.29	0.00	0	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	All five together	Rurality	−0.11	−0.23	0.00	0	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	All five together	Rurality	−0.13	−0.24	−0.01	0	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	All five together	Rurality	−0.12	−0.25	+0.01	0	3,103
2000	County-equal	All five together	Education	+0.03	−0.09	+0.14	0	3,113
2004	County-equal	All five together	Education	+0.26	+0.14	+0.38	19	3,113
2008	County-equal	All five together	Education	+0.34	+0.23	+0.46	41	3,113
2012	County-equal	All five together	Education	+0.36	+0.24	+0.48	18	3,112
2016	County-equal	All five together	Education	+0.51	+0.41	+0.60	23	3,111
2020	County-equal	All five together	Education	+0.55	+0.46	+0.64	56	3,103
2024	County-equal	All five together	Education	+0.56	+0.48	+0.64	77	3,103
2000	County-equal	All five together	Income	−0.01	−0.12	+0.10	0	3,113
2004	County-equal	All five together	Income	−0.15	−0.25	−0.05	0	3,113
2008	County-equal	All five together	Income	−0.13	−0.25	−0.02	0	3,113
2012	County-equal	All five together	Income	−0.17	−0.31	−0.03	0	3,112
2016	County-equal	All five together	Income	−0.17	−0.28	−0.05	0	3,111
2020	County-equal	All five together	Income	−0.14	−0.24	−0.04	0	3,103
2024	County-equal	All five together	Income	−0.14	−0.23	−0.06	0	3,103
2000	County-equal	All five together	Race and ethnicity	−0.39	−0.55	−0.22	99	3,113
2004	County-equal	All five together	Race and ethnicity	−0.35	−0.53	−0.17	80	3,113
2008	County-equal	All five together	Race and ethnicity	−0.36	−0.53	−0.19	59	3,113
2012	County-equal	All five together	Race and ethnicity	−0.45	−0.63	−0.27	81	3,112
2016	County-equal	All five together	Race and ethnicity	−0.57	−0.72	−0.42	77	3,111
2020	County-equal	All five together	Race and ethnicity	−0.52	−0.70	−0.35	45	3,103
2024	County-equal	All five together	Race and ethnicity	−0.47	−0.67	−0.28	23	3,103
2000	County-equal	All five together	Age	+0.09	−0.02	+0.20	0	3,113
2004	County-equal	All five together	Age	+0.12	+0.01	+0.23	0	3,113
2008	County-equal	All five together	Age	+0.14	+0.04	+0.23	0	3,113
2012	County-equal	All five together	Age	+0.17	+0.08	+0.26	0	3,112
2016	County-equal	All five together	Age	+0.16	+0.09	+0.22	0	3,111
2020	County-equal	All five together	Age	+0.14	+0.08	+0.21	0	3,103
2024	County-equal	All five together	Age	+0.13	+0.07	+0.20	0	3,103
2000	County-equal	All five together	Rurality	−0.20	−0.28	−0.12	1	3,113
2004	County-equal	All five together	Rurality	−0.15	−0.24	−0.06	1	3,113
2008	County-equal	All five together	Rurality	−0.17	−0.27	−0.08	0	3,113
2012	County-equal	All five together	Rurality	−0.19	−0.30	−0.09	0	3,112
2016	County-equal	All five together	Rurality	−0.19	−0.29	−0.10	0	3,111
2020	County-equal	All five together	Rurality	−0.20	−0.30	−0.10	0	3,103
2024	County-equal	All five together	Rurality	−0.20	−0.30	−0.10	0	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Education	+0.26	+0.14	+0.38	0	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Education	+0.47	+0.33	+0.62	0	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Education	+0.49	+0.36	+0.62	0	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Education	+0.47	+0.34	+0.60	0	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Education	+0.62	+0.53	+0.70	0	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Education	+0.67	+0.60	+0.74	40	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Education	+0.73	+0.65	+0.80	90	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Income	−0.25	−0.32	−0.17	0	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Income	−0.37	−0.42	−0.31	0	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Income	−0.38	−0.44	−0.32	0	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Income	−0.39	−0.45	−0.33	0	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Income	−0.35	−0.40	−0.29	0	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Income	−0.37	−0.43	−0.30	0	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Income	−0.41	−0.48	−0.33	0	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Race and ethnicity	−0.77	−0.90	−0.64	100	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Race and ethnicity	−0.77	−0.89	−0.66	100	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Race and ethnicity	−0.76	−0.88	−0.65	100	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Race and ethnicity	−0.81	−0.91	−0.70	100	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Race and ethnicity	−0.79	−0.88	−0.71	100	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Race and ethnicity	−0.69	−0.81	−0.58	60	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Race and ethnicity	−0.62	−0.76	−0.48	10	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Age	+0.22	+0.11	+0.33	0	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Age	+0.23	+0.11	+0.35	0	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Age	+0.15	+0.05	+0.25	0	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Age	+0.14	+0.05	+0.23	0	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Age	+0.10	+0.04	+0.16	0	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Age	+0.08	+0.03	+0.14	0	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Age	+0.08	+0.02	+0.14	0	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Rurality	−0.10	−0.19	−0.01	0	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Rurality	−0.04	−0.12	+0.04	0	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Rurality	−0.05	−0.12	+0.02	0	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Rurality	−0.04	−0.10	+0.03	0	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Rurality	−0.04	−0.09	+0.01	0	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Rurality	−0.09	−0.14	−0.03	0	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	All five with state baselines	Rurality	−0.09	−0.14	−0.04	0	3,103
2000	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Education	+0.15	+0.06	+0.24	0	3,113
2004	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Education	+0.33	+0.23	+0.43	0	3,113
2008	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Education	+0.35	+0.26	+0.44	0	3,113
2012	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Education	+0.34	+0.26	+0.42	0	3,112
2016	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Education	+0.49	+0.43	+0.56	0	3,111
2020	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Education	+0.53	+0.47	+0.58	0	3,103
2024	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Education	+0.54	+0.47	+0.60	2	3,103
2000	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Income	−0.15	−0.23	−0.08	0	3,113
2004	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Income	−0.24	−0.31	−0.18	0	3,113
2008	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Income	−0.23	−0.28	−0.17	0	3,113
2012	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Income	−0.23	−0.28	−0.17	0	3,112
2016	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Income	−0.20	−0.24	−0.15	0	3,111
2020	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Income	−0.18	−0.22	−0.14	0	3,103
2024	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Income	−0.18	−0.23	−0.13	0	3,103
2000	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Race and ethnicity	−0.68	−0.76	−0.60	100	3,113
2004	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Race and ethnicity	−0.70	−0.79	−0.61	100	3,113
2008	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Race and ethnicity	−0.75	−0.85	−0.66	100	3,113
2012	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Race and ethnicity	−0.80	−0.89	−0.71	100	3,112
2016	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Race and ethnicity	−0.83	−0.91	−0.75	100	3,111
2020	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Race and ethnicity	−0.77	−0.86	−0.68	100	3,103
2024	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Race and ethnicity	−0.73	−0.84	−0.61	98	3,103
2000	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Age	+0.12	+0.06	+0.17	0	3,113
2004	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Age	+0.13	+0.07	+0.20	0	3,113
2008	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Age	+0.12	+0.06	+0.17	0	3,113
2012	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Age	+0.13	+0.08	+0.18	0	3,112
2016	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Age	+0.11	+0.07	+0.16	0	3,111
2020	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Age	+0.10	+0.06	+0.15	0	3,103
2024	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Age	+0.10	+0.06	+0.15	0	3,103
2000	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Rurality	−0.11	−0.17	−0.05	0	3,113
2004	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Rurality	−0.04	−0.10	+0.02	0	3,113
2008	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Rurality	−0.06	−0.12	−0.01	0	3,113
2012	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Rurality	−0.07	−0.12	−0.02	0	3,112
2016	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Rurality	−0.08	−0.12	−0.03	0	3,111
2020	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Rurality	−0.10	−0.14	−0.05	0	3,103
2024	County-equal	All five with state baselines	Rurality	−0.11	−0.15	−0.06	0	3,103

Views: Vote-weighted (model = All five together, weighting = Vote-weighted); County-equal (model = All five together, weighting = County-equal); Vote-weighted, with state baselines (model = All five with state baselines, weighting = Vote-weighted); County-equal, with state baselines (model = All five with state baselines, weighting = County-equal).

Note: Standardization uses the weighted mean and standard deviation of the weighting shown, in the election shown.

