Chapter 6.2 · Report

Distance from the national vote, 1868 to 2024

The share of two-party votes cast in counties at least 20 points from the national margin rose from 25.5% in 1976 to 56.5% in 2024.

Author: Vishal Singh
Affiliation: NYU Stern
Published: 30 September 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

Distance from the national vote, 1868 to 2024

Chapter

6.2 (Part VI, Election results at different scales; Votes, giving and places)

Question

What share of voters live in counties far from the national result, and how does today compare with the Solid South era?

Dek

The share of two-party votes cast in counties at least 20 points from the national margin rose from 25.5% in 1976 to 56.5% in 2024.

Grain

places

Status

draft

Published

30 September 2026

Updated

not revised

Data sources

County election returns. County presidential returns, 1868-2024: Algara and Amlani (1868-2020) 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); shares of votes weight each county by its two-party votes, shares of counties count each county once

Canonical URL

https://vishalsingh.org/politics/the-landslide-county

Markdown

https://vishalsingh.org/politics/the-landslide-county/report.md

BibTeX

@misc{singh2026thelandslidecounty,
  author = {Singh, Vishal},
  title = {Distance from the national vote, 1868 to 2024},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://vishalsingh.org/politics/the-landslide-county},
  note = {In The Public Mind. Published 30 September 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	n	Weights	Source	Fact id
distance from the national margin that makes a county far	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024	20		none (full counts)	County election returns	cut
share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976	25.5%	3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns	far_v_1976
share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024	56.5%	3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns	far_v_2024
count of elections	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024	40		none (full counts)	County election returns	n_elections
share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2016	58.8%	3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns	far_v_2016
share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1872	50.8%	2,160	none (full counts)	County election returns	far_v_1872
absolute national two-party margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1972	23.6		none (full counts)	County election returns	nat_margin_1972
share of two-party votes cast in counties whose own margin is 20 or more points from an even split	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1972	59.0%	3,110	none (full counts)	County election returns	raw20_v_1972
share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1972	31.6%	3,110	none (full counts)	County election returns	far_v_1972
cutoff for a strong third-party vote	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024	10%		none (full counts)	County election returns	third_cut

Findings

Across the 40 presidential elections from 1868 to 2024, the share of two-party votes cast in far counties, those whose margin sits far from the national margin of the same election, was lowest in 1976, at 25.5%, and was 56.5% in 2024. Outside the third-party years, 2016, 2020 and 2024 have the three highest shares, led by 2016 at 58.8%, and the next highest is 1872, at 50.8%.

A far county is a county whose two-party margin differs from the national margin of the same election by 20 or more points. It is this chapter's version of the landslide county, and it differs from an ordinary landslide county, whose own winning margin is lopsided. The margin is measured against the nation and not against an even split, so that a national landslide does not read as a geographic one. A county's margin relative to the nation is its two-party margin minus the national two-party margin of the same election, in points, and the national margin is computed on the counties kept for that election. In 1972 the Republican nominee led the two-party vote by 23.6 points, and 59.0% of votes were cast in counties whose own margin was 20 or more points from an even split, against 31.6% in counties that far from the national margin. A third-party year is an election in which candidates outside the two major parties won at least 10% of all votes, or 1948, when a States' Rights ticket won Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina. Alaska is left out, the District of Columbia enters in 1964, and the county handling is that of Chapter 6.1, Nationalization of the county vote, which measures how far counties moved between elections; this chapter measures how far they sit from the nation within one election.The returns for 1868 to 2020 are the Algara and Amlani county file, which Amlani and Algara [1] describe for 1872 to 2020, and those for 2024 come from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab. The chapter follows the share of votes cast in far counties from 1868 to 2024, compares the former Confederacy with the rest of the country, and tests whether the result comes from the number or size of counties.

A low in 1976, a plateau since 2016

Table 1 plots the share for every election. It reached a low of 25.5% in 1976 and rose by 33.3 points over the 10 elections to 2016, when it was 58.8%. It was 56.6% in 2020, and the plateau held in 2024. The share at 40 or more points from the nation peaked in 2016 at 30.2% and was 25.2% in 2024, so the plateau does not hold at that cutoff.From 1928 to 1972 the elections that are not third-party years lie between 31.6% and 40.9%, so the 1976 low is below that range and the rise is measured from a trough. Even 2024, the lowest of the last three shares, is 15.6 points above the top of the range. The 1868 value, 42.3%, is not on the same set of states as the values from 1872, because the 1868 returns lack Florida, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia. In 1904 the share was 48.1%, the highest value between 1876 and 1972 among the elections that are not third-party years. At 40 or more points the share was 3.7% in 1976, and its highest value before 2016 was 24.1%, in 1924.

Table 1. The share of votes cast in counties far from the national margin rose from 25.5% in 1976 to 58.8% in 2016 and was 56.5% in 2024

The third-party years are 1892, 1912, 1924, 1948, 1968, 1992 and 1996. The two-party margin leaves the third-party votes out, so the shares for those years describe the two major parties' voters only, with one exception. In Alabama in 1948 the returns file records the States' Rights ticket, which held the Democratic line because Truman was not on the ballot, as the Democratic vote. The highest value in the series, 61.3%, belongs to 1924, a third-party year.

Counting each county once changes the date of the low. Counted by county, 79.1% of counties were far in 2024 and 37.3% in 1976, and the low falls in 1988, at 35.8%. In every election the share of counties is above the share of votes, which means that far counties are on average smaller than the others. The votes-and-counties toggle in Table 1 shows both.

The rise did not come evenly. Table 2 gives the change from one election to the next since 1980. In 3 elections the share rose by more than 7 points, 1980 by +8.3, 2000 by +7.4 and 2016 by +8.3. No other election after 1976 changed it by more than 3.2 points, and the largest fall between 1976 and 2016 was 0.7 points. The 2000 step starts from 1996, a third-party year whose share describes the two major parties' voters only. The 1976 low is itself a fall from the 31.6% of 1972. The step in 1980 came outside the former Confederacy. Inside it the share was 29.6% in 1976 and 29.5% in 1980, while in the rest of the country it rose from 24.3% to 35.2%. The step in 2016 coincides with the one late rise in the spread of county swings that Chapter 6.1, Nationalization of the county vote reports for 2012 to 2016.

Table 2. The share rose by more than 7 points in 3 elections after 1976, in 1980, 2000 and 2016, and no other election moved it by more than 3.2

The former Confederacy stood apart until 1944; now every region is far

The former Confederacy is the states that seceded and were readmitted after the Civil War.Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Table 3 gives the share of each region's own votes cast in far counties, measured against the national margin of each election. In every election from 1892 through 1944 except 1928, when it was 52.9%, at least 67.0% of the former Confederacy's votes were cast in far counties, and the share was 86.3% in 1904 and 94.1% in 1924. In 1904, 83.5% of the region's votes were cast in counties at least 20 points more Democratic than the nation. That is the Solid South, the one-party region whose politics Key described [2]. After 1944 the share fell, and from 1976 to 1996 it stayed between 29.5% and 35.2%. It reached 65.0% in 2016 and is 58.0% in 2024, below its 1904 level. The far counties of 2024 lean the other way. 41.2% of the region's votes were cast in counties at least 20 points more Republican than the nation and 16.8% in counties that far on the Democratic side.

Table 3. The former Confederacy fell from 86.3% of its votes in far counties in 1904 to 58.0% in 2024, and the rest of the country rose to 55.7%

The rest of the country never exceeded 49.0% in an election before 2016 that is not a third-party year, was 43.7% in 1904, fell to 24.3% in 1976 and is 55.7% in 2024. The five-region view shows how far the change reaches. In 2024 the share runs from 52.5% in the Northeast to 70.1% in Other South, the rest of the Census South. In 1976 it ran from 18.8% to 31.2%. In 1904 it was above 50% only in the South, and the Northeast, Midwest and West lay between 37.5% and 46.8%.

The Solid South supplied a smaller part of the far-county vote than its extreme share suggests. The former Confederacy cast 10.2% of the nation's votes in 1904 and 32.5% in 2024, so its far counties held 18.4% of the far-county votes in 1904 and hold 33.4% in 2024. Most of the national share in 1904, 48.1%, therefore came from counties elsewhere, in a year when the Republican lead in the national margin was 19.9 points.

Far counties are mostly Republican by count and even by votes

Table 4 colors each county by its margin minus the national margin for seven elections, with the classes broken at the far and very far cutoffs. In 2024, 79.1% of counties fall in the two outer classes on either side, against 37.3% in 1976. In each of the five regions more than 50% of counties are far in 2024, from 53.9% in the Northeast to 91.8% in Other South. In 1976 only the former Confederacy exceeded 50% of its counties, at 50.7%, and the highest of the other four regions was 45.7%.

Table 4. In 2024, 79.1% of counties were 20 or more points from the national margin, against 37.3% in 1976

By count the far counties of 2024 lean Republican, and by votes they divide evenly between the parties (Table 5). Of the 2,463 counties at least 20 points from the national margin, 2,234 were more Republican than the nation and 229 more Democratic. Far Democratic counties cast 28.2% of the two-party votes and far Republican counties 28.2%, because the average far Democratic county cast 9.8 times as many votes as the average far Republican county. In 1976, 704 far counties were more Democratic than the nation and 456 more Republican, and the two shares of votes were 13.2% and 12.3%. The 1904 and 1940 maps show the former Confederacy on the Democratic side of the nation, with 82.5% of its votes cast in counties at least 20 points more Democratic than the nation in 1940, against 83.5% in 1904.

Table 5. In 2024, 229 far Democratic and 2,234 far Republican counties each cast 28.2% of two-party votes

Fewer votes fall near the national margin, but not steadily

Table 6 shows the distribution of county margins around the national margin for the same seven elections, with one ridge for each election and the share of votes within 5 points of the national margin beside each year. In 1976, 22.9% of votes were cast in counties within 5 points of the national margin, and in 2024 14.7% were. The 1976 share is the highest of the seven, 2016 is the lowest at 9.4%, and 1904 (13.5%) is below 2024, so the comparison of 1976 with 2024 is between two elections and not a trend. Between 1976 and 2024 the share within 5 points fell and the share beyond 40 points rose.

Table 6. The share of votes cast within 5 points of the national margin was 22.9% in 1976, 9.4% in 2016 and 14.7% in 2024

Distance from the nation differs from competitiveness. When the national margin is far from even, a county 20 points from the nation can still have a close margin of its own, and a county at the national margin is lopsided. The competitiveness of counties is better read from their own margins. On that raw basis, 23.4% of votes were cast in counties whose own margin was within 5 points of an even split in 1976 and 13.2% in 2024. Counted by county, 591 of 3,113 counties were that close in 1976 and 155 are in 2024.The median county margin, ignoring its sign, rose from 14.4 points in 1976 to 43.9 in 2024. Chapter 6.3, Precincts within counties looks below the county line, where a county's margin can hide neighborhoods that vote very differently.