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/joint_by_year.json

Table 5. Vote-weighted, the five axes reproduce 41% of the variance of the county margin in 2000 and 69% in 2024, and 87% in 2024 with state baselines

Share of the variance of the county two-party margin reproduced by regressions on county characteristics, 2000 to 2024, counties weighted by two-party votes

Election	Weighting	Census measures	Regression	R-squared (%)	Interval low	Interval high	Counties
2000	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Five axes	40.8	29.6	56.0	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Five axes	43.5	34.6	56.7	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Five axes	48.2	39.6	59.8	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Five axes	52.3	44.3	63.2	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Five axes	72.2	67.0	79.3	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Five axes	72.0	67.1	79.5	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Five axes	68.6	63.1	78.1	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Five axes and state baselines	74.1	64.8	82.0	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Five axes and state baselines	74.7	67.9	81.9	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Five axes and state baselines	79.9	74.6	85.4	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Five axes and state baselines	81.9	77.1	86.8	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Five axes and state baselines	88.9	86.6	91.7	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Five axes and state baselines	88.3	85.6	91.4	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Five axes and state baselines	86.6	83.6	90.4	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	State baselines alone	34.2	24.3	42.7	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	State baselines alone	29.5	21.1	37.7	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	State baselines alone	31.6	24.1	38.2	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	State baselines alone	31.4	23.2	38.6	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	State baselines alone	28.9	18.5	37.2	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	State baselines alone	28.9	19.2	36.7	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	State baselines alone	27.4	19.0	34.4	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Nine measures	49.2	38.6	62.8	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Nine measures	50.1	41.8	61.5	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Nine measures	52.1	44.6	62.6	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Nine measures	56.4	49.3	66.5	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Nine measures	73.8	69.1	80.8	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Nine measures	73.4	69.8	80.5	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	Election-year census measures	Nine measures	71.1	67.2	79.2	3,103
2000	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Five axes	19.6	11.4	33.3	3,113
2004	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Five axes	19.8	11.7	34.3	3,113
2008	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Five axes	25.5	17.4	39.9	3,113
2012	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Five axes	33.1	23.9	48.8	3,112
2016	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Five axes	57.8	49.1	70.2	3,111
2020	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Five axes	59.7	50.6	71.9	3,103
2024	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Five axes	58.7	49.4	71.4	3,103
2000	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Five axes and state baselines	60.7	53.9	66.8	3,113
2004	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Five axes and state baselines	63.0	56.6	68.4	3,113
2008	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Five axes and state baselines	70.9	65.4	75.3	3,113
2012	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Five axes and state baselines	74.0	68.9	78.1	3,112
2016	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Five axes and state baselines	81.9	78.9	84.8	3,111
2020	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Five axes and state baselines	83.4	80.8	86.0	3,103
2024	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Five axes and state baselines	82.0	79.2	84.9	3,103
2000	County-equal	Election-year census measures	State baselines alone	33.7	23.4	42.6	3,113
2004	County-equal	Election-year census measures	State baselines alone	33.1	22.8	41.5	3,113
2008	County-equal	Election-year census measures	State baselines alone	35.5	26.2	43.3	3,113
2012	County-equal	Election-year census measures	State baselines alone	35.8	26.9	43.6	3,112
2016	County-equal	Election-year census measures	State baselines alone	33.0	24.3	41.5	3,111
2020	County-equal	Election-year census measures	State baselines alone	34.8	26.7	42.4	3,103
2024	County-equal	Election-year census measures	State baselines alone	34.6	26.7	41.6	3,103
2000	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Nine measures	26.6	19.6	38.2	3,113
2004	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Nine measures	27.7	21.0	39.0	3,113
2008	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Nine measures	30.5	23.1	43.1	3,113
2012	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Nine measures	38.8	29.8	52.0	3,112
2016	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Nine measures	62.2	54.0	72.2	3,111
2020	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Nine measures	65.7	58.7	74.1	3,103
2024	County-equal	Election-year census measures	Nine measures	66.0	59.0	74.3	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes	35.1	26.7	48.1	3,102
2004	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes	39.6	32.8	51.4	3,103
2008	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes	45.2	37.9	56.5	3,103
2012	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes	49.7	42.2	61.0	3,103
2016	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes	70.5	65.0	78.2	3,104
2020	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes	71.5	66.6	79.4	3,104
2024	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes	68.6	63.1	78.1	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	68.8	59.8	77.1	3,102
2004	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	70.9	62.8	79.3	3,103
2008	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	77.8	71.7	84.2	3,103
2012	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	80.3	74.6	85.9	3,103
2016	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	88.4	85.9	91.2	3,104
2020	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	88.3	85.6	91.4	3,104
2024	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	86.6	83.6	90.4	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	33.8	23.2	42.9	3,102
2004	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	29.4	20.9	37.9	3,103
2008	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	31.4	23.7	37.6	3,103
2012	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	31.2	22.6	37.6	3,103
2016	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	28.8	18.3	37.2	3,104
2020	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	28.9	19.2	36.7	3,104
2024	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	27.4	19.0	34.4	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Nine measures	43.5	34.8	57.0	3,102
2004	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Nine measures	45.9	39.5	57.1	3,103
2008	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Nine measures	49.1	42.5	59.6	3,103
2012	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Nine measures	53.9	47.1	64.4	3,103
2016	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Nine measures	72.2	67.4	79.4	3,104
2020	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Nine measures	73.0	69.2	80.5	3,104
2024	Vote-weighted	2024 census measures for every election	Nine measures	71.1	67.2	79.2	3,103
2000	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes	17.8	11.4	29.5	3,102
2004	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes	19.6	13.1	31.9	3,103
2008	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes	24.3	16.7	37.5	3,103
2012	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes	31.2	21.7	47.0	3,103
2016	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes	55.5	45.9	68.3	3,104
2020	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes	58.7	49.3	71.2	3,104
2024	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes	58.7	49.4	71.4	3,103
2000	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	55.1	48.3	61.7	3,102
2004	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	58.6	52.1	64.5	3,103
2008	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	67.7	62.5	72.1	3,103
2012	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	71.4	67.0	75.4	3,103
2016	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	79.9	76.6	83.0	3,104
2020	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	82.5	79.7	85.3	3,104
2024	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	82.0	79.2	84.9	3,103
2000	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	33.7	23.5	42.8	3,102
2004	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	33.1	22.5	41.5	3,103
2008	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	35.4	26.2	43.1	3,103
2012	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	35.6	26.8	43.4	3,103
2016	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	32.6	24.2	40.7	3,104
2020	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	34.8	26.6	42.4	3,104
2024	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	34.6	26.7	41.6	3,103
2000	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Nine measures	26.2	19.8	36.6	3,102
2004	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Nine measures	28.1	21.9	38.3	3,103
2008	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Nine measures	29.7	22.3	41.2	3,103
2012	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Nine measures	37.5	28.0	50.5	3,103
2016	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Nine measures	60.6	52.0	70.6	3,104
2020	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Nine measures	65.1	57.8	73.7	3,104
2024	County-equal	2024 census measures for every election	Nine measures	66.0	59.0	74.3	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes	40.8	29.6	56.0	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes	43.1	33.3	56.5	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes	47.9	38.0	60.2	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes	52.8	43.4	64.5	3,113
2016	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes	72.0	64.9	79.7	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes	71.5	65.4	79.0	3,111
2024	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes	67.6	61.1	76.6	3,110
2000	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	74.1	64.8	82.0	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	74.5	67.5	82.0	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	79.2	73.7	85.1	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	81.2	76.4	86.4	3,113
2016	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	88.0	85.3	90.8	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	86.4	83.2	89.8	3,111
2024	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	84.0	80.7	88.1	3,110
2000	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	34.2	24.3	42.7	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	29.5	21.1	37.7	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	31.6	24.1	38.2	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	31.3	23.2	38.6	3,113
2016	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	28.9	18.4	37.2	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	29.0	19.3	36.8	3,111
2024	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	27.6	19.2	35.1	3,110
2000	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Nine measures	49.2	38.6	62.8	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Nine measures	49.8	41.1	61.3	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Nine measures	52.2	43.7	62.8	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Nine measures	57.4	49.1	67.5	3,113
2016	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Nine measures	74.3	68.2	81.0	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Nine measures	73.6	68.6	80.5	3,111
2024	Vote-weighted	2000 census measures for every election	Nine measures	70.8	65.8	78.6	3,110
2000	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes	19.6	11.4	33.3	3,113
2004	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes	19.5	10.8	34.2	3,113
2008	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes	25.5	16.7	40.3	3,113
2012	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes	33.0	22.5	49.6	3,113
2016	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes	57.4	47.3	70.6	3,111
2020	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes	59.1	48.7	72.5	3,111
2024	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes	58.4	47.8	71.8	3,110
2000	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	60.7	53.9	66.8	3,113
2004	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	63.1	56.7	68.6	3,113
2008	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	71.2	66.0	75.4	3,113
2012	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	74.7	69.9	78.5	3,113
2016	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	82.5	79.9	85.1	3,111
2020	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	83.5	81.2	86.1	3,111
2024	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Five axes and state baselines	82.5	80.1	85.2	3,110
2000	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	33.7	23.4	42.6	3,113
2004	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	33.1	22.8	41.5	3,113
2008	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	35.5	26.2	43.3	3,113
2012	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	35.6	26.7	43.4	3,113
2016	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	32.9	24.3	41.5	3,111
2020	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	35.2	26.8	43.2	3,111
2024	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	State baselines alone	35.1	26.9	42.4	3,110
2000	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Nine measures	26.6	19.6	38.2	3,113
2004	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Nine measures	26.8	19.7	38.7	3,113
2008	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Nine measures	29.6	21.8	43.1	3,113
2012	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Nine measures	37.7	27.8	52.1	3,113
2016	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Nine measures	61.2	52.1	72.1	3,111
2020	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Nine measures	64.2	56.3	73.9	3,111
2024	County-equal	2000 census measures for every election	Nine measures	64.3	56.7	73.6	3,110

Views: Vote-weighted (measures = Election-year census measures, weighting = Vote-weighted); County-equal (measures = Election-year census measures, weighting = County-equal); Vote-weighted, 2024 census measures (measures = 2024 census measures for every election, weighting = Vote-weighted); County-equal, 2024 census measures (measures = 2024 census measures for every election, weighting = County-equal); Vote-weighted, 2000 census measures (measures = 2000 census measures for every election, weighting = Vote-weighted); County-equal, 2000 census measures (measures = 2000 census measures for every election, weighting = County-equal).

Note: Election returns are full counts of votes, so they carry no sampling error. The 95% intervals come from a bootstrap that resamples whole states, so they show how much a number depends on which states are in the set. They do not include the sampling error of the county characteristics, which are census and American Community Survey estimates interpolated between years.

Note: In the last four views the counties that lack the fixed census measures are dropped from every election.

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/r2_by_year.json

Table 6. Vote-weighted, the part of the county margin that the five axes leave over narrowed from 20.4 to 18.4 points while the part they fit widened from 16.9 to 27.2

Standard deviation across counties of the two-party margin, the margin fitted by the five axes and the margin left over, 2000 to 2024, counties weighted by two-party votes

Election	Weighting	Part of the margin	Standard deviation (points)	Interval low	Interval high	Counties
2000	Vote-weighted	Margin	26.5	24.0	28.6	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	Margin	27.4	25.2	29.1	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	Margin	28.8	26.5	30.7	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	Margin	31.1	28.7	33.1	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	Margin	35.9	33.3	37.9	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	Margin	34.1	31.8	36.1	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	Margin	32.8	30.6	35.0	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Fitted by the five axes	16.9	13.4	20.9	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	Fitted by the five axes	18.0	15.0	21.4	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	Fitted by the five axes	20.0	17.0	23.1	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	Fitted by the five axes	22.5	19.5	25.7	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	Fitted by the five axes	30.5	27.7	33.3	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	Fitted by the five axes	28.9	26.4	31.8	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	Fitted by the five axes	27.2	24.7	30.4	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Left over after the five axes	20.4	18.0	21.9	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	Left over after the five axes	20.6	18.4	21.7	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	Left over after the five axes	20.7	18.1	22.2	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	Left over after the five axes	21.5	18.8	23.0	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	Left over after the five axes	18.9	16.5	20.3	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	Left over after the five axes	18.0	15.5	19.3	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	Left over after the five axes	18.4	15.5	19.7	3,103
2000	Vote-weighted	Left over after the five axes and state baselines	13.5	11.7	14.7	3,113
2004	Vote-weighted	Left over after the five axes and state baselines	13.8	11.9	14.9	3,113
2008	Vote-weighted	Left over after the five axes and state baselines	12.9	11.3	13.9	3,113
2012	Vote-weighted	Left over after the five axes and state baselines	13.2	11.5	14.3	3,112
2016	Vote-weighted	Left over after the five axes and state baselines	12.0	10.4	13.0	3,111
2020	Vote-weighted	Left over after the five axes and state baselines	11.7	10.2	12.6	3,103
2024	Vote-weighted	Left over after the five axes and state baselines	12.0	10.4	12.9	3,103
2000	County-equal	Margin	24.5	22.3	26.3	3,113
2004	County-equal	Margin	25.4	23.2	27.1	3,113
2008	County-equal	Margin	28.1	25.7	30.1	3,113
2012	County-equal	Margin	30.1	27.4	32.3	3,112
2016	County-equal	Margin	32.3	29.8	34.5	3,111
2020	County-equal	Margin	32.6	30.3	34.8	3,103
2024	County-equal	Margin	31.7	29.5	33.7	3,103
2000	County-equal	Fitted by the five axes	10.8	8.2	14.3	3,113
2004	County-equal	Fitted by the five axes	11.3	8.6	14.9	3,113
2008	County-equal	Fitted by the five axes	14.2	11.7	17.7	3,113
2012	County-equal	Fitted by the five axes	17.3	14.6	21.0	3,112
2016	County-equal	Fitted by the five axes	24.6	21.8	27.9	3,111
2020	County-equal	Fitted by the five axes	25.2	22.4	28.8	3,103
2024	County-equal	Fitted by the five axes	24.3	21.3	27.8	3,103
2000	County-equal	Left over after the five axes	22.0	19.2	23.9	3,113
2004	County-equal	Left over after the five axes	22.7	19.8	24.5	3,113
2008	County-equal	Left over after the five axes	24.3	20.9	26.5	3,113
2012	County-equal	Left over after the five axes	24.6	20.8	27.1	3,112
2016	County-equal	Left over after the five axes	21.0	17.6	23.2	3,111
2020	County-equal	Left over after the five axes	20.7	17.1	23.0	3,103
2024	County-equal	Left over after the five axes	20.4	16.9	22.6	3,103
2000	County-equal	Left over after the five axes and state baselines	15.4	14.0	16.4	3,113
2004	County-equal	Left over after the five axes and state baselines	15.4	14.2	16.4	3,113
2008	County-equal	Left over after the five axes and state baselines	15.2	14.0	16.1	3,113
2012	County-equal	Left over after the five axes and state baselines	15.3	14.2	16.3	3,112
2016	County-equal	Left over after the five axes and state baselines	13.7	12.5	14.7	3,111
2020	County-equal	Left over after the five axes and state baselines	13.3	12.1	14.3	3,103
2024	County-equal	Left over after the five axes and state baselines	13.4	12.1	14.4	3,103

Views: Vote-weighted (weighting = Vote-weighted); County-equal (weighting = County-equal).

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/spread_by_year.json

Table 7. The vote-weighted correlation of college share exceeds the county-equal one by +0.18 in 2000 and by +0.11 in 2024

Correlation of each axis with the county two-party margin when counties are weighted by two-party votes and when each county counts once, 2000 and 2024

axis	ce_high	ce_low	county_equal	election	n_units	vote_weighted	vw_high	vw_low
Education	0.195	0.005	0.100	2000	3,113	0.282	0.381	0.182
Income	0.137	−0.101	0.018	2000	3,113	0.096	0.198	−0.005
Race and ethnicity	−0.259	−0.541	−0.400	2000	3,113	−0.519	−0.357	−0.681
Age	−0.054	−0.283	−0.169	2000	3,113	−0.076	0.036	−0.187
Rurality	−0.180	−0.357	−0.269	2000	3,113	−0.461	−0.357	−0.565
Education	0.638	0.474	0.556	2024	3,103	0.663	0.722	0.604
Income	0.434	0.173	0.304	2024	3,103	0.397	0.504	0.290
Race and ethnicity	−0.285	−0.707	−0.496	2024	3,103	−0.574	−0.440	−0.707
Age	−0.118	−0.272	−0.195	2024	3,103	−0.310	−0.214	−0.406
Rurality	−0.462	−0.592	−0.527	2024	3,103	−0.653	−0.564	−0.741

Note: The difference in the last column is its own estimate; its 95% interval from a bootstrap over states is in the text.

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/weighting_gap.json

Table 8. The correlation depends on the measure within an axis in 2024, from −0.03 for the share without a high school diploma to +0.66 for college share, vote-weighted

Correlation of fifteen county measures, grouped by the five axes, with the county two-party margin in 2024, vote-weighted and county-equal

Axis	Measure	Weighting	Correlation	Interval low	Interval high	Counties
Education	Bachelor's degree or more	Vote-weighted	+0.66	+0.60	+0.72	3,103
Education	Bachelor's degree or more	County-equal	+0.56	+0.47	+0.64	3,103
Education	No high school diploma	Vote-weighted	−0.03	−0.20	+0.14	3,103
Education	No high school diploma	County-equal	−0.15	−0.26	−0.04	3,103
Income	Median household income	Vote-weighted	+0.40	+0.29	+0.50	3,103
Income	Median household income	County-equal	+0.30	+0.17	+0.43	3,103
Income	Per capita income	Vote-weighted	+0.55	+0.47	+0.64	3,103
Income	Per capita income	County-equal	+0.39	+0.27	+0.51	3,103
Income	Poverty rate	Vote-weighted	−0.03	−0.14	+0.09	3,103
Income	Poverty rate	County-equal	+0.05	−0.09	+0.20	3,103
Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	Vote-weighted	−0.57	−0.71	−0.44	3,103
Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic white share	County-equal	−0.50	−0.71	−0.28	3,103
Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic Black share	Vote-weighted	+0.39	+0.24	+0.54	3,103
Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic Black share	County-equal	+0.44	+0.35	+0.52	3,103
Race and ethnicity	Hispanic share	Vote-weighted	+0.24	+0.10	+0.38	3,103
Race and ethnicity	Hispanic share	County-equal	+0.10	−0.09	+0.30	3,103
Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic Asian share	Vote-weighted	+0.53	+0.36	+0.69	3,103
Race and ethnicity	Non-Hispanic Asian share	County-equal	+0.45	+0.31	+0.58	3,103
Race and ethnicity	Foreign-born share	Vote-weighted	+0.54	+0.36	+0.72	3,103
Race and ethnicity	Foreign-born share	County-equal	+0.37	+0.22	+0.53	3,103
Age	Median age	Vote-weighted	−0.31	−0.41	−0.21	3,103
Age	Median age	County-equal	−0.20	−0.27	−0.12	3,103
Age	Share aged 65 and over	Vote-weighted	−0.34	−0.45	−0.23	3,103
Age	Share aged 65 and over	County-equal	−0.20	−0.28	−0.12	3,103
Age	Share under 30	Vote-weighted	+0.13	0.00	+0.25	3,103
Age	Share under 30	County-equal	+0.13	+0.05	+0.21	3,103
Rurality	Rural share	Vote-weighted	−0.65	−0.74	−0.56	3,103
Rurality	Rural share	County-equal	−0.53	−0.59	−0.46	3,103
Rurality	Rural-urban continuum code	Vote-weighted	−0.51	−0.58	−0.44	3,103
Rurality	Rural-urban continuum code	County-equal	−0.41	−0.49	−0.34	3,103

Note: Poverty rate is listed with income because it measures the same dimension from the other end; the chapters on hardship take it up. The rural-urban continuum code runs from the most urban class to the most rural class, in the 2023 edition.