Fixed panels and state margins also show a rise

The number of counties in the returns rose from 1,696 in 1868 to 3,113 in 2024, and smaller units could spread margins more by construction. The number is 3,113 in both 1976 and 2024, though the units are not all the same ones. Table 7 repeats the calculation on a fixed panel of 1,652 counties that report in every election from 1868. From 1976 to 2024 the panel's share rose by 38.5 points, against 31.0 for all counties, and from 2016 to 2024 it changed by +0.2 points where the share for all counties fell 2.3. The panel's share was 22.0% in 1976, the same at one decimal as in 1916 (22.0%), so the low is shared in the panel.The panel's share was 42.0% in 1868 and 45.5% in 1904, against 42.3% and 48.1% for all counties, and it was 60.3% in 2016, 59.4% in 2020 and 60.5% in 2024. Before 2016 it never exceeded 52.2%. The second view of the figure adds a panel that starts in 1872 and keeps Florida, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia; it has its low in 1976 and its three highest shares in 2016, 2020 and 2024.

Table 7. In a fixed panel of counties the share rose 38.5 points from 1976 to 2024, against 31.0 for all counties

The states give a second check with units that change far less. The number of states, counting the District of Columbia, was 33 in 1868 and is 50 in both 1976 and 2024. Table 8 splits the vote-weighted standard deviation of county margins around the national margin into two parts. One is the spread of state margins around the national margin and the other is the spread of county margins around their own state's margin, and the squares of the two add to the square of the total. The spread between states, whose units are the same in 1976 and 2024, rose from 9.4 points in 1976 to 17.2 in 2024, so the rise since 1976 appears when the unit is the state.The cutoff of 20 points is a convention. At 25 and 30 points, 1976 is still the lowest election and 2016, 2020 and 2024 are still the three highest among the elections that are not third-party years. At 15 points, 1916 (37.8%) falls slightly below 1976 (38.3%), which is the one place where the lowest election changes.

Set against the Solid South era, the spread between states is smaller in 2024 than in any election from 1892 to 1924, and the spread within states is larger in 2024 than in any election before 2000. The 2016 and 2020 values between states are above the 1892 to 1924 minimum. The spread within states is measured on counties and so is open to the concern about unit size. The highest value before 2000 is the 1872 one, which rests on Reconstruction-era returns that the last section describes.Between states the spread was 26.4 points in 1904 and 31.8 in 1924, and within states it was 18.9 and 18.8. The share of the variance of county margins that lies within states was 33.9% in 1904 and 25.8% in 1924, against 72.4% in 2024.

Table 8. The spread of state margins around the national margin rose from 9.4 points in 1976 to 17.2 in 2024

Measuring against the national margin removes the level of the nation's result, so the far share could still move with how lopsided that result was. Across the 33 elections that are not third-party years, the correlation between the far share and the size of the national margin is −0.07 (95% CI −0.40 to 0.28), close to zero. The sign differs between the eras. The correlation is +0.42 (95% CI 0.04 to 0.70) across the 26 through 1996 and −0.12 (95% CI −0.80 to 0.70) across the 7 from 2000, where the interval is wide. The intervals treat the elections as independent, which adjacent elections are not, so they are narrower than they should be.

Since 1976 the share has risen through elections with national margins of different size. In 1984 the Republican lead was 18.3 points and the share was 35.9%, and in 2020 the Democratic lead was 4.6 points and the share was 56.6%.

Several accounts of the rise fit these returns

The returns show that far counties became more common and do not say why. Hopkins argues that American political behavior has nationalized, with voters attending more to national than to local politics [3]. Counties that swing together, the pattern in Chapter 6.1, Nationalization of the county vote, can still sit at different distances from the nation. Rodden traces an urban-rural divide in partisan geography [4]. The growth of the spread within states, from 15.7 points in 1976 to 30.3 in 2016, is consistent with a divide between cities and their rural surroundings inside states, though the returns contain no measure of density. Bishop and Cushing read the growth of landslide counties as evidence that people moved to places that share their politics [5], an account of party sorting by place. Their landslide counties are measured against an even split, the ordinary winning-margin definition. A cutoff of 20 points from an even split gives 26.7% for 1976 and 48.2% for 2004 in these returns, close to the shares they reported for those years, although theirs are shares of Americans and this one is a share of two-party votes. Abrams and Fiorina dispute the sorting account and recompute landslide counties from voter registration in place of presidential returns [6]. County returns record where votes were cast and not who cast them, who moved or why, so they cannot rank these accounts. Planned, Reconstruction and the modern map (planned) relates the Southern county map of the 1870s to that of 2024, and Planned, The South (planned) takes up the region directly.

What these data cannot show

Returns record where votes were cast. A county far from the national margin can contain voters of both parties in large numbers, and returns cannot tell voters who changed their choice from people who started or stopped voting or moved in or out, a limit known as ecological inference. Returns also count votes cast and not residents. Where the franchise was restricted, as in the former Confederacy for much of the period before the Voting Rights Act, the shares for the region describe the electorate that voted and not the adult population. Southern returns from the Reconstruction years were collected under contested counts and political violence that the returns do not record.

The two-party margin leaves out the third-party votes in the third-party years, and it cannot say where those voters would have gone. Counties are as reported in each election and their boundaries are not harmonized, so the fixed panels and the state comparison reduce the concern about unit size and do not remove it. The panels cover 63.5% and 74.7% of the 2024 votes and are not a sample of the country.

The chapter measures how far counties sit from the nation in each election. It does not say what a far county is like, how competitive its own contests are, or whether the far counties of 2024 differ from those of 1904 in the kinds of people who live in them. The series ends with 2024 and makes no forecast. The share for all counties rose from 1976 to 2016 and has not risen since. The returns cannot say whether the plateau will hold.

Tables

Table 1. The share of votes cast in counties far from the national margin rose from 25.5% in 1976 to 58.8% in 2016 and was 56.5% in 2024

Share of two-party votes, or of counties in the second view, at least 20 (upper line) and 40 (lower line) points from the national margin of the same election, percent, 1868 to 2024

Counted by	Election	Distance from national margin	Share (%)	Counties	Note
Votes	1868	20+ points	42.3	1,696	n/a
Votes	1868	40+ points	17.9	1,696	n/a
Votes	1872	20+ points	50.8	2,160	n/a
Votes	1872	40+ points	20.0	2,160	n/a
Votes	1876	20+ points	38.1	2,230	n/a
Votes	1876	40+ points	12.4	2,230	n/a
Votes	1880	20+ points	38.1	2,291	n/a
Votes	1880	40+ points	12.2	2,291	n/a
Votes	1884	20+ points	30.8	2,351	n/a
Votes	1884	40+ points	9.4	2,351	n/a
Votes	1888	20+ points	29.9	2,429	n/a
Votes	1888	40+ points	9.1	2,429	n/a
Votes	1892	20+ points	33.4	2,658	Third-party year
Votes	1892	40+ points	13.8	2,658	Third-party year
Votes	1896	20+ points	41.1	2,715	n/a
Votes	1896	40+ points	16.9	2,715	n/a
Votes	1900	20+ points	32.9	2,711	n/a
Votes	1900	40+ points	11.7	2,711	n/a
Votes	1904	20+ points	48.1	2,723	n/a
Votes	1904	40+ points	17.7	2,723	n/a
Votes	1908	20+ points	32.9	2,856	n/a
Votes	1908	40+ points	10.0	2,856	n/a
Votes	1912	20+ points	49.9	2,943	Third-party year
Votes	1912	40+ points	18.9	2,943	Third-party year
Votes	1916	20+ points	29.8	3,022	n/a
Votes	1916	40+ points	8.9	3,022	n/a
Votes	1920	20+ points	44.0	3,054	n/a
Votes	1920	40+ points	12.2	3,054	n/a
Votes	1924	20+ points	61.3	3,083	Third-party year
Votes	1924	40+ points	24.1	3,083	Third-party year
Votes	1928	20+ points	39.0	3,097	n/a
Votes	1928	40+ points	12.1	3,097	n/a
Votes	1932	20+ points	40.9	3,096	n/a
Votes	1932	40+ points	11.2	3,096	n/a
Votes	1936	20+ points	39.2	3,095	n/a
Votes	1936	40+ points	10.2	3,095	n/a
Votes	1940	20+ points	33.3	3,094	n/a
Votes	1940	40+ points	11.6	3,094	n/a
Votes	1944	20+ points	33.9	3,095	n/a
Votes	1944	40+ points	10.7	3,095	n/a
Votes	1948	20+ points	28.6	3,096	Third-party year
Votes	1948	40+ points	8.3	3,096	Third-party year
Votes	1952	20+ points	36.8	3,098	n/a
Votes	1952	40+ points	6.3	3,098	n/a
Votes	1956	20+ points	32.5	3,100	n/a
Votes	1956	40+ points	4.9	3,100	n/a
Votes	1960	20+ points	32.8	3,105	n/a
Votes	1960	40+ points	4.2	3,105	n/a
Votes	1964	20+ points	32.5	3,107	n/a
Votes	1964	40+ points	5.5	3,107	n/a
Votes	1968	20+ points	37.2	3,111	Third-party year
Votes	1968	40+ points	8.9	3,111	Third-party year
Votes	1972	20+ points	31.6	3,110	n/a
Votes	1972	40+ points	3.9	3,110	n/a
Votes	1976	20+ points	25.5	3,113	n/a
Votes	1976	40+ points	3.7	3,113	n/a
Votes	1980	20+ points	33.8	3,112	n/a
Votes	1980	40+ points	4.3	3,112	n/a
Votes	1984	20+ points	35.9	3,114	n/a
Votes	1984	40+ points	5.9	3,114	n/a
Votes	1988	20+ points	35.8	3,114	n/a
Votes	1988	40+ points	5.6	3,114	n/a
Votes	1992	20+ points	38.6	3,115	Third-party year
Votes	1992	40+ points	6.9	3,115	Third-party year
Votes	1996	20+ points	37.9	3,114	Third-party year
Votes	1996	40+ points	7.9	3,114	Third-party year
Votes	2000	20+ points	45.3	3,114	n/a
Votes	2000	40+ points	13.0	3,114	n/a
Votes	2004	20+ points	46.9	3,114	n/a
Votes	2004	40+ points	14.7	3,114	n/a
Votes	2008	20+ points	47.3	3,114	n/a
Votes	2008	40+ points	18.1	3,114	n/a
Votes	2012	20+ points	50.5	3,114	n/a
Votes	2012	40+ points	20.5	3,114	n/a
Votes	2016	20+ points	58.8	3,113	n/a
Votes	2016	40+ points	30.2	3,113	n/a
Votes	2020	20+ points	56.6	3,113	n/a
Votes	2020	40+ points	29.6	3,113	n/a
Votes	2024	20+ points	56.5	3,113	n/a
Votes	2024	40+ points	25.2	3,113	n/a
Counties	1868	20+ points	55.9	1,696	n/a
Counties	1868	40+ points	30.8	1,696	n/a
Counties	1872	20+ points	61.2	2,160	n/a
Counties	1872	40+ points	36.3	2,160	n/a
Counties	1876	20+ points	56.4	2,230	n/a
Counties	1876	40+ points	30.4	2,230	n/a
Counties	1880	20+ points	56.4	2,291	n/a
Counties	1880	40+ points	29.7	2,291	n/a
Counties	1884	20+ points	49.3	2,351	n/a
Counties	1884	40+ points	23.2	2,351	n/a
Counties	1888	20+ points	50.1	2,429	n/a
Counties	1888	40+ points	23.6	2,429	n/a
Counties	1892	20+ points	59.0	2,658	Third-party year
Counties	1892	40+ points	39.6	2,658	Third-party year
Counties	1896	20+ points	56.6	2,715	n/a
Counties	1896	40+ points	32.3	2,715	n/a
Counties	1900	20+ points	52.1	2,711	n/a
Counties	1900	40+ points	27.4	2,711	n/a
Counties	1904	20+ points	67.2	2,723	n/a
Counties	1904	40+ points	39.9	2,723	n/a
Counties	1908	20+ points	52.0	2,856	n/a
Counties	1908	40+ points	29.9	2,856	n/a
Counties	1912	20+ points	61.1	2,943	Third-party year
Counties	1912	40+ points	35.3	2,943	Third-party year
Counties	1916	20+ points	51.2	3,022	n/a
Counties	1916	40+ points	31.0	3,022	n/a
Counties	1920	20+ points	60.3	3,054	n/a
Counties	1920	40+ points	36.2	3,054	n/a
Counties	1924	20+ points	71.9	3,083	Third-party year
Counties	1924	40+ points	46.2	3,083	Third-party year
Counties	1928	20+ points	50.2	3,097	n/a
Counties	1928	40+ points	22.2	3,097	n/a
Counties	1932	20+ points	54.3	3,096	n/a
Counties	1932	40+ points	33.8	3,096	n/a
Counties	1936	20+ points	56.5	3,095	n/a
Counties	1936	40+ points	30.7	3,095	n/a
Counties	1940	20+ points	62.3	3,094	n/a
Counties	1940	40+ points	36.1	3,094	n/a
Counties	1944	20+ points	62.8	3,095	n/a
Counties	1944	40+ points	34.8	3,095	n/a
Counties	1948	20+ points	54.3	3,096	Third-party year
Counties	1948	40+ points	30.7	3,096	Third-party year
Counties	1952	20+ points	56.8	3,098	n/a
Counties	1952	40+ points	22.9	3,098	n/a
Counties	1956	20+ points	46.2	3,100	n/a
Counties	1956	40+ points	18.3	3,100	n/a
Counties	1960	20+ points	47.7	3,105	n/a
Counties	1960	40+ points	14.6	3,105	n/a
Counties	1964	20+ points	40.2	3,107	n/a
Counties	1964	40+ points	13.7	3,107	n/a
Counties	1968	20+ points	49.8	3,111	Third-party year
Counties	1968	40+ points	16.0	3,111	Third-party year
Counties	1972	20+ points	41.2	3,110	n/a
Counties	1972	40+ points	7.3	3,110	n/a
Counties	1976	20+ points	37.3	3,113	n/a
Counties	1976	40+ points	9.8	3,113	n/a
Counties	1980	20+ points	44.0	3,112	n/a
Counties	1980	40+ points	12.5	3,112	n/a
Counties	1984	20+ points	37.7	3,114	n/a
Counties	1984	40+ points	7.3	3,114	n/a
Counties	1988	20+ points	35.8	3,114	n/a
Counties	1988	40+ points	5.4	3,114	n/a
Counties	1992	20+ points	38.9	3,115	Third-party year
Counties	1992	40+ points	9.1	3,115	Third-party year
Counties	1996	20+ points	42.1	3,114	Third-party year
Counties	1996	40+ points	11.9	3,114	Third-party year
Counties	2000	20+ points	53.4	3,114	n/a
Counties	2000	40+ points	19.6	3,114	n/a
Counties	2004	20+ points	56.9	3,114	n/a
Counties	2004	40+ points	22.3	3,114	n/a
Counties	2008	20+ points	62.7	3,114	n/a
Counties	2008	40+ points	31.9	3,114	n/a
Counties	2012	20+ points	67.9	3,114	n/a
Counties	2012	40+ points	36.7	3,114	n/a
Counties	2016	20+ points	80.1	3,113	n/a
Counties	2016	40+ points	56.1	3,113	n/a
Counties	2020	20+ points	80.2	3,113	n/a
Counties	2020	40+ points	56.6	3,113	n/a
Counties	2024	20+ points	79.1	3,113	n/a
Counties	2024	40+ points	54.0	3,113	n/a

Views: Share of votes (basis = Votes); Share of counties (basis = Counties).

Source: County presidential returns, 1868-2024 (Algara and Amlani for 1868-2020, MIT Election Data and Science Lab for 2024); full counts, not survey estimates; shares weighted by two-party votes unless stated

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/far_share.json

Table 2. The share rose by more than 7 points in 3 elections after 1976, in 1980, 2000 and 2016, and no other election moved it by more than 3.2

Change from the previous election in the share of two-party votes cast in counties at least 20 points from the national margin, percentage points, 1980 to 2024

Election	Change (points)	Share of votes in far counties (%)	Note
1980	+8.3	33.8	n/a
1984	+2.1	35.9	n/a
1988	−0.1	35.8	n/a
1992	+2.8	38.6	Third-party year
1996	−0.7	37.9	Third-party year
2000	+7.4	45.3	n/a
2004	+1.6	46.9	n/a
2008	+0.4	47.3	n/a
2012	+3.2	50.5	n/a
2016	+8.3	58.8	n/a
2020	−2.2	56.6	n/a
2024	−0.1	56.5	n/a

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/step_changes.json

Table 3. The former Confederacy fell from 86.3% of its votes in far counties in 1904 to 58.0% in 2024, and the rest of the country rose to 55.7%

Share of a region's two-party votes cast in counties at least 20 points from the national margin, percent, presidential elections 1868 to 2024