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/measures_2024.json

Table 9. In 2024 the mean gap between a county's margin and the five-axis fit is −10.8 points in the Census South and +6.7 points in the rest of the country, vote-weighted

County two-party margin minus the margin fitted by a regression on the five axes weighted by two-party votes, 2000 and 2024, in percentage points of margin

Election	Position	County	Margin minus fit (points)	Margin (points)	Fitted margin (points)	Two-party votes
2024	Largest gaps below the fit	Forsyth, GA	−52.9	−33.5	+19.4	136,790
2024	Largest gaps below the fit	Williamson, TN	−52.1	−32.9	+19.2	142,257
2024	Largest gaps below the fit	Shelby, AL	−47.4	−41.3	+6.1	112,753
2024	Largest gaps below the fit	Comal, TX	−46.8	−46.0	+0.9	102,436
2024	Largest gaps below the fit	Miami-Dade, FL	−46.8	−11.5	+35.3	1,085,945
2024	Largest gaps below the fit	Lubbock, TX	−46.2	−39.9	+6.2	123,695
2024	Largest gaps below the fit	Montgomery, TX	−45.2	−45.9	−0.8	304,241
2024	Largest gaps below the fit	Collin, TX	−45.0	−11.4	+33.5	501,649
2024	Largest gaps above the fit	Clayton, GA	+52.2	+69.6	+17.4	111,080
2024	Largest gaps above the fit	Sonoma, CA	+48.2	+47.8	−0.4	243,026
2024	Largest gaps above the fit	Prince George's, MD	+48.1	+77.0	+29.0	392,046
2024	Largest gaps above the fit	Santa Cruz, CA	+46.8	+56.6	+9.8	128,976
2024	Largest gaps above the fit	Baltimore City, MD	+42.7	+74.9	+32.2	223,093
2024	Largest gaps above the fit	Multnomah, OR	+42.5	+64.3	+21.8	396,686
2024	Largest gaps above the fit	Marin, CA	+40.1	+65.7	+25.6	140,206
2024	Largest gaps above the fit	St. Louis, MN	+36.8	+14.0	−22.8	116,400
2000	Largest gaps below the fit	Collin, TX	−49.0	−49.9	−0.9	171,063
2000	Largest gaps below the fit	Montgomery, TX	−40.5	−55.2	−14.7	103,886
2000	Largest gaps below the fit	Utah, UT	−39.5	−71.3	−31.8	114,700
2000	Largest gaps below the fit	Greenville, SC	−37.0	−35.8	+1.2	136,524
2000	Largest gaps below the fit	Sarasota, FL	−36.9	−6.6	+30.4	155,986
2000	Largest gaps below the fit	Fort Bend, TX	−36.9	−21.5	+15.4	121,136
2000	Largest gaps below the fit	Lee, FL	−35.9	−18.1	+17.7	179,722
2000	Largest gaps below the fit	Denton, TX	−35.7	−43.6	−7.9	142,315
2000	Largest gaps above the fit	Bristol, MA	+45.7	+36.9	−8.8	199,173
2000	Largest gaps above the fit	Bronx, NY	+42.9	+76.0	+33.1	302,046
2000	Largest gaps above the fit	Philadelphia, PA	+40.6	+63.3	+22.7	550,141
2000	Largest gaps above the fit	Kings, NY	+40.0	+67.5	+27.5	594,122
2000	Largest gaps above the fit	Suffolk, MA	+38.3	+55.4	+17.1	199,329
2000	Largest gaps above the fit	Baltimore City, MD	+37.5	+70.8	+33.3	185,915
2000	Largest gaps above the fit	District Of Columbia , DC	+36.8	+81.0	+44.2	189,996
2000	Largest gaps above the fit	Providence, RI	+36.6	+39.8	+3.1	203,847

The map draws every unit from /data/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/residual_map.json; the rows above are the subset the figure file carries.

Note: Election returns are full counts of votes, so the map draws no intervals. The map is drawn on 2020 county boundaries and a county with no fit draws as no data. Alaska is not in the sample, because it reports returns by election district; the Connecticut counties draw in 2000 and not in 2024, because they lack 2024 census measures; Kansas City is added to Jackson County, Missouri in 2024.

Note: The data table lists the eight counties at each end of the gap for each year, among counties above the vote cut named in the caption, not the whole map.

Source: County presidential returns, 2000 and 2024 (Algara and Amlani; MIT Election Data and Science Lab), full counts of votes; fitted values from a regression weighted by two-party votes on county characteristics from the census and American Community Survey

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/residual_map.json

All estimates

Every fact in facts.json (219), sorted by id. The same values as JSON: facts.json.