View	Election	Region	Share of region's votes in far counties (%)	Region's share of national votes (%)	Counties	Note
Two groups	1868	Confederacy	63.1	14.5	485	n/a
Five regions	1868	Confederacy	63.1	14.5	485	n/a
Five regions	1868	Other South	75.4	6.0	190	n/a
Five regions	1868	Northeast	38.6	38.6	214	n/a
Five regions	1868	Midwest	34.8	38.4	725	n/a
Five regions	1868	West	13.2	2.5	82	n/a
Two groups	1868	Rest of US	38.8	85.5	1,211	n/a
Two groups	1872	Confederacy	58.0	22.2	871	n/a
Five regions	1872	Confederacy	58.0	22.2	871	n/a
Five regions	1872	Other South	51.6	7.2	194	n/a
Five regions	1872	Northeast	37.2	33.3	214	n/a
Five regions	1872	Midwest	57.2	35.3	797	n/a
Five regions	1872	West	79.8	2.0	84	n/a
Two groups	1872	Rest of US	48.7	77.8	1,289	n/a
Two groups	1876	Confederacy	59.3	21.5	901	n/a
Five regions	1876	Confederacy	59.3	21.5	901	n/a
Five regions	1876	Other South	31.3	7.2	197	n/a
Five regions	1876	Northeast	29.4	31.8	214	n/a
Five regions	1876	Midwest	36.0	37.1	829	n/a
Five regions	1876	West	17.3	2.5	89	n/a
Two groups	1876	Rest of US	32.3	78.5	1,329	n/a
Two groups	1880	Confederacy	61.0	19.0	918	n/a
Five regions	1880	Confederacy	61.0	19.0	918	n/a
Five regions	1880	Other South	27.6	6.8	188	n/a
Five regions	1880	Northeast	28.5	32.8	215	n/a
Five regions	1880	Midwest	39.1	38.4	850	n/a
Five regions	1880	West	10.6	3.1	120	n/a
Two groups	1880	Rest of US	32.8	81.0	1,373	n/a
Two groups	1884	Confederacy	57.0	19.4	945	n/a
Five regions	1884	Confederacy	57.0	19.4	945	n/a
Five regions	1884	Other South	23.9	7.0	199	n/a
Five regions	1884	Northeast	18.8	30.2	215	n/a
Five regions	1884	Midwest	29.5	40.1	862	n/a
Five regions	1884	West	15.3	3.3	130	n/a
Two groups	1884	Rest of US	24.4	80.6	1,406	n/a
Two groups	1888	Confederacy	59.0	18.2	969	n/a
Five regions	1888	Confederacy	59.0	18.2	969	n/a
Five regions	1888	Other South	19.6	7.4	200	n/a
Five regions	1888	Northeast	19.2	30.2	212	n/a
Five regions	1888	Midwest	27.9	40.5	911	n/a
Five regions	1888	West	15.5	3.7	137	n/a
Two groups	1888	Rest of US	23.4	81.8	1,460	n/a
Two groups	1892	Confederacy	70.8	16.0	999	Third-party year
Five regions	1892	Confederacy	70.8	16.0	999	Third-party year
Five regions	1892	Other South	19.4	7.5	200	Third-party year
Five regions	1892	Northeast	26.0	31.6	215	Third-party year
Five regions	1892	Midwest	27.5	40.8	1,012	Third-party year
Five regions	1892	West	29.6	4.1	232	Third-party year
Two groups	1892	Rest of US	26.3	84.0	1,659	Third-party year
Two groups	1896	Confederacy	67.0	15.7	1,006	n/a
Five regions	1896	Confederacy	67.0	15.7	1,006	n/a
Five regions	1896	Other South	22.8	7.7	201	n/a
Five regions	1896	Northeast	47.6	28.0	213	n/a
Five regions	1896	Midwest	28.2	42.3	1,018	n/a
Five regions	1896	West	56.8	6.3	277	n/a
Two groups	1896	Rest of US	36.3	84.3	1,709	n/a
Two groups	1900	Confederacy	69.0	13.1	994	n/a
Five regions	1900	Confederacy	69.0	13.1	994	n/a
Five regions	1900	Other South	22.0	8.0	201	n/a
Five regions	1900	Northeast	31.1	28.7	216	n/a
Five regions	1900	Midwest	25.7	43.3	1,018	n/a
Five regions	1900	West	29.9	6.9	282	n/a
Two groups	1900	Rest of US	27.5	86.9	1,717	n/a
Two groups	1904	Confederacy	86.3	10.2	1,000	n/a
Five regions	1904	Confederacy	86.3	10.2	1,000	n/a
Five regions	1904	Other South	61.7	7.9	201	n/a
Five regions	1904	Northeast	37.5	31.5	216	n/a
Five regions	1904	Midwest	44.5	42.5	1,020	n/a
Five regions	1904	West	46.8	7.8	286	n/a
Two groups	1904	Rest of US	43.7	89.8	1,723	n/a
Two groups	1908	Confederacy	75.8	10.8	1,045	n/a
Five regions	1908	Confederacy	75.8	10.8	1,045	n/a
Five regions	1908	Other South	29.5	8.8	276	n/a
Five regions	1908	Northeast	33.5	29.1	216	n/a
Five regions	1908	Midwest	23.5	43.0	1,027	n/a
Five regions	1908	West	27.4	8.3	292	n/a
Two groups	1908	Rest of US	27.7	89.2	1,811	n/a
Two groups	1912	Confederacy	81.4	12.5	1,078	Third-party year
Five regions	1912	Confederacy	81.4	12.5	1,078	Third-party year
Five regions	1912	Other South	47.3	10.1	279	Third-party year
Five regions	1912	Northeast	51.2	28.3	216	Third-party year
Five regions	1912	Midwest	36.6	39.8	1,043	Third-party year
Five regions	1912	West	63.9	9.3	327	Third-party year
Two groups	1912	Rest of US	45.4	87.5	1,865	Third-party year
Two groups	1916	Confederacy	79.2	10.1	1,100	n/a
Five regions	1916	Confederacy	79.2	10.1	1,100	n/a
Five regions	1916	Other South	23.6	8.2	279	n/a
Five regions	1916	Northeast	31.5	24.9	217	n/a
Five regions	1916	Midwest	20.7	43.1	1,049	n/a
Five regions	1916	West	22.4	13.7	377	n/a
Two groups	1916	Rest of US	24.2	89.9	1,922	n/a
Two groups	1920	Confederacy	84.4	10.0	1,105	n/a
Five regions	1920	Confederacy	84.4	10.0	1,105	n/a
Five regions	1920	Other South	42.1	10.2	279	n/a
Five regions	1920	Northeast	28.8	28.1	217	n/a
Five regions	1920	Midwest	46.8	42.5	1,051	n/a
Five regions	1920	West	35.4	9.2	402	n/a
Two groups	1920	Rest of US	39.4	90.0	1,949	n/a
Two groups	1924	Confederacy	94.1	9.9	1,126	Third-party year
Five regions	1924	Confederacy	94.1	9.9	1,126	Third-party year
Five regions	1924	Other South	77.0	9.6	279	Third-party year
Five regions	1924	Northeast	44.6	31.0	217	Third-party year
Five regions	1924	Midwest	61.4	40.6	1,056	Third-party year
Five regions	1924	West	65.4	8.8	405	Third-party year
Two groups	1924	Rest of US	57.7	90.1	1,957	Third-party year
Two groups	1928	Confederacy	52.9	9.1	1,134	n/a
Five regions	1928	Confederacy	52.9	9.1	1,134	n/a
Five regions	1928	Other South	24.2	8.4	279	n/a
Five regions	1928	Northeast	46.7	32.4	217	n/a
Five regions	1928	Midwest	33.1	39.7	1,057	n/a
Five regions	1928	West	37.9	10.4	410	n/a
Two groups	1928	Rest of US	37.6	90.9	1,963	n/a
Two groups	1932	Confederacy	81.4	9.7	1,133	n/a
Five regions	1932	Confederacy	81.4	9.7	1,133	n/a
Five regions	1932	Other South	30.9	8.4	279	n/a
Five regions	1932	Northeast	69.3	30.4	217	n/a
Five regions	1932	Midwest	20.2	39.9	1,057	n/a
Five regions	1932	West	11.7	11.6	410	n/a
Two groups	1932	Rest of US	36.6	90.3	1,963	n/a
Two groups	1936	Confederacy	80.6	9.4	1,133	n/a
Five regions	1936	Confederacy	80.6	9.4	1,133	n/a
Five regions	1936	Other South	20.5	8.0	279	n/a
Five regions	1936	Northeast	51.3	32.3	217	n/a
Five regions	1936	Midwest	27.1	38.7	1,056	n/a
Five regions	1936	West	25.1	11.7	410	n/a
Two groups	1936	Rest of US	34.9	90.6	1,962	n/a
Two groups	1940	Confederacy	85.0	9.6	1,132	n/a
Five regions	1940	Confederacy	85.0	9.6	1,132	n/a
Five regions	1940	Other South	24.9	7.0	279	n/a
Five regions	1940	Northeast	29.8	31.9	217	n/a
Five regions	1940	Midwest	29.8	38.8	1,056	n/a
Five regions	1940	West	18.0	12.7	410	n/a
Two groups	1940	Rest of US	27.8	90.4	1,962	n/a
Two groups	1944	Confederacy	80.6	9.7	1,133	n/a
Five regions	1944	Confederacy	80.6	9.7	1,133	n/a
Five regions	1944	Other South	27.8	7.0	279	n/a
Five regions	1944	Northeast	28.4	31.6	217	n/a
Five regions	1944	Midwest	34.5	38.1	1,056	n/a
Five regions	1944	West	15.0	13.6	410	n/a
Two groups	1944	Rest of US	28.9	90.3	1,962	n/a
Two groups	1948	Confederacy	62.8	9.0	1,134	Third-party year
Five regions	1948	Confederacy	62.8	9.0	1,134	Third-party year
Five regions	1948	Other South	34.7	7.0	279	Third-party year
Five regions	1948	Northeast	31.3	31.9	217	Third-party year
Five regions	1948	Midwest	23.3	37.2	1,056	Third-party year
Five regions	1948	West	12.7	14.9	410	Third-party year
Two groups	1948	Rest of US	25.2	91.0	1,962	Third-party year
Two groups	1952	Confederacy	44.9	13.8	1,135	n/a
Five regions	1952	Confederacy	44.9	13.8	1,135	n/a
Five regions	1952	Other South	29.8	6.4	279	n/a
Five regions	1952	Northeast	45.9	30.1	217	n/a
Five regions	1952	Midwest	36.7	34.7	1,056	n/a
Five regions	1952	West	14.3	15.0	411	n/a
Two groups	1952	Rest of US	35.5	86.2	1,963	n/a
Two groups	1956	Confederacy	42.2	13.5	1,138	n/a
Five regions	1956	Confederacy	42.2	13.5	1,138	n/a
Five regions	1956	Other South	27.7	6.2	279	n/a
Five regions	1956	Northeast	49.0	30.4	217	n/a
Five regions	1956	Midwest	26.0	34.2	1,055	n/a
Five regions	1956	West	8.1	15.6	411	n/a
Two groups	1956	Rest of US	31.0	86.5	1,962	n/a
Two groups	1960	Confederacy	42.3	14.5	1,139	n/a
Five regions	1960	Confederacy	42.3	14.5	1,139	n/a
Five regions	1960	Other South	36.0	6.0	279	n/a
Five regions	1960	Northeast	38.2	29.3	217	n/a
Five regions	1960	Midwest	35.2	33.6	1,055	n/a
Five regions	1960	West	9.2	16.6	415	n/a
Two groups	1960	Rest of US	31.2	85.5	1,966	n/a
Two groups	1964	Confederacy	50.3	17.5	1,139	n/a
Five regions	1964	Confederacy	50.3	17.5	1,139	n/a
Five regions	1964	Other South	35.3	6.1	280	n/a
Five regions	1964	Northeast	41.2	27.8	217	n/a
Five regions	1964	Midwest	22.9	31.5	1,056	n/a
Five regions	1964	West	17.1	17.2	415	n/a
Two groups	1964	Rest of US	28.8	82.5	1,968	n/a
Two groups	1968	Confederacy	45.8	16.1	1,143	Third-party year
Five regions	1968	Confederacy	45.8	16.1	1,143	Third-party year
Five regions	1968	Other South	39.9	5.9	280	Third-party year
Five regions	1968	Northeast	42.4	27.9	217	Third-party year
Five regions	1968	Midwest	34.1	31.8	1,056	Third-party year
Five regions	1968	West	26.0	18.3	415	Third-party year
Two groups	1968	Rest of US	35.5	83.9	1,968	Third-party year
Two groups	1972	Confederacy	46.5	19.9	1,142	n/a
Five regions	1972	Confederacy	46.5	19.9	1,142	n/a
Five regions	1972	Other South	35.9	6.0	280	n/a
Five regions	1972	Northeast	32.4	25.9	217	n/a
Five regions	1972	Midwest	27.2	30.0	1,056	n/a
Five regions	1972	West	19.9	18.2	415	n/a
Two groups	1972	Rest of US	27.9	80.1	1,968	n/a
Two groups	1976	Confederacy	29.6	22.7	1,145	n/a
Five regions	1976	Confederacy	29.6	22.7	1,145	n/a
Five regions	1976	Other South	31.2	6.0	280	n/a
Five regions	1976	Northeast	25.3	24.0	217	n/a
Five regions	1976	Midwest	25.4	29.6	1,056	n/a
Five regions	1976	West	18.8	17.6	415	n/a
Two groups	1976	Rest of US	24.3	77.3	1,968	n/a
Two groups	1980	Confederacy	29.5	25.0	1,145	n/a
Five regions	1980	Confederacy	29.5	25.0	1,145	n/a
Five regions	1980	Other South	40.9	6.1	280	n/a
Five regions	1980	Northeast	26.3	21.7	217	n/a
Five regions	1980	Midwest	37.5	29.2	1,055	n/a
Five regions	1980	West	40.1	18.0	415	n/a
Two groups	1980	Rest of US	35.2	75.0	1,967	n/a
Two groups	1984	Confederacy	32.6	25.3	1,145	n/a
Five regions	1984	Confederacy	32.6	25.3	1,145	n/a
Five regions	1984	Other South	40.6	6.0	280	n/a
Five regions	1984	Northeast	35.3	22.2	217	n/a
Five regions	1984	Midwest	41.6	27.5	1,055	n/a
Five regions	1984	West	31.4	19.0	417	n/a
Two groups	1984	Rest of US	37.1	74.7	1,969	n/a
Two groups	1988	Confederacy	35.2	25.5	1,145	n/a
Five regions	1988	Confederacy	35.2	25.5	1,145	n/a
Five regions	1988	Other South	42.7	5.8	280	n/a
Five regions	1988	Northeast	34.1	21.7	217	n/a
Five regions	1988	Midwest	41.3	27.0	1,055	n/a
Five regions	1988	West	28.8	19.9	417	n/a
Two groups	1988	Rest of US	36.0	74.5	1,969	n/a
Two groups	1992	Confederacy	35.2	27.5	1,145	Third-party year
Five regions	1992	Confederacy	35.2	27.5	1,145	Third-party year
Five regions	1992	Other South	42.1	6.0	280	Third-party year
Five regions	1992	Northeast	34.0	20.8	217	Third-party year
Five regions	1992	Midwest	41.3	26.2	1,055	Third-party year
Five regions	1992	West	43.7	19.5	418	Third-party year
Two groups	1992	Rest of US	39.9	72.5	1,970	Third-party year
Two groups	1996	Confederacy	35.2	28.1	1,144	Third-party year
Five regions	1996	Confederacy	35.2	28.1	1,144	Third-party year
Five regions	1996	Other South	39.3	5.7	280	Third-party year
Five regions	1996	Northeast	37.1	20.2	217	Third-party year
Five regions	1996	Midwest	37.9	25.7	1,055	Third-party year
Five regions	1996	West	42.1	20.3	418	Third-party year
Two groups	1996	Rest of US	39.0	71.9	1,970	Third-party year
Two groups	2000	Confederacy	43.8	28.4	1,144	n/a
Five regions	2000	Confederacy	43.8	28.4	1,144	n/a
Five regions	2000	Other South	54.5	5.8	280	n/a
Five regions	2000	Northeast	43.3	19.8	217	n/a
Five regions	2000	Midwest	43.2	25.7	1,055	n/a
Five regions	2000	West	49.3	20.3	418	n/a
Two groups	2000	Rest of US	45.9	71.6	1,970	n/a
Two groups	2004	Confederacy	49.2	28.9	1,143	n/a
Five regions	2004	Confederacy	49.2	28.9	1,143	n/a
Five regions	2004	Other South	60.2	5.8	280	n/a
Five regions	2004	Northeast	39.7	19.2	217	n/a
Five regions	2004	Midwest	44.2	25.4	1,055	n/a
Five regions	2004	West	49.8	20.8	419	n/a
Two groups	2004	Rest of US	45.9	71.1	1,971	n/a
Two groups	2008	Confederacy	52.3	30.2	1,143	n/a
Five regions	2008	Confederacy	52.3	30.2	1,143	n/a
Five regions	2008	Other South	68.3	5.6	280	n/a
Five regions	2008	Northeast	37.3	18.7	217	n/a
Five regions	2008	Midwest	43.2	24.5	1,055	n/a
Five regions	2008	West	48.4	21.0	419	n/a
Two groups	2008	Rest of US	45.2	69.8	1,971	n/a
Two groups	2012	Confederacy	53.9	30.9	1,143	n/a
Five regions	2012	Confederacy	53.9	30.9	1,143	n/a
Five regions	2012	Other South	71.9	5.6	280	n/a
Five regions	2012	Northeast	43.0	18.2	217	n/a
Five regions	2012	Midwest	46.9	24.2	1,055	n/a
Five regions	2012	West	50.5	21.1	419	n/a
Two groups	2012	Rest of US	49.0	69.1	1,971	n/a
Two groups	2016	Confederacy	65.0	31.8	1,142	n/a
Five regions	2016	Confederacy	65.0	31.8	1,142	n/a
Five regions	2016	Other South	75.9	5.7	280	n/a
Five regions	2016	Northeast	49.8	18.1	217	n/a
Five regions	2016	Midwest	60.5	23.3	1,055	n/a
Five regions	2016	West	50.6	21.1	419	n/a
Two groups	2016	Rest of US	55.9	68.2	1,971	n/a
Two groups	2020	Confederacy	59.6	31.7	1,142	n/a
Five regions	2020	Confederacy	59.6	31.7	1,142	n/a
Five regions	2020	Other South	74.1	5.3	280	n/a
Five regions	2020	Northeast	50.5	17.8	217	n/a
Five regions	2020	Midwest	58.4	22.1	1,055	n/a
Five regions	2020	West	51.3	23.1	419	n/a
Two groups	2020	Rest of US	55.1	68.3	1,971	n/a
Two groups	2024	Confederacy	58.0	32.5	1,142	n/a
Five regions	2024	Confederacy	58.0	32.5	1,142	n/a
Five regions	2024	Other South	70.1	5.3	280	n/a
Five regions	2024	Northeast	52.5	17.7	217	n/a
Five regions	2024	Midwest	56.5	22.2	1,056	n/a
Five regions	2024	West	54.1	22.2	418	n/a
Two groups	2024	Rest of US	55.7	67.5	1,971	n/a

Views: Former Confederacy and the rest (grouping = Two groups); Five regions (grouping = Five regions).

Note: A region-year cell needs at least 30 counties; every cell meets that floor, so none is dropped.

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/far_by_region.json

Table 4. In 2024, 79.1% of counties were 20 or more points from the national margin, against 37.3% in 1976

County two-party margin minus the national two-party margin of the same election, percentage points (positive is more Democratic than the nation), seven presidential elections from 1876 to 2024

No inline rows: the values of Table 4 are in /data/the-landslide-county/county_margin_map.json.

Note: Counties are drawn on 2020 boundaries and joined on FIPS code. A county with no return, or whose code is absent from the 2020 map, draws as no data: not counting Alaska, 885 of the 3,113 counties on the map have no return in 1876 and 393 have none in 1904, and no other frame has more than 26, after retired county codes are mapped to their 2020 successors. None of the seven elections is a third-party year. The classes break at minus and plus 40, 20 and 5 points.

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/county_margin_map.json

Table 5. In 2024, 229 far Democratic and 2,234 far Republican counties each cast 28.2% of two-party votes

Counties at least 20 points more Democratic or more Republican than the national margin: share of two-party votes in the first view and count of counties in the second, 1976 and 2024

Election	Side of the national margin	Far counties	Share of all counties (%)	Share of votes (%)	Counties in the election
1876	Far Democratic	724	32.5	18.1	2,230
1876	Far Republican	533	23.9	20.0	2,230
1904	Far Democratic	1,117	41.0	22.0	2,723
1904	Far Republican	714	26.2	26.1	2,723
1940	Far Democratic	1,153	37.3	12.7	3,094
1940	Far Republican	774	25.0	20.6	3,094
1976	Far Democratic	704	22.6	13.2	3,113
1976	Far Republican	456	14.6	12.3	3,113
2000	Far Democratic	192	6.2	22.8	3,114
2000	Far Republican	1,472	47.3	22.5	3,114
2016	Far Democratic	224	7.2	27.8	3,113
2016	Far Republican	2,270	72.9	31.0	3,113
2024	Far Democratic	229	7.4	28.2	3,113
2024	Far Republican	2,234	71.8	28.2	3,113

Views: Share of votes (shown = true); Number of counties (shown = true).

Note: Show data lists all seven map elections from 1876 to 2024. None of them is a third-party year.

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/county_counts.json

Table 6. The share of votes cast within 5 points of the national margin was 22.9% in 1976, 9.4% in 2016 and 14.7% in 2024

Share of two-party votes, or of counties in the second view, by bin of the county margin minus the national margin, percentage points, seven presidential elections from 1876 to 2024