Fact id	Value	Unit	Estimand	Population	Period	Interval	n	Weights	Source	Note
age_old_cut	65	years of age	age at which the older-adult share starts	residents	2000 to 2024			none (full counts)	County demographics panel
age_young_cut	30	years of age	age below which the younger share counts	residents	2000 to 2024			none (full counts)	County demographics panel
b_age_2000_w	+0.29	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on median age in a regression of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 0.10 to 0.49	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
b_age_2024_w	+0.04	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on median age in a regression of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.13 to 0.21	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
b_edu_2000_u	+0.03	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on college share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI −0.09 to 0.14	3,113	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
b_edu_2000_w	+0.25	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on college share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 0.11 to 0.39	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
b_edu_2024_u	+0.56	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on college share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.48 to 0.64	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
b_edu_2024_w	+0.71	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on college share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.63 to 0.79	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
b_inc_2000_w	−0.17	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on median household income in a regression of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI −0.28 to −0.06	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
b_inc_2024_u	−0.14	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on median household income in a regression of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.23 to −0.06	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
b_inc_2024_w	−0.26	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on median household income in a regression of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.40 to −0.11	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
b_race_2000_w	−0.50	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on non-Hispanic white share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI −0.65 to −0.35	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
b_race_2016_w	−0.59	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on non-Hispanic white share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2016 presidential election	95% CI −0.70 to −0.48	3,111	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
b_race_2024_w	−0.43	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on non-Hispanic white share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.57 to −0.29	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
b_rural_2000_w	−0.25	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on rural share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI −0.38 to −0.11	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
b_rural_2024_w	−0.12	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on rural share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.25 to 0.01	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
bfe_age_2024_w	+0.08	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on median age in a regression of the county margin on the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.02 to 0.13	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
bfe_edu_2024_u	+0.54	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on college share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.48 to 0.60	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
bfe_edu_2024_w	+0.73	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on college share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.65 to 0.80	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
bfe_inc_2024_w	−0.40	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on median household income in a regression of the county margin on the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.48 to −0.33	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
bfe_race_2000_u	−0.68	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on non-Hispanic white share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI −0.76 to −0.60	3,113	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
bfe_race_2000_w	−0.77	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on non-Hispanic white share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI −0.90 to −0.64	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
bfe_race_2024_u	−0.73	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on non-Hispanic white share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.84 to −0.61	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
bfe_race_2024_w	−0.62	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on non-Hispanic white share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.76 to −0.48	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
bfe_rural_2024_w	−0.09	standardized regression coefficient, standard deviations of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on rural share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.14 to −0.04	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
big_cut	250,000	two-party votes	vote cut for a large county	counties	2000 to 2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
big_n_2000	76	counties	count of counties with 250,000 or more two-party votes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
big_n_2024	135	counties	count of counties with 250,000 or more two-party votes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election		3,103	none (full counts)	County election returns
big_share_2000	35%	share of two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties with 250,000 or more two-party votes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
big_share_2024	46%	share of two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties with 250,000 or more two-party votes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election		3,103	none (full counts)	County election returns
chr_edu_2000_2024_w	+0.38	change in correlation	change between the two elections in the correlation of the county margin with college share (the same states are drawn for both elections)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 to 2024	95% CI 0.31 to 0.47		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
chr_race_2000_2024_w	−0.05	change in correlation	change between the two elections in the correlation of the county margin with non-Hispanic white share (the same states are drawn for both elections)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 to 2024	95% CI −0.13 to 0.03		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
chr_rural_2000_2024_w	−0.19	change in correlation	change between the two elections in the correlation of the county margin with rural share (the same states are drawn for both elections)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 to 2024	95% CI −0.27 to −0.11		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
chs_explained_2000_2024_w	+10.3	percentage points of margin	change between the two elections in the weighted standard deviation of the margin fitted by the five axes (the same states are drawn for both elections)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 to 2024	95% CI 7.0 to 13.8		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
chs_resid_2000_2024_w	−2.0	percentage points of margin	change between the two elections in the weighted standard deviation of the margin left over after the five axes (the same states are drawn for both elections)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 to 2024	95% CI −3.6 to −0.7		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
chv_five_2000_2016_w	+31.3	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	change between the two elections in the R-squared of the five-axis regression (the same states are drawn for both elections)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 to 2016	95% CI 22.0 to 39.1		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
chv_five_2000_2024_w	+27.8	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	change between the two elections in the R-squared of the five-axis regression (the same states are drawn for both elections)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 to 2024	95% CI 18.9 to 37.3		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
chv_five_2012_2016_w	+19.9	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	change between the two elections in the R-squared of the five-axis regression (the same states are drawn for both elections)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2012 to 2016	95% CI 15.3 to 23.6		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
chv_five_2016_2024_w	−3.6	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	change between the two elections in the R-squared of the five-axis regression (the same states are drawn for both elections)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2016 to 2024	95% CI −7.1 to 1.5		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
chv_state_2000_2024_w	−6.7	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	change between the two elections in the R-squared of a baseline for each state alone (the same states are drawn for both elections)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 to 2024	95% CI −16.8 to 4.2		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
ct_votes_2020	1.16%	percent of two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in the Connecticut counties left out for a missing census measure	two-party votes in counties with returns, Alaska excluded	2020 presidential election		8	none (full counts)	County election returns
ct_votes_2024	1.14%	percent of two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in the Connecticut counties left out for a missing census measure	two-party votes in counties with returns, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election		8	none (full counts)	County election returns
first_edu_2020_u	34%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which college share has the largest absolute correlation with the county margin of the five axes	2,000 resamples of states	2020 presidential election		3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel
first_edu_2020_w	17%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which college share has the largest absolute correlation with the county margin of the five axes	2,000 resamples of states	2020 presidential election		3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
first_edu_2024_u	59%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which college share has the largest absolute correlation with the county margin of the five axes	2,000 resamples of states	2024 presidential election		3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel
first_edu_2024_w	60%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which college share has the largest absolute correlation with the county margin of the five axes	2,000 resamples of states	2024 presidential election		3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
first_race_2000_w	87%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which non-Hispanic white share has the largest absolute correlation with the county margin of the five axes	2,000 resamples of states	2000 presidential election		3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
first_race_2016_u	85%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which non-Hispanic white share has the largest absolute correlation with the county margin of the five axes	2,000 resamples of states	2016 presidential election		3,111	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel
first_race_2016_w	79%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which non-Hispanic white share has the largest absolute correlation with the county margin of the five axes	2,000 resamples of states	2016 presidential election		3,111	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
first_race_2020_u	52%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which non-Hispanic white share has the largest absolute correlation with the county margin of the five axes	2,000 resamples of states	2020 presidential election		3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel
first_race_2020_w	23%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which non-Hispanic white share has the largest absolute correlation with the county margin of the five axes	2,000 resamples of states	2020 presidential election		3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
first_race_hi_u	98%	share of resamples	highest over the elections of 2000 to 2016 of the share of resamples in which the white share has the largest absolute correlation	resamples of states	2000 to 2016		3,113	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel
first_race_hi_w	93%	share of resamples	highest over the elections of 2000 to 2016 of the share of resamples in which the white share has the largest absolute correlation	resamples of states	2000 to 2016		3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
first_race_lo_u	70%	share of resamples	lowest over the elections of 2000 to 2016 of the share of resamples in which the white share has the largest absolute correlation	resamples of states	2000 to 2016		3,113	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel
first_race_lo_w	76%	share of resamples	lowest over the elections of 2000 to 2016 of the share of resamples in which the white share has the largest absolute correlation	resamples of states	2000 to 2016		3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
first_rural_2020_u	14%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which rural share has the largest absolute correlation with the county margin of the five axes	2,000 resamples of states	2020 presidential election		3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel
first_rural_2020_w	60%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which rural share has the largest absolute correlation with the county margin of the five axes	2,000 resamples of states	2020 presidential election		3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
first_rural_2024_w	38%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which rural share has the largest absolute correlation with the county margin of the five axes	2,000 resamples of states	2024 presidential election		3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
gap_2024_u	+0.03	difference in absolute correlation	absolute correlation of the first-ranked axis minus that of the second-ranked axis	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.04 to 0.10		none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
gap_2024_w	+0.01	difference in absolute correlation	absolute correlation of the first-ranked axis minus that of the second-ranked axis	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.05 to 0.09		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
jffirst_edu_2024_w	90%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which college share has the largest absolute coefficient in the five-axis regression with state baselines	resamples of states	2024 presidential election		3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
jffirst_race_2000_w	100%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which non-Hispanic white share has the largest absolute coefficient in the five-axis regression with state baselines	resamples of states	2000 presidential election		3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
jffirst_race_2024_u	98%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which non-Hispanic white share has the largest absolute coefficient in the five-axis regression with state baselines	resamples of states	2024 presidential election		3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel
jfirst_edu_2004_w	51%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which college share has the largest absolute coefficient in the five-axis regression	resamples of states	2004 presidential election		3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
jfirst_edu_2008_w	55%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which college share has the largest absolute coefficient in the five-axis regression	resamples of states	2008 presidential election		3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
jfirst_edu_2016_w	65%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which college share has the largest absolute coefficient in the five-axis regression	resamples of states	2016 presidential election		3,111	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
jfirst_edu_2020_u	56%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which college share has the largest absolute coefficient in the five-axis regression	resamples of states	2020 presidential election		3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel
jfirst_edu_2024_u	77%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which college share has the largest absolute coefficient in the five-axis regression	resamples of states	2024 presidential election		3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel
jfirst_edu_2024_w	100%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which college share has the largest absolute coefficient in the five-axis regression	resamples of states	2024 presidential election		3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
jfirst_race_2000_w	97%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which non-Hispanic white share has the largest absolute coefficient in the five-axis regression	resamples of states	2000 presidential election		3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
jfirst_race_2004_w	49%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which non-Hispanic white share has the largest absolute coefficient in the five-axis regression	resamples of states	2004 presidential election		3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
jfirst_race_2008_w	45%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which non-Hispanic white share has the largest absolute coefficient in the five-axis regression	resamples of states	2008 presidential election		3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
jfirst_race_2012_w	73%	share of resamples	share of resamples in which non-Hispanic white share has the largest absolute coefficient in the five-axis regression	resamples of states	2012 presidential election		3,112	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
m_age29_w	+0.12	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with share under 30	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.00 to 0.25	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
m_age65_w	−0.34	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with share aged 65 and over	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.45 to −0.23	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
m_age_w	−0.31	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with median age	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.41 to −0.21	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
m_asian_w	+0.52	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with non-Hispanic Asian share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.36 to 0.69	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
m_ba_w	+0.66	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with bachelor's degree or more	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.60 to 0.72	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
m_black_w	+0.39	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with non-Hispanic Black share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.24 to 0.54	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
m_foreign_w	+0.54	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with foreign-born share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.37 to 0.72	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
m_hisp_u	+0.11	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with hispanic share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.09 to 0.30	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
m_hisp_w	+0.24	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with hispanic share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.10 to 0.38	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
m_inc_w	+0.40	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with median household income	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.29 to 0.50	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
m_lesshs_w	−0.03	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with no high school diploma	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.20 to 0.14	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
m_pci_w	+0.55	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with per capita income	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.47 to 0.64	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
m_pov_w	−0.03	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with poverty rate	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.14 to 0.09	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
m_rucc_w	−0.51	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with rural-urban continuum code	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.58 to −0.44	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
m_rural_w	−0.65	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with rural share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.74 to −0.56	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
m_white_w	−0.57	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with non-Hispanic white share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.71 to −0.44	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
n_max	3,113	counties	largest number of counties in an election's sample	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 to 2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_min	3,103	counties	smallest number of counties in an election's sample	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 to 2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_reps	2,000	bootstrap replicates	number of bootstrap replicates	resamples of states	2000 to 2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
pg_race_inc_2024_w	+0.18	difference in absolute correlation	absolute correlation of non-Hispanic white share minus that of median household income	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.05 to 0.34		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
pts_edu_2000_w	+6.7	percentage points of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on college share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes, in points of margin	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 3.0 to 10.5	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
pts_edu_2024_w	+23.4	percentage points of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on college share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes, in points of margin	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 20.7 to 26.1	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
pts_race_2000_w	−13.4	percentage points of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on non-Hispanic white share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes, in points of margin	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI −17.4 to −9.4	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
pts_race_2024_w	−14.1	percentage points of margin per standard deviation of the axis	coefficient on non-Hispanic white share in a regression of the county margin on the five axes, in points of margin	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −18.7 to −9.6	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r2_2000_u	20%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 11% to 33%	3,113	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2_2000_w	41%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 30% to 56%	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2_2012_u	33%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2012 presidential election	95% CI 24% to 49%	3,112	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2_2012_w	52%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2012 presidential election	95% CI 44% to 63%	3,112	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2_2016_u	58%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2016 presidential election	95% CI 49% to 70%	3,111	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2_2016_w	72%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2016 presidential election	95% CI 67% to 79%	3,111	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2_2020_w	72%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2020 presidential election	95% CI 67% to 80%	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2_2024_u	59%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 49% to 71%	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2_2024_w	69%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 63% to 78%	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2cf_2024_w	61%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared in 2024 if the left-over spread of the five-axis regression stayed at its 2000 value	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 53% to 71%		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2cfgap_2024_w	7.2	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	part of the 2000 to 2024 rise in R-squared that comes from the narrower left-over spread	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 to 2024	95% CI 2.5 to 13.3		two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2d_2000	+21.2	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	vote-weighted R-squared of the five-axis regression minus the county-equal R-squared	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 9.5 to 31.9		two-party votes minus none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2d_2024	+9.9	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	vote-weighted R-squared of the five-axis regression minus the county-equal R-squared	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.8 to 18.5		two-party votes minus none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2dfe_2000	+13.4	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	vote-weighted R-squared of the five-axis regression with state baselines minus the county-equal R-squared	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 5.3 to 20.9		two-party votes minus none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2dfe_2024	+4.7	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	vote-weighted R-squared of the five-axis regression with state baselines minus the county-equal R-squared	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 1.2 to 8.6		two-party votes minus none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2fe_2000_u	61%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 54% to 67%	3,113	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2fe_2000_w	74%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 65% to 82%	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2fe_2024_u	82%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 79% to 85%	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2fe_2024_w	87%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 84% to 90%	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2fu_2000_w	49%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes plus the Black, Hispanic and Asian shares and the foreign-born share (nine measures)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 39% to 63%	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2fu_2024_w	71%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes plus the Black, Hispanic and Asian shares and the foreign-born share (nine measures)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 67% to 79%	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2st_2000_w	34%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on a baseline for each state alone	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 24% to 43%	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2st_2024_w	27%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on a baseline for each state alone	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 19% to 34%	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2wi_2000_w	61%	share of the within-state variance of the county margin	share of the within-state variance of the county margin that the five axes reproduce	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 50% to 72%	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r2wi_2024_w	82%	share of the within-state variance of the county margin	share of the within-state variance of the county margin that the five axes reproduce	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 77% to 88%	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