Election	Bin center (points)	Share of votes (%)	Share of counties (%)
1876	−97.5	0.00	0.09
1876	−92.5	0.02	0.13
1876	−87.5	0.03	0.27
1876	−82.5	0.11	0.27
1876	−77.5	0.08	0.36
1876	−72.5	0.15	0.67
1876	−67.5	0.21	0.63
1876	−62.5	0.31	1.03
1876	−57.5	0.68	1.21
1876	−52.5	0.90	1.61
1876	−47.5	1.07	1.84
1876	−42.5	1.50	2.06
1876	−37.5	1.85	2.15
1876	−32.5	3.23	3.18
1876	−27.5	3.46	3.54
1876	−22.5	6.40	4.71
1876	−17.5	6.52	4.08
1876	−12.5	9.54	6.77
1876	−7.5	8.26	5.34
1876	−2.5	9.47	6.19
1876	+2.5	8.61	5.70
1876	+7.5	7.92	5.92
1876	+12.5	5.22	5.47
1876	+17.5	6.33	4.17
1876	+22.5	2.81	3.72
1876	+27.5	5.22	3.77
1876	+32.5	1.17	2.33
1876	+37.5	1.59	2.56
1876	+42.5	1.28	2.42
1876	+47.5	1.09	2.15
1876	+52.5	1.03	2.29
1876	+57.5	0.77	1.79
1876	+62.5	0.49	1.61
1876	+67.5	0.56	1.61
1876	+72.5	0.48	1.52
1876	+77.5	0.41	1.39
1876	+82.5	0.32	1.12
1876	+87.5	0.25	0.99
1876	+92.5	0.24	1.17
1876	+97.5	0.38	2.02
1904	−97.5	0.00	0.00
1904	−92.5	0.00	0.00
1904	−87.5	0.00	0.00
1904	−82.5	0.00	0.00
1904	−77.5	0.00	0.00
1904	−72.5	0.01	0.04
1904	−67.5	0.05	0.26
1904	−62.5	0.29	0.77
1904	−57.5	0.33	0.92
1904	−52.5	1.11	1.65
1904	−47.5	4.01	2.90
1904	−42.5	3.39	2.79
1904	−37.5	2.91	3.56
1904	−32.5	3.80	4.00
1904	−27.5	3.74	4.26
1904	−22.5	6.49	5.07
1904	−17.5	7.87	4.59
1904	−12.5	8.31	4.85
1904	−7.5	7.00	4.41
1904	−2.5	5.60	3.78
1904	+2.5	7.91	4.15
1904	+7.5	4.86	3.97
1904	+12.5	6.48	4.33
1904	+17.5	3.87	2.68
1904	+22.5	5.27	3.45
1904	+27.5	5.46	2.83
1904	+32.5	1.56	2.02
1904	+37.5	1.17	2.13
1904	+42.5	0.93	2.02
1904	+47.5	0.62	1.62
1904	+52.5	0.68	2.02
1904	+57.5	0.60	1.58
1904	+62.5	0.48	1.36
1904	+67.5	0.52	2.13
1904	+72.5	0.58	1.51
1904	+77.5	0.59	2.17
1904	+82.5	0.45	1.40
1904	+87.5	0.34	1.58
1904	+92.5	0.59	2.31
1904	+97.5	0.42	2.13
1940	−97.5	0.00	0.00
1940	−92.5	0.01	0.03
1940	−87.5	0.01	0.03
1940	−82.5	0.02	0.06
1940	−77.5	0.02	0.13
1940	−72.5	0.08	0.23
1940	−67.5	0.12	0.29
1940	−62.5	0.14	0.32
1940	−57.5	0.31	0.52
1940	−52.5	0.74	1.13
1940	−47.5	1.38	1.97
1940	−42.5	1.79	2.59
1940	−37.5	3.11	3.56
1940	−32.5	2.97	4.30
1940	−27.5	4.25	4.56
1940	−22.5	5.62	5.30
1940	−17.5	6.37	6.24
1940	−12.5	7.84	5.24
1940	−7.5	6.11	5.79
1940	−2.5	5.74	5.95
1940	+2.5	12.08	4.27
1940	+7.5	12.19	3.56
1940	+12.5	10.70	3.68
1940	+17.5	5.70	3.01
1940	+22.5	2.84	2.71
1940	+27.5	1.54	2.29
1940	+32.5	0.69	1.78
1940	+37.5	0.60	1.65
1940	+42.5	0.84	2.07
1940	+47.5	0.56	1.87
1940	+52.5	0.70	1.68
1940	+57.5	0.74	2.59
1940	+62.5	1.01	3.01
1940	+67.5	0.90	3.30
1940	+72.5	0.69	3.30
1940	+77.5	0.42	2.07
1940	+82.5	0.49	3.56
1940	+87.5	0.63	5.11
1940	+92.5	0.04	0.29
1940	+97.5	0.00	0.00
1976	−97.5	0.00	0.00
1976	−92.5	0.00	0.00
1976	−87.5	0.00	0.00
1976	−82.5	0.00	0.00
1976	−77.5	0.00	0.00
1976	−72.5	0.00	0.00
1976	−67.5	0.00	0.00
1976	−62.5	0.00	0.03
1976	−57.5	0.00	0.13
1976	−52.5	0.15	0.26
1976	−47.5	0.19	0.35
1976	−42.5	0.47	0.87
1976	−37.5	1.05	1.38
1976	−32.5	1.67	2.51
1976	−27.5	4.23	3.92
1976	−22.5	4.56	5.20
1976	−17.5	7.69	6.46
1976	−12.5	10.28	8.96
1976	−7.5	10.47	9.16
1976	−2.5	12.84	9.83
1976	+2.5	10.07	9.03
1976	+7.5	9.22	7.55
1976	+12.5	8.81	6.26
1976	+17.5	5.09	5.49
1976	+22.5	4.55	5.08
1976	+27.5	1.72	4.02
1976	+32.5	2.27	2.83
1976	+37.5	1.77	2.54
1976	+42.5	0.95	2.12
1976	+47.5	1.10	2.15
1976	+52.5	0.31	1.67
1976	+57.5	0.16	1.03
1976	+62.5	0.32	0.74
1976	+67.5	0.03	0.26
1976	+72.5	0.03	0.19
1976	+77.5	0.00	0.00
1976	+82.5	0.00	0.00
1976	+87.5	0.00	0.00
1976	+92.5	0.00	0.00
1976	+97.5	0.00	0.00
2000	−97.5	0.00	0.00
2000	−92.5	0.00	0.00
2000	−87.5	0.00	0.03
2000	−82.5	0.02	0.26
2000	−77.5	0.01	0.26
2000	−72.5	0.18	0.64
2000	−67.5	0.25	1.48
2000	−62.5	0.25	1.77
2000	−57.5	0.58	2.57
2000	−52.5	0.95	3.47
2000	−47.5	1.32	3.37
2000	−42.5	1.75	4.40
2000	−37.5	3.19	5.46
2000	−32.5	3.52	7.06
2000	−27.5	4.95	8.03
2000	−22.5	5.50	8.48
2000	−17.5	6.10	8.54
2000	−12.5	7.99	8.35
2000	−7.5	8.00	8.22
2000	−2.5	8.83	6.52
2000	+2.5	7.86	5.52
2000	+7.5	6.60	4.34
2000	+12.5	4.54	2.70
2000	+17.5	4.80	2.38
2000	+22.5	4.33	1.64
2000	+27.5	5.06	1.51
2000	+32.5	4.08	1.09
2000	+37.5	1.65	0.55
2000	+42.5	2.83	0.32
2000	+47.5	0.89	0.29
2000	+52.5	0.92	0.19
2000	+57.5	0.13	0.10
2000	+62.5	1.12	0.26
2000	+67.5	1.12	0.06
2000	+72.5	0.19	0.10
2000	+77.5	0.30	0.03
2000	+82.5	0.19	0.03
2000	+87.5	0.00	0.00
2000	+92.5	0.00	0.00
2000	+97.5	0.00	0.00
2016	−97.5	0.00	0.03
2016	−92.5	0.00	0.29
2016	−87.5	0.03	0.58
2016	−82.5	0.23	2.18
2016	−77.5	0.36	3.28
2016	−72.5	0.75	4.47
2016	−67.5	1.14	5.56
2016	−62.5	1.61	7.07
2016	−57.5	2.81	8.67
2016	−52.5	2.86	7.55
2016	−47.5	2.65	6.68
2016	−42.5	3.12	6.81
2016	−37.5	3.43	5.75
2016	−32.5	3.53	4.69
2016	−27.5	4.20	5.14
2016	−22.5	4.29	4.18
2016	−17.5	4.19	4.24
2016	−12.5	4.44	2.89
2016	−7.5	3.94	2.83
2016	−2.5	4.56	2.28
2016	+2.5	4.83	2.12
2016	+7.5	7.27	2.41
2016	+12.5	5.92	1.54
2016	+17.5	6.07	1.57
2016	+22.5	3.26	1.32
2016	+27.5	3.80	0.96
2016	+32.5	2.71	1.03
2016	+37.5	3.39	0.93
2016	+42.5	1.70	0.74
2016	+47.5	0.50	0.45
2016	+52.5	6.34	0.45
2016	+57.5	1.19	0.35
2016	+62.5	1.68	0.32
2016	+67.5	1.35	0.26
2016	+72.5	0.08	0.10
2016	+77.5	1.22	0.16
2016	+82.5	0.30	0.10
2016	+87.5	0.23	0.03
2016	+92.5	0.00	0.00
2016	+97.5	0.00	0.00
2024	−97.5	0.00	0.00
2024	−92.5	0.00	0.13
2024	−87.5	0.01	0.32
2024	−82.5	0.08	1.03
2024	−77.5	0.28	2.83
2024	−72.5	0.59	4.40
2024	−67.5	1.10	6.49
2024	−62.5	1.51	8.06
2024	−57.5	1.69	6.84
2024	−52.5	2.37	7.61
2024	−47.5	2.40	6.71
2024	−42.5	2.99	6.75
2024	−37.5	3.17	5.59
2024	−32.5	4.02	5.69
2024	−27.5	3.12	4.27
2024	−22.5	4.90	5.04
2024	−17.5	4.24	4.47
2024	−12.5	4.62	3.05
2024	−7.5	4.07	2.47
2024	−2.5	8.27	3.02
2024	+2.5	6.47	2.31
2024	+7.5	3.56	1.73
2024	+12.5	6.13	2.12
2024	+17.5	6.17	1.70
2024	+22.5	5.46	1.57
2024	+27.5	3.95	1.12
2024	+32.5	3.01	1.03
2024	+37.5	3.59	0.77
2024	+42.5	3.97	0.84
2024	+47.5	2.44	0.58
2024	+52.5	1.32	0.32
2024	+57.5	1.54	0.35
2024	+62.5	0.73	0.22
2024	+67.5	1.42	0.29
2024	+72.5	0.19	0.13
2024	+77.5	0.41	0.10
2024	+82.5	0.00	0.00
2024	+87.5	0.21	0.03
2024	+92.5	0.00	0.00
2024	+97.5	0.00	0.00

Views: Share of votes; Share of counties.

Note: Bins run from minus 100 to plus 100 points. Counties beyond that range are not drawn. They matter mainly in 1904, when they hold 1.7% of votes and 8.8% of counties, all of them heavily Democratic counties in a year when the national margin was Republican.

Note: The share within 5 points does not depend on the bin width, because the two bins next to zero make it up.

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/margin_distribution.json

Table 7. In a fixed panel of counties the share rose 38.5 points from 1976 to 2024, against 31.0 for all counties

Share of two-party votes cast in counties at least 20 points from the national margin, percent, for all counties in each election and for a panel of 1,652 counties that report in every election from 1868, through 2024, with a second panel from 1872 in the second view

Counties	Election	Share of votes in far counties (%)	Counties	Share of the election's votes in these counties (%)	Note
All counties	1868	42.3	1,696	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1868	42.0	1,652	99.1	n/a
All counties	1872	50.8	2,160	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1872	50.1	1,652	90.8	n/a
1872 panel	1872	50.5	2,068	98.3	n/a
All counties	1876	38.1	2,230	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1876	34.4	1,652	90.3	n/a
1872 panel	1876	38.1	2,068	97.7	n/a
All counties	1880	38.1	2,291	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1880	33.0	1,652	89.4	n/a
1872 panel	1880	37.4	2,068	96.3	n/a
All counties	1884	30.8	2,351	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1884	29.8	1,652	86.9	n/a
1872 panel	1884	29.8	2,068	95.5	n/a
All counties	1888	29.9	2,429	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1888	27.3	1,652	86.7	n/a
1872 panel	1888	28.8	2,068	94.7	n/a
All counties	1892	33.4	2,658	100.0	Third-party year
1868 panel	1892	29.0	1,652	87.1	Third-party year
1872 panel	1892	34.6	2,068	93.4	Third-party year
All counties	1896	41.1	2,715	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1896	37.2	1,652	83.5	n/a
1872 panel	1896	38.5	2,068	90.4	n/a
All counties	1900	32.9	2,711	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1900	28.4	1,652	83.4	n/a
1872 panel	1900	31.0	2,068	89.7	n/a
All counties	1904	48.1	2,723	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1904	45.5	1,652	84.2	n/a
1872 panel	1904	46.6	2,068	89.0	n/a
All counties	1908	32.9	2,856	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1908	28.9	1,652	81.3	n/a
1872 panel	1908	32.4	2,068	86.3	n/a
All counties	1912	49.9	2,943	100.0	Third-party year
1868 panel	1912	46.8	1,652	79.9	Third-party year
1872 panel	1912	48.9	2,068	85.2	Third-party year
All counties	1916	29.8	3,022	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1916	22.0	1,652	79.2	n/a
1872 panel	1916	26.4	2,068	84.0	n/a
All counties	1920	44.0	3,054	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1920	43.2	1,652	81.3	n/a
1872 panel	1920	44.2	2,068	85.4	n/a
All counties	1924	61.3	3,083	100.0	Third-party year
1868 panel	1924	52.2	1,652	81.1	Third-party year
1872 panel	1924	55.8	2,068	85.7	Third-party year
All counties	1928	39.0	3,097	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1928	36.1	1,652	81.2	n/a
1872 panel	1928	37.5	2,068	85.2	n/a
All counties	1932	40.9	3,096	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1932	37.2	1,652	80.2	n/a
1872 panel	1932	38.6	2,068	84.4	n/a
All counties	1936	39.2	3,095	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1936	34.6	1,652	81.1	n/a
1872 panel	1936	36.6	2,068	84.9	n/a
All counties	1940	33.3	3,094	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1940	28.9	1,652	80.4	n/a
1872 panel	1940	29.9	2,068	84.4	n/a
All counties	1944	33.9	3,095	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1944	33.1	1,652	81.3	n/a
1872 panel	1944	33.3	2,068	85.1	n/a
All counties	1948	28.6	3,096	100.0	Third-party year
1868 panel	1948	25.6	1,652	80.7	Third-party year
1872 panel	1948	27.2	2,068	84.4	Third-party year
All counties	1952	36.8	3,098	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1952	34.6	1,652	78.7	n/a
1872 panel	1952	33.4	2,068	83.6	n/a
All counties	1956	32.5	3,100	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1956	33.4	1,652	78.9	n/a
1872 panel	1956	33.0	2,068	83.6	n/a
All counties	1960	32.8	3,105	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1960	31.6	1,652	78.1	n/a
1872 panel	1960	32.1	2,068	83.0	n/a
All counties	1964	32.5	3,107	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1964	29.1	1,652	76.3	n/a
1872 panel	1964	31.1	2,068	82.0	n/a
All counties	1968	37.2	3,111	100.0	Third-party year
1868 panel	1968	35.4	1,652	76.3	Third-party year
1872 panel	1968	36.2	2,068	81.8	Third-party year
All counties	1972	31.6	3,110	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1972	30.0	1,652	74.0	n/a
1872 panel	1972	30.9	2,068	80.8	n/a
All counties	1976	25.5	3,113	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1976	22.0	1,652	72.4	n/a
1872 panel	1976	22.5	2,068	79.9	n/a
All counties	1980	33.8	3,112	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1980	30.8	1,652	70.8	n/a
1872 panel	1980	30.3	2,068	79.1	n/a
All counties	1984	35.9	3,114	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1984	31.4	1,652	70.1	n/a
1872 panel	1984	30.0	2,068	78.6	n/a
All counties	1988	35.8	3,114	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	1988	32.4	1,652	69.6	n/a
1872 panel	1988	32.1	2,068	78.4	n/a
All counties	1992	38.6	3,115	100.0	Third-party year
1868 panel	1992	33.5	1,652	69.5	Third-party year
1872 panel	1992	37.5	2,068	78.5	Third-party year
All counties	1996	37.9	3,114	100.0	Third-party year
1868 panel	1996	37.4	1,652	68.2	Third-party year
1872 panel	1996	39.4	2,068	77.5	Third-party year
All counties	2000	45.3	3,114	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	2000	44.2	1,652	67.8	n/a
1872 panel	2000	45.1	2,068	77.4	n/a
All counties	2004	46.9	3,114	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	2004	48.0	1,652	67.1	n/a
1872 panel	2004	47.0	2,068	76.9	n/a
All counties	2008	47.3	3,114	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	2008	48.5	1,652	66.4	n/a
1872 panel	2008	47.7	2,068	76.7	n/a
All counties	2012	50.5	3,114	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	2012	50.7	1,652	65.8	n/a
1872 panel	2012	51.8	2,068	76.2	n/a
All counties	2016	58.8	3,113	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	2016	60.3	1,652	65.2	n/a
1872 panel	2016	61.2	2,068	76.0	n/a
All counties	2020	56.6	3,113	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	2020	59.4	1,652	64.0	n/a
1872 panel	2020	60.4	2,068	74.9	n/a
All counties	2024	56.5	3,113	100.0	n/a
1868 panel	2024	60.5	1,652	63.5	n/a
1872 panel	2024	61.0	2,068	74.7	n/a

Views: Panel from 1868 (main = true); Adding the panel from 1872.

Note: A panel keeps the counties with a positive two-party vote in every election from its first year. The panel from 1868 lacks every state admitted after 1868 and every county created later; the panel from 1872 keeps Florida, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia and lacks the later ones.

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/fixed_panel.json

Table 8. The spread of state margins around the national margin rose from 9.4 points in 1976 to 17.2 in 2024

Vote-weighted standard deviation of two-party margins, percentage points: county margins around the national margin, state margins around the national margin, and county margins around their own state's margin, 1868 to 2024

Measure	Election	Standard deviation (points)	Units	Note
All counties	1868	30.6	1,696	n/a
Between states	1868	18.3	33	n/a
Within states	1868	24.6	1,696	n/a
All counties	1872	34.4	2,160	n/a
Between states	1872	21.1	37	n/a
Within states	1872	27.2	2,160	n/a
All counties	1876	26.8	2,230	n/a
Between states	1876	15.2	37	n/a
Within states	1876	22.1	2,230	n/a
All counties	1880	26.8	2,291	n/a
Between states	1880	16.5	38	n/a
Within states	1880	21.1	2,291	n/a
All counties	1884	24.3	2,351	n/a
Between states	1884	14.1	38	n/a
Within states	1884	19.8	2,351	n/a
All counties	1888	24.5	2,429	n/a
Between states	1888	15.9	38	n/a
Within states	1888	18.7	2,429	n/a
All counties	1892	30.9	2,658	Third-party year
Between states	1892	25.5	44	Third-party year
Within states	1892	17.4	2,658	Third-party year
All counties	1896	33.0	2,715	n/a
Between states	1896	27.6	45	n/a
Within states	1896	18.1	2,715	n/a
All counties	1900	25.3	2,711	n/a
Between states	1900	17.9	45	n/a
Within states	1900	17.9	2,711	n/a
All counties	1904	32.4	2,723	n/a
Between states	1904	26.4	45	n/a
Within states	1904	18.9	2,723	n/a
All counties	1908	26.1	2,856	n/a
Between states	1908	20.0	46	n/a
Within states	1908	16.8	2,856	n/a
All counties	1912	30.6	2,943	Third-party year
Between states	1912	23.5	47	Third-party year
Within states	1912	19.7	2,943	Third-party year
All counties	1916	25.3	3,022	n/a
Between states	1916	19.6	48	n/a
Within states	1916	16.0	3,022	n/a
All counties	1920	29.8	3,054	n/a
Between states	1920	24.7	48	n/a
Within states	1920	16.7	3,054	n/a
All counties	1924	37.0	3,083	Third-party year
Between states	1924	31.8	48	Third-party year
Within states	1924	18.8	3,083	Third-party year
All counties	1928	25.6	3,097	n/a
Between states	1928	15.9	48	n/a
Within states	1928	20.0	3,097	n/a
All counties	1932	26.4	3,096	n/a
Between states	1932	19.5	48	n/a
Within states	1932	17.7	3,096	n/a
All counties	1936	24.9	3,095	n/a
Between states	1936	15.7	48	n/a
Within states	1936	19.4	3,095	n/a
All counties	1940	25.8	3,094	n/a
Between states	1940	18.2	48	n/a
Within states	1940	18.3	3,094	n/a
All counties	1944	25.1	3,095	n/a
Between states	1944	16.8	48	n/a
Within states	1944	18.7	3,095	n/a
All counties	1948	22.6	3,096	Third-party year
Between states	1948	12.9	48	Third-party year
Within states	1948	18.6	3,096	Third-party year
All counties	1952	22.5	3,098	n/a
Between states	1952	12.6	48	n/a
Within states	1952	18.7	3,098	n/a
All counties	1956	21.4	3,100	n/a
Between states	1956	10.9	48	n/a
Within states	1956	18.4	3,100	n/a
All counties	1960	20.9	3,105	n/a
Between states	1960	8.8	49	n/a
Within states	1960	19.0	3,105	n/a
All counties	1964	22.2	3,107	n/a
Between states	1964	16.4	50	n/a
Within states	1964	14.9	3,107	n/a
All counties	1968	23.3	3,111	Third-party year
Between states	1968	13.6	50	Third-party year
Within states	1968	18.9	3,111	Third-party year
All counties	1972	20.5	3,110	n/a
Between states	1972	13.4	50	n/a
Within states	1972	15.5	3,110	n/a
All counties	1976	18.4	3,113	n/a
Between states	1976	9.4	50	n/a
Within states	1976	15.7	3,113	n/a
All counties	1980	20.9	3,112	n/a
Between states	1980	11.4	50	n/a
Within states	1980	17.5	3,112	n/a
All counties	1984	21.7	3,114	n/a
Between states	1984	10.4	50	n/a
Within states	1984	19.0	3,114	n/a
All counties	1988	21.3	3,114	n/a
Between states	1988	10.3	50	n/a
Within states	1988	18.7	3,114	n/a
All counties	1992	22.1	3,115	Third-party year
Between states	1992	10.9	50	Third-party year
Within states	1992	19.2	3,115	Third-party year
All counties	1996	23.6	3,114	Third-party year
Between states	1996	13.1	50	Third-party year
Within states	1996	19.6	3,114	Third-party year
All counties	2000	26.5	3,114	n/a
Between states	2000	15.5	50	n/a
Within states	2000	21.5	3,114	n/a
All counties	2004	27.3	3,114	n/a
Between states	2004	14.9	50	n/a
Within states	2004	23.0	3,114	n/a
All counties	2008	28.8	3,114	n/a
Between states	2008	16.2	50	n/a
Within states	2008	23.8	3,114	n/a
All counties	2012	31.1	3,114	n/a
Between states	2012	17.4	50	n/a
Within states	2012	25.7	3,114	n/a
All counties	2016	35.9	3,113	n/a
Between states	2016	19.3	50	n/a
Within states	2016	30.3	3,113	n/a
All counties	2020	34.0	3,113	n/a
Between states	2020	18.3	50	n/a
Within states	2020	28.6	3,113	n/a
All counties	2024	32.7	3,113	n/a
Between states	2024	17.2	50	n/a
Within states	2024	27.9	3,113	n/a

Note: States are the states and the District of Columbia with returns in the election; a state's margin is its summed two-party margin. The number of states is 33 in 1868, when four Confederate states have no returns, and 50 in both 1976 and 2024, so the between-state series compares the same units in those two elections. The within-state series is measured on counties. The 1872 values rest on Reconstruction-era returns.

Data: vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/states_and_counties.json

All estimates

Every fact in facts.json (160), sorted by id. The same values as JSON: facts.json.