r_age_2000_w	−0.08	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with median age	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI −0.19 to 0.04	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_age_2024_w	−0.31	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with median age	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.41 to −0.21	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_edu_2000_u	+0.10	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with college share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 0.01 to 0.19	3,113	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_edu_2000_w	+0.28	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with college share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 0.18 to 0.38	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_edu_2020_u	+0.53	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with college share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2020 presidential election	95% CI 0.45 to 0.61	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_edu_2020_w	+0.64	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with college share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2020 presidential election	95% CI 0.58 to 0.70	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_edu_2024_u	+0.56	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with college share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.47 to 0.64	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_edu_2024_w	+0.66	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with college share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.60 to 0.72	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_inc_2000_w	+0.10	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with median household income	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI −0.01 to 0.20	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_inc_2024_w	+0.40	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with median household income	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.29 to 0.50	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_race_2000_w	−0.52	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with non-Hispanic white share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI −0.68 to −0.36	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_race_2016_w	−0.68	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with non-Hispanic white share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2016 presidential election	95% CI −0.79 to −0.57	3,111	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_race_2020_u	−0.53	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with non-Hispanic white share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2020 presidential election	95% CI −0.73 to −0.33	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_race_2020_w	−0.63	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with non-Hispanic white share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2020 presidential election	95% CI −0.75 to −0.51	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_race_2024_w	−0.57	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with non-Hispanic white share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.71 to −0.44	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_rural_2000_u	−0.27	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with rural share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI −0.36 to −0.18	3,113	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_rural_2000_w	−0.46	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with rural share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI −0.56 to −0.36	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_rural_2020_w	−0.67	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with rural share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2020 presidential election	95% CI −0.76 to −0.58	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
r_rural_2024_w	−0.65	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with rural share	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.74 to −0.56	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% normal interval with errors clustered by state.
rc_rucc_2016_w	−0.51	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with the rural-urban continuum code (edition 2013)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2016 presidential election		3,111	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
rc_rucc_2020_w	−0.52	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with the rural-urban continuum code (edition 2023)	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2020 presidential election		3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
rc_rural_2016_w	−0.65	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with rural share of residents	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2016 presidential election		3,111	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
rc_rural_2020_w	−0.67	correlation coefficient, from −1 to +1	correlation of the county two-party margin with rural share of residents	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2020 presidential election		3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
rcm_12086_2024	−11.5	percentage points of margin	county two-party margin, Democratic positive	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election			none (full counts)	County demographics panel
rcp_12086_2024	+35.3	percentage points of margin	county margin fitted by the vote-weighted five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election			two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
rcr_01117_2024	−47.4	percentage points of margin	county margin minus the margin fitted by the vote-weighted five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election			two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
rcr_06097_2024	+48.2	percentage points of margin	county margin minus the margin fitted by the vote-weighted five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election			two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
rcr_12086_2024	−46.8	percentage points of margin	county margin minus the margin fitted by the vote-weighted five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election			two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
rcr_13063_2024	+52.2	percentage points of margin	county margin minus the margin fitted by the vote-weighted five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election			two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
rcr_13117_2024	−52.9	percentage points of margin	county margin minus the margin fitted by the vote-weighted five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election			two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
rcr_24033_2024	+48.1	percentage points of margin	county margin minus the margin fitted by the vote-weighted five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election			two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
rcr_47187_2024	−52.1	percentage points of margin	county margin minus the margin fitted by the vote-weighted five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election			two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
res_band	20	percentage points of margin	distance from the fitted margin used to flag a county	counties	2000 to 2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
res_big_2000	35%	share of two-party votes	share of two-party votes in counties whose margin is more than 20 points from the five-axis fit	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election			two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
res_big_2024	25%	share of two-party votes	share of two-party votes in counties whose margin is more than 20 points from the five-axis fit	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election			two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
res_cut	100,000	two-party votes	vote cut for naming counties	counties	2000 to 2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
res_rest_2000	+6.0	percentage points of margin	vote-weighted mean residual of the five-axis regression among counties outside the Census South	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election		1,690	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
res_rest_2024	+6.7	percentage points of margin	vote-weighted mean residual of the five-axis regression among counties outside the Census South	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election		1,681	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
res_sd_2000	20.4	percentage points of margin	vote-weighted standard deviation of the five-axis residual	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election			two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
res_sd_2024	18.4	percentage points of margin	vote-weighted standard deviation of the five-axis residual	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election			two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
res_south_2000	−11.5	percentage points of margin	vote-weighted mean residual of the five-axis regression among counties in the Census South	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election		1,423	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
res_south_2024	−10.8	percentage points of margin	vote-weighted mean residual of the five-axis regression among counties in the Census South	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election		1,422	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
res_tx_2024	−21.7	percentage points of margin	vote-weighted mean residual of the five-axis regression in TX counties	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election			two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
res_vt_2024	+42.6	percentage points of margin	vote-weighted mean residual of the five-axis regression in VT counties	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election			two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
rural_mean_p_2012	19.4%	percent of residents	mean rural share of residents across counties, weighted by county population	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2012 presidential election		3,112	county population	County demographics panel
rural_mean_p_2020	20.0%	percent of residents	mean rural share of residents across counties, weighted by county population	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2020 presidential election		3,103	county population	County demographics panel
rural_mean_u_2012	59.6%	percent of residents	mean rural share of residents across counties, each county counted once	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2012 presidential election		3,112	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel
rural_mean_u_2020	64.0%	percent of residents	mean rural share of residents across counties, each county counted once	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2020 presidential election		3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel
sde_2000_u	10.9	percentage points of margin	weighted standard deviation of the margin fitted by the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 8.2 to 14.3	3,113	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
sde_2000_w	16.9	percentage points of margin	weighted standard deviation of the margin fitted by the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 13.4 to 20.9	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
sde_2024_u	24.3	percentage points of margin	weighted standard deviation of the margin fitted by the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 21.3 to 27.8	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
sde_2024_w	27.2	percentage points of margin	weighted standard deviation of the margin fitted by the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 24.7 to 30.4	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
sdr_2000_u	22.0	percentage points of margin	weighted standard deviation of the margin left over after the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 19.2 to 23.9	3,113	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
sdr_2000_w	20.4	percentage points of margin	weighted standard deviation of the margin left over after the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 18.0 to 21.9	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
sdr_2024_u	20.4	percentage points of margin	weighted standard deviation of the margin left over after the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 16.9 to 22.6	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
sdr_2024_w	18.4	percentage points of margin	weighted standard deviation of the margin left over after the five axes	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 15.5 to 19.7	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
sdrf_2000_w	13.5	percentage points of margin	weighted standard deviation of the margin left over after the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 11.7 to 14.7	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
sdrf_2024_w	12.0	percentage points of margin	weighted standard deviation of the margin left over after the five axes and a baseline for each state	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 10.4 to 12.9	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
sdt_2000_u	24.5	percentage points of margin	weighted standard deviation of the county margin	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 22.3 to 26.3	3,113	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
sdt_2000_w	26.5	percentage points of margin	weighted standard deviation of the county margin	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 24.0 to 28.6	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
sdt_2016_w	35.9	percentage points of margin	weighted standard deviation of the county margin	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2016 presidential election	95% CI 33.3 to 37.9	3,111	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
sdt_2024_u	31.7	percentage points of margin	weighted standard deviation of the county margin	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 29.5 to 33.7	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
sdt_2024_w	32.8	percentage points of margin	weighted standard deviation of the county margin	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 30.6 to 35.0	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
sdx_edu_2024_w	11.8	percentage points of adults	vote-weighted standard deviation of college share across counties	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election		3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
sdx_race_2024_w	21.1	percentage points of residents	vote-weighted standard deviation of non-Hispanic white share across counties	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election		3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
uniq_age_2024_w	0.1	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	drop in R-squared when median age is removed from the five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.0 to 2.6	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
uniq_edu_2000_w	2.4	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	drop in R-squared when college share is removed from the five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 0.5 to 5.4	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
uniq_edu_2024_u	12.8	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	drop in R-squared when college share is removed from the five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 8.6 to 16.9	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
uniq_edu_2024_w	16.9	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	drop in R-squared when college share is removed from the five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 12.1 to 22.8	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
uniq_inc_2024_w	2.7	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	drop in R-squared when median household income is removed from the five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.8 to 6.9	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
uniq_race_2000_w	15.1	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	drop in R-squared when non-Hispanic white share is removed from the five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 6.9 to 23.8	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
uniq_race_2024_u	17.6	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	drop in R-squared when non-Hispanic white share is removed from the five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 8.0 to 31.2	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
uniq_race_2024_w	11.0	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	drop in R-squared when non-Hispanic white share is removed from the five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 5.1 to 17.5	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
uniq_rural_2024_w	0.7	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	drop in R-squared when rural share is removed from the five-axis regression	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.0 to 2.8	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
v00chg_2012_2016_w	+19.3	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	change in the R-squared of the five-axis regression with the 2000 census measures used for every election	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2012 to 2016		3,111	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
v00chg_2016_2024_w	−4.5	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	change in the R-squared of the five-axis regression with the 2000 census measures used for every election	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2016 to 2024		3,110	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
v00r2_2000_u	20%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes, with the 2000 census measures used for every election	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 11% to 33%	3,113	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
v00r2_2000_w	41%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes, with the 2000 census measures used for every election	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 30% to 56%	3,113	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
v00r2_2016_w	72%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes, with the 2000 census measures used for every election	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2016 presidential election	95% CI 65% to 80%	3,111	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
v00r2_2024_u	58%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes, with the 2000 census measures used for every election	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 48% to 72%	3,110	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
v00r2_2024_w	68%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes, with the 2000 census measures used for every election	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 61% to 77%	3,110	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
v24chg_2012_2016_w	+20.9	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	change in the R-squared of the five-axis regression with the 2024 census measures used for every election	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2012 to 2016		3,104	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
v24chg_2016_2024_w	−2.0	percentage points of the variance of the county margin	change in the R-squared of the five-axis regression with the 2024 census measures used for every election	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2016 to 2024		3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel
v24r2_2000_u	18%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes, with the 2024 census measures used for every election	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 11% to 29%	3,102	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
v24r2_2000_w	35%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes, with the 2024 census measures used for every election	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 27% to 48%	3,102	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
v24r2_2016_w	71%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes, with the 2024 census measures used for every election	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2016 presidential election	95% CI 65% to 78%	3,104	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
v24r2_2024_u	59%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes, with the 2024 census measures used for every election	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 49% to 71%	3,103	none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
v24r2_2024_w	69%	share of the variance of the county margin	R-squared of the county margin on the five axes, with the 2024 census measures used for every election	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 63% to 78%	3,103	two-party votes in the election	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
wd_age_2000	+0.09	difference in correlation	vote-weighted correlation of median age with the county margin minus the county-equal correlation	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI −0.03 to 0.20		two-party votes minus none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
wd_age_2024	−0.11	difference in correlation	vote-weighted correlation of median age with the county margin minus the county-equal correlation	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.20 to −0.01		two-party votes minus none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
wd_edu_2000	+0.18	difference in correlation	vote-weighted correlation of college share with the county margin minus the county-equal correlation	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI 0.09 to 0.26		two-party votes minus none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
wd_edu_2024	+0.11	difference in correlation	vote-weighted correlation of college share with the county margin minus the county-equal correlation	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI 0.02 to 0.20		two-party votes minus none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
wd_inc_2000	+0.08	difference in correlation	vote-weighted correlation of median household income with the county margin minus the county-equal correlation	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI −0.05 to 0.19		two-party votes minus none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
wd_inc_2024	+0.09	difference in correlation	vote-weighted correlation of median household income with the county margin minus the county-equal correlation	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.04 to 0.22		two-party votes minus none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
wd_race_2024	−0.08	difference in correlation	vote-weighted correlation of non-Hispanic white share with the county margin minus the county-equal correlation	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.17 to 0.04		two-party votes minus none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
wd_rural_2000	−0.19	difference in correlation	vote-weighted correlation of rural share with the county margin minus the county-equal correlation	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2000 presidential election	95% CI −0.26 to −0.12		two-party votes minus none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.
wd_rural_2024	−0.13	difference in correlation	vote-weighted correlation of rural share with the county margin minus the county-equal correlation	counties with returns and a complete set of census measures, Alaska excluded	2024 presidential election	95% CI −0.20 to −0.05		two-party votes minus none (each county counts once)	County demographics panel	Interval: 95% percentile interval from a bootstrap over states, 2,000 replicates.

Definitions

County two-party margin: The Democratic vote minus the Republican vote, divided by the sum of the two, so a positive value is a Democratic lead. Votes for other candidates are left out.
Clustered standard errors: Standard errors that allow answers within the same group, such as the same county or the same week, to be related. They are wider than ordinary errors when members of a group resemble each other.
Fixed effects: Regression terms that give each group, such as each country or each year, its own baseline. The other coefficients then compare respondents within the same group.
Ecological inference: Drawing a conclusion about individuals from data on groups or places, such as counties. A pattern across counties can differ from the pattern among the people who live in them.

Methods

Sample: presidential returns for the 7 elections from 2000 to 2024 (Algara and Amlani for 2000 to 2020, MIT Election Data and Science Lab for 2024), from the repaired county file whose 2024 totals are corrected for 173 counties in South Carolina, Wisconsin and West Virginia. The 41 Alaska rows (election districts) are dropped before any calculation; in these years no other row lacks a FIPS code, a vote count or two-party votes. Kansas City, Missouri is a separate row (FIPS 2938000) in 2024 only; its votes are added to Jackson County (29095), which holds them in 2000 to 2020 and whose census measures cover the whole county. The 2024 returns carry Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota, under its former code 46113, and it is recoded to 46102 to match the census panel. An election's sample is the set of counties with two-party votes and a complete set of the census measures below (3,103 to 3,113 counties); every comparison in an election uses that same set, and the sample is not harmonized across boundary changes. Counties that lack a census measure are left out: 10 county rows in 2020 and 9 in 2024. Among them are the eight old Connecticut counties, for which the census panel has no 2020 or 2024 values (it fills the new planning-region rows only at the 2024 anchor); they hold 1.16% and 1.14% of the two-party votes in 2020 and 2024. The rest are single counties with a missing income or rural-urban code, among them Clifton Forge city, Virginia, in 2000 (no rural-urban code, which every county in the sample needs) and Oglala Lakota County in 2012 and 2016. Outcome: the county two-party margin, 100 times the Democratic votes minus the Republican votes over their sum, so a positive value favors the Democrats. Axes and measures: education is the share of adults 25 and older with a bachelor's degree or more; income is median household income in 2024 dollars; race and ethnicity is the non-Hispanic white share of residents; age is median age; rurality is the share of residents living in rural areas. The nine-measure model adds the non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic and non-Hispanic Asian shares and the foreign-born share to the five axes. The 2024 comparison of measures adds the share without a high school diploma, per capita income, the poverty rate, the share aged 65 and over, the share under 30 and the rural-urban continuum code (1 most urban to 9 most rural). Census measures come from the county demographics panel, which interpolates between anchors: 2000 is the decennial census long form, 2004 and 2008 interpolate between it and the American Community Survey release for 2012, 2012, 2016 and 2020 are midpoints of adjacent releases, and 2024 is the 2024 release; so only 2000 and 2024 are close to a direct measurement and the other years carry interpolation and sampling error that no interval includes. Rural share is anchored to the decennial censuses and has one value for 2020 and 2024; the census definition of rural changed with the 2020 census, and the mean rural share in the sample (county-equal, and weighted by county population) is reported for 2012, 2016 and 2020. The rural-urban continuum code uses the 2013 edition through 2016 and the 2023 edition for 2020 and 2024. Weights: two-party votes in the election (vote-weighted) or one per county (county-equal); both are computed for every statistic. Coefficients: weighted least squares of the standardized margin on standardized axes, standardized with the weighted mean and standard deviation of the weighting used, so a one-variable coefficient equals the correlation; the joint regression uses the other four axes, and the state-baseline regression adds an indicator for each state and the District of Columbia. R-squared is the weighted share of the variance of the margin reproduced by the fitted values; the share within states is the R-squared with baselines minus that of baselines alone, over one minus the latter; the unique contribution of an axis is the R-squared of the five-axis regression minus that of the regression without the axis, in points of variance. Spreads are weighted standard deviations of the margin, of the five-axis fitted values and of the residual, with and without state baselines; the 2024 R-squared with the left-over spread held at its 2000 value is one minus the squared ratio of the 2000 left-over spread to the 2024 spread of the margin. Fixed-measure checks: the same statistics with the 2024 census measures, and with the 2000 census measures, used for every election, on the counties that have them. Ranks: the share of resamples in which an axis has the largest absolute correlation (alone), the largest absolute coefficient in the five-axis regression, or the largest absolute coefficient with state baselines; and the difference in absolute size between two axes, with its interval. Intervals: normal 95% intervals with errors clustered by state (49 to 50 clusters) for correlations and coefficients; 95% percentile intervals from a bootstrap over whole states for R-squared, spreads, unique contributions, differences between two statistics, rank shares and rank differences (2,000 replicates, seed 12345; a state drawn twice counts as two clusters; the weightings share draws; changes between elections draw the same states for both elections). Returns are full counts, so the intervals show dependence on which states are in the set and not sampling error of the vote, and they do not include the sampling error of the census measures. Map: the residual of the vote-weighted five-axis regression, estimated separately for 2000 and 2024, in points of margin; the Census South is the Census Bureau's South region (16 states and the District of Columbia). Suppression: none, since all figures are county-level counts or fits.

What these data cannot show

Every statistic above is a property of counties.
A pattern across places can differ from the pattern among the people who live in them, a limit known as ecological inference.
Robinson [6] showed that a correlation across areas can have the opposite sign from the correlation across individuals.
The characteristics describe residents, including residents who are not citizens or not of voting age, and the margin describes voters.
A sign such as income's negative coefficient is a feature of one regression among counties and says nothing about how households of different incomes voted.
The five axes are five chosen measures.
The ranking changes with the measure within an axis (Table 8), and the axes omit religion, occupation, density, the age of housing and every characteristic that is not in the county panel.
A standardized coefficient depends on the spread of the axis across counties, which differs between the weightings and between elections, so a coefficient that rises can reflect a change in spread as well as a steeper slope.
The R-squared values are in-sample fits of linear regressions and not forecasts.
State baselines absorb every difference between states, including differences in composition that sit at the state level, so the within-state results describe counties compared inside states and not the effect of removing state context.
The census measures are decennial census and American Community Survey estimates interpolated to election years.
Only 2000 and 2024 are close to a direct measurement, and the elections between are blends of adjacent releases, so the measures for those years carry sampling error and interpolation error that no interval includes.
Rural share is anchored to the decennial censuses and has one value for 2020 and 2024.
The county set is not harmonized across boundary changes, a few small counties lack measures in some years, and the counties are the units of the returns and not of any community.
The intervals show dependence on which states are in the set.
They are not sampling error of the vote, which is a full count, and the bootstrap intervals for differences between statistics treat the states as the only source of variation.
The chapter has no data on turnout by group, on candidates or on campaigns, so it cannot say why the order of the axes changed after 2016 or why the fit improved.

References

Cameron, A. Colin; Miller, Douglas L. (2015). A Practitioner's Guide to Cluster-Robust Inference. Journal of Human Resources 50(2): 317-372. doi:10.3368/jhr.50.2.317
Zingher, Joshua N. (2022). TRENDS: Diploma divide: Educational attainment and the realignment of the American electorate. Political Research Quarterly 75(2): 263-277. doi:10.1177/10659129221079862
Scala, Dante J.; Johnson, Kenneth M. (2017). Political Polarization along the Rural-Urban Continuum? The Geography of the Presidential Vote, 2000-2016. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 672(1): 162-184. doi:10.1177/0002716217712696
Gelman, Andrew; Shor, Boris; Bafumi, Joseph; Park, David (2008). Rich State, Poor State, Red State, Blue State: What's the Matter with Connecticut?. Quarterly Journal of Political Science 2(4): 345-367. doi:10.1561/100.00006026
Solon, Gary; Haider, Steven J.; Wooldridge, Jeffrey M. (2015). What Are We Weighting For?. Journal of Human Resources 50(2): 301-316. doi:10.3368/jhr.50.2.301
Robinson, W. S. (1950). Ecological Correlations and the Behavior of Individuals. American Sociological Review 15(3): 351-357. doi:10.2307/2087176

Provenance

Pipeline version: 1.0.0
Build script: book3/chapters/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/build.py (sha256 50f084b91944586425d808eca30561f581a4db0cd6db11e7d724d3f2f88ddbab)
Built on: 2026-10-03
Site commit: 16414b2c7257546a7042d0b1734657f208999f60

Inputs

File	Size (bytes)	SHA-256, first 1 MB	SHA-256, last 1 MB
data/county/county_demographics_2000_2024.parquet	4,334,220	45cdaf63128da1aa0c12e1196d7e60835697d7432ab9bff1acd2f5559fdb5130	90293a64867bf37645b53eaf5ab343f3b284c0d2c3fc3b8e0f38d32f1649fee4
data/county/pres_county_1868_2024.parquet	6,295,675	bec11c7a0cb5d4180bbd6809d048bc892dd00dfcdde527fa4da871b1dd3f835f	b2a4f000f2eea72d09af8939555289e924875cca40cd95ec8869104cd575bed7

Outputs

File	SHA-256
facts.json	f188c9446d53ad519e7bb0475cafb4d1392b5a78dd8075e8699990a74b5628b2
figures/comparisons.json	64f3089e242b2c3341345e1ca1abc59171d7b7bb1c0c54111f555599d20ab549
figures/corr_by_year.json	c23ab9dbf72458967c9d3ffab0dbab846065e9d8c19e92b6c44af6f040cb1149
figures/joint_by_year.json	aa9afd12ad53565197c38df0bb691121767c94cefbcf3d22201b896fb203dbb2
figures/measures_2024.json	d3db866cf5abcf04a66382a829e4698981112727db5c1c4c898ceefdc4418d2f
figures/r2_by_year.json	9673228c9670b060bbad25be79ebcb8bc9cb6c796efb6dc0607d76b89613394f
figures/rank_ladder.json	f8ac8a627ca6a8b37f55eee2ea47e09c042f221402ff01a55f6ecc4281bbd239
figures/residual_map.json	1e24e02e6ca728a1d8d8e1fe47e6f709b004b5f692d017e47c2bc67c41da10f9
figures/spread_by_year.json	5326b48e0d17682547430250ec49c3d9c1b7c1a5b299fcd7eddce00212785564
figures/weighting_gap.json	d8ad0c453435deb7ac01d692fe13f7dda059eac1790e3f465af94d8e60d4af23
meta.json	8fef78ae87a98f2efd4e40f93e789adfae85913c4c5de05efb5f55cecd351be1
public/data/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/residual_map.json	5ba456efc43f908dc8950083183153828480e3fc982246ef86932461b46c1dcf
refs.json	349d51d4e94d916899b00d6795c91c84727e07a60072d34cddaff59dacebf031

Machine formats

Report (Markdown): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/report.md
Every estimate (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/facts.json
Table 1, figure "comparisons" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/comparisons.json
Table 2, figure "corr_by_year" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/corr_by_year.json
Table 3, figure "rank_ladder" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/rank_ladder.json
Table 4, figure "joint_by_year" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/joint_by_year.json
Table 5, figure "r2_by_year" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/r2_by_year.json
Table 6, figure "spread_by_year" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/spread_by_year.json
Table 7, figure "weighting_gap" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/weighting_gap.json
Table 8, figure "measures_2024" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/measures_2024.json
Table 9, figure "residual_map" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/figures/residual_map.json
Payload of "residual_map" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/data/five-axes-of-the-county-vote/residual_map.json
Index of every report: https://vishalsingh.org/politics/llms.txt; all reports in one file: https://vishalsingh.org/politics/llms-full.txt

Identification

Principal estimates

Findings

Alone, the white share led through 2016; the leader since is unsettled

Held together, college share leads in 2024 and income changes sign

The five axes reproduce more of the county margin than in 2000

Weighting changes the level of the correlations and the likeliest 2020 leader

Each axis is several measures

The gaps from the fit run by region

What these data cannot show

Tables

Table 1. Every comparison in the chapter uses the same outcome and the same counties within an election, and differs in what it holds fixed

Table 2. Vote-weighted, the correlation of college share with the county margin rose from +0.28 in 2000 to +0.66 in 2024, while the white share's moved from −0.52 to −0.57

Table 3. Held together, college share's coefficient is +0.71 against a correlation of +0.66, and income's is −0.26 against +0.40, vote-weighted in 2024

Table 4. Held together, college share's coefficient rose from +0.25 in 2000 to +0.71 in 2024 and income's was below zero in every election, vote-weighted

Table 5. Vote-weighted, the five axes reproduce 41% of the variance of the county margin in 2000 and 69% in 2024, and 87% in 2024 with state baselines

Table 6. Vote-weighted, the part of the county margin that the five axes leave over narrowed from 20.4 to 18.4 points while the part they fit widened from 16.9 to 27.2

Table 7. The vote-weighted correlation of college share exceeds the county-equal one by +0.18 in 2000 and by +0.11 in 2024

Table 8. The correlation depends on the measure within an axis in 2024, from −0.03 for the share without a high school diploma to +0.66 for college share, vote-weighted

Table 9. In 2024 the mean gap between a county's margin and the five-axis fit is −10.8 points in the Census South and +6.7 points in the rest of the country, vote-weighted

All estimates

Definitions

Methods

What these data cannot show

References

Provenance

Machine formats