Fact id	Value	Unit	Estimand	Population	Period	Interval	n	Weights	Source	Note
all_fall_2016_2024	2.3	percentage points of the share of votes	fall in the share of votes cast in far counties, all counties	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2016 to 2024			none (full counts)	County election returns	Difference of the two rounded shares.
all_rise_1976_2024	31.0	percentage points of the share of votes	rise in the share of votes cast in far counties, all counties	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024 against 1976			none (full counts)	County election returns	Difference of the two rounded shares.
band	5	percentage points of two-party margin	distance from the national margin that makes a county near	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
big_step_cut	7	percentage points of the share of votes	size of a large step	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1980-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
bin_alt	10	percentage points of two-party margin	a wider bin of the county margin relative to the national margin, used to test the height of the ridges	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
bin_width	5	percentage points of two-party margin	width of a bin of the county margin relative to the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
chg_1980	+8.3	percentage points of the share of votes	change in the share of votes cast in far counties from the previous election	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1980 against 1976			none (full counts)	County election returns	Difference of the two rounded shares.
chg_2000	+7.4	percentage points of the share of votes	change in the share of votes cast in far counties from the previous election	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2000 against 1996			none (full counts)	County election returns	Difference of the two rounded shares.
chg_2016	+8.3	percentage points of the share of votes	change in the share of votes cast in far counties from the previous election	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2016 against 2012			none (full counts)	County election returns	Difference of the two rounded shares.
chg_other_max	3.2	percentage points of the share of votes	largest absolute change in the share from the previous election among the other elections since 1976	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1984-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns	Difference of the two rounded shares.
confed_c_1976	50.7%	percent of counties	share of counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	1976			none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_contrib_1904	18.4%	percent of votes cast in far counties	share of the nation's votes in far counties that were cast in the former Confederacy	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	1904			none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_contrib_2024	33.4%	percent of votes cast in far counties	share of the nation's votes in far counties that were cast in the former Confederacy	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_dem_far_1904	83.5%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the region's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points more Democratic than the nation	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	1904		1,000	none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_dem_far_1940	82.5%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the region's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points more Democratic than the nation	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	1940		1,132	none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_dem_far_2024	16.8%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the region's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points more Democratic than the nation	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	2024		1,142	none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_far_1904	86.3%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the region's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	1904		1,000	none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_far_1924	94.1%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the region's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	1924		1,126	none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_far_1928	52.9%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the region's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	1928		1,134	none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_far_1976	29.6%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the region's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	1976		1,145	none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_far_1980	29.5%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the region's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	1980		1,145	none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_far_2016	65.0%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the region's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	2016		1,142	none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_far_2024	58.0%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the region's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	2024		1,142	none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_far_hi_1976_96	35.2%	percent of the election's two-party votes	highest share of the region's votes cast in far counties over the six elections	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	1976-1996			none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_far_lo_1976_96	29.5%	percent of the election's two-party votes	lowest share of the region's votes cast in far counties over the six elections	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	1976-1996			none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_far_min	67.0%	percent of the election's two-party votes	lowest share of the region's votes cast in far counties	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	1892-1944 except 1928			none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_rep_far_2024	41.2%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the region's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points more Republican than the nation	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	2024		1,142	none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_vote_1904	10.2%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the nation's two-party votes cast in the former Confederacy	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	1904			none (full counts)	County election returns
confed_vote_2024	32.5%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the nation's two-party votes cast in the former Confederacy	counties in the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Alaska excluded	2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
corr_abs_margin	−0.07	correlation coefficient	correlation across elections between the absolute national two-party margin and the share of votes cast in far counties	the 33 elections that are not third-party years	1868-2024	95% CI −0.40 to 0.28	33	none (full counts)	County election returns	Pearson correlation; the interval is a Fisher z interval that treats the elections as independent, and adjacent elections are not independent.
corr_from2000	−0.12	correlation coefficient	correlation across elections between the absolute national two-party margin and the share of votes cast in far counties	the 7 elections from 2000 to 2024 (none is a third-party year)	2000-2024	95% CI −0.80 to 0.70	7	none (full counts)	County election returns	Pearson correlation; the interval is a Fisher z interval that treats the elections as independent, and adjacent elections are not independent.
corr_pre2000	+0.42	correlation coefficient	correlation across elections between the absolute national two-party margin and the share of votes cast in far counties	the 26 elections from 1868 to 1996 that are not third-party years	1868-1996	95% CI 0.04 to 0.70	26	none (full counts)	County election returns	Pearson correlation; the interval is a Fisher z interval that treats the elections as independent, and adjacent elections are not independent.
cov_panel72_2024	74.7%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the election's two-party votes cast in the larger fixed panel	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 39 elections from 1872, Alaska excluded	2024		2,068	none (full counts)	County election returns
cov_panel_1868	99.1%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the election's two-party votes cast in the fixed panel	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 40 elections, Alaska excluded	1868		1,652	none (full counts)	County election returns
cov_panel_2024	63.5%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the election's two-party votes cast in the fixed panel	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 40 elections, Alaska excluded	2024		1,652	none (full counts)	County election returns
cut	20	percentage points of two-party margin	distance from the national margin that makes a county far	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
cut_15	15	percentage points of two-party margin	alternative distance from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
cut_25	25	percentage points of two-party margin	alternative distance from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
cut_30	30	percentage points of two-party margin	alternative distance from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
cut_very	40	percentage points of two-party margin	distance from the national margin that makes a county very far	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
dist_lim	100	percentage points of two-party margin	distance from the national margin beyond which a county is not drawn	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
fall_max	0.7	percentage points of the share of votes	largest fall in the share from the previous election between 1976 and 2016	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1980-2016			none (full counts)	County election returns	Difference of the two rounded shares.
far15_v_1916	37.8%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 15 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1916			none (full counts)	County election returns
far15_v_1976	38.3%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 15 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976			none (full counts)	County election returns
far_c_1976	37.3%	percent of counties	share of counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_c_1988	35.8%	percent of counties	share of counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1988		3,114	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_c_2024	79.1%	percent of counties	share of counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_dem_c_1976	704	counties	count of counties 20 or more points more Democratic than the nation	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_dem_c_2024	229	counties	count of counties 20 or more points more Democratic than the nation	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_dem_v_1976	13.2%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points more Democratic than the nation	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_dem_v_2024	28.2%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points more Democratic than the nation	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_rep_c_1976	456	counties	count of counties 20 or more points more Republican than the nation	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_rep_c_2024	2,234	counties	count of counties 20 or more points more Republican than the nation	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_rep_v_1976	12.3%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points more Republican than the nation	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_rep_v_2024	28.2%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points more Republican than the nation	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_size_ratio_2024	9.8	ratio of mean two-party votes per county	mean two-party votes in a county at least 20 points more Democratic than the nation over the mean in a county at least 20 points more Republican	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_v_1868	42.3%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868		1,696	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_v_1872	50.8%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1872		2,160	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_v_1904	48.1%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1904		2,723	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_v_1924	61.3%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1924		3,083	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_v_1972	31.6%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1972		3,110	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_v_1976	25.5%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_v_1984	35.9%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1984		3,114	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_v_2016	58.8%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2016		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_v_2020	56.6%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2020		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
far_v_2024	56.5%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
gap_2024_mid_hi	15.6	percentage points of the share of votes	share of votes cast in far counties in 2024 minus the highest share among the elections from 1928 to 1972 that are not third-party years	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024 against 1928-1972			none (full counts)	County election returns	Difference of the two rounded shares.
mark50	50%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of a region's votes that marks a majority	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
med_abs_1976	14.4	points of two-party margin	median over counties of the absolute county two-party margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976			none (full counts)	County election returns	Raw basis: the county's own margin, not its margin relative to the nation; each county counts once.
med_abs_2024	43.9	points of two-party margin	median over counties of the absolute county two-party margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024			none (full counts)	County election returns	Raw basis: the county's own margin, not its margin relative to the nation; each county counts once.
mid_hi	40.9%	percent of the election's two-party votes	highest share of votes cast in far counties	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1928-1972 except third-party years			none (full counts)	County election returns
mid_lo	31.6%	percent of the election's two-party votes	lowest share of votes cast in far counties	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1928-1972 except third-party years			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_big_steps	3	presidential elections	count of elections that raised the share by more than 7 points	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1980-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_close_1976	591	counties	count of counties whose own margin is within 5 points of an even split	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976			none (full counts)	County election returns	Raw basis: the county's own margin, not its margin relative to the nation.
n_close_2024	155	counties	count of counties whose own margin is within 5 points of an even split	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024			none (full counts)	County election returns	Raw basis: the county's own margin, not its margin relative to the nation.
n_counties_1868	1,696	counties	count of counties with two-party returns	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_counties_1976	3,113	counties	count of counties with two-party returns	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_counties_2024	3,113	counties	count of counties with two-party returns	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_elections	40	presidential elections	count of elections	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_far_c_2024	2,463	counties	count of counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
n_from2000	7	presidential elections	count of elections from 2000 that are not third-party years	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2000-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_map_units	3,113	counties	count of counties drawn on the map, Alaska excluded	counties on the 2020 map, Alaska excluded	2020 boundaries			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_panel	1,652	counties	count of counties in the fixed panel	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 40 elections, Alaska excluded	1868-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_panel72	2,068	counties	count of counties in the larger fixed panel	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 39 elections from 1872, Alaska excluded	1872-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_pre2000	26	presidential elections	count of elections through 1996 that are not third-party years	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-1996			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_rise	10	presidential elections	count of elections between the 1976 low and the 2016 high	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976-2016			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_states_1868	33	states and the District of Columbia	count of states and DC with two-party returns	states and DC with returns in the election, Alaska excluded	1868			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_states_1976	50	states and the District of Columbia	count of states and DC with two-party returns	states and DC with returns in the election, Alaska excluded	1976			none (full counts)	County election returns
n_unflagged	33	presidential elections	count of elections that are not third-party years	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
nat_margin_1904	19.9	points of Republican lead in the two-party margin	absolute national two-party margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1904		2,723	none (full counts)	County election returns
nat_margin_1972	23.6	points of Republican lead in the two-party margin	absolute national two-party margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1972			none (full counts)	County election returns
nat_margin_1984	18.3	points of Republican lead in the two-party margin	absolute national two-party margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1984		3,114	none (full counts)	County election returns
nat_margin_2020	4.6	points of Democratic lead in the two-party margin	absolute national two-party margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2020		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
near5_c_1976	18.9%	percent of counties	share of counties within 5 points of the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
near5_c_2016	4.4%	percent of counties	share of counties within 5 points of the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2016		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
near5_c_2024	5.3%	percent of counties	share of counties within 5 points of the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
near5_v_1904	13.5%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties within 5 points of the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1904		2,723	none (full counts)	County election returns
near5_v_1976	22.9%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties within 5 points of the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
near5_v_2016	9.4%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties within 5 points of the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2016		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
near5_v_2024	14.7%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties within 5 points of the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
nodata_1876	885	counties	count of map counties with no return, drawn as no data	counties on the 2020 map, Alaska excluded	1876			none (full counts)	County election returns
nodata_1904	393	counties	count of map counties with no return, drawn as no data	counties on the 2020 map, Alaska excluded	1904			none (full counts)	County election returns
nodata_other_max	26	counties	largest count of map counties with no return among the other five frames	counties on the 2020 map, Alaska excluded	1940, 1976, 2000, 2016 and 2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
north_max_1904	46.8%	percent of the election's two-party votes	highest regional share of votes cast in far counties	counties in the Northeast, Midwest and West, Alaska excluded	1904			none (full counts)	County election returns
north_min_1904	37.5%	percent of the election's two-party votes	lowest regional share of votes cast in far counties	counties in the Northeast, Midwest and West, Alaska excluded	1904			none (full counts)	County election returns
other_c_max_1976	45.7%	percent of counties	highest regional share of counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties in the four other regions, Alaska excluded	1976			none (full counts)	County election returns
pan72_far_1976	22.5%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the panel's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the panel's own margin	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 39 elections from 1872, Alaska excluded	1976		2,068	none (full counts)	County election returns
pan72_far_2024	61.0%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the panel's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the panel's own margin	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 39 elections from 1872, Alaska excluded	2024		2,068	none (full counts)	County election returns
pan_chg_2016_2024	+0.2	percentage points of the share of votes	change in the share of the panel's votes cast in far counties	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 40 elections, Alaska excluded	2016 to 2024		1,652	none (full counts)	County election returns	Difference of the two rounded shares.
pan_far_1868	42.0%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the panel's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the panel's own margin	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 40 elections, Alaska excluded	1868		1,652	none (full counts)	County election returns
pan_far_1904	45.5%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the panel's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the panel's own margin	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 40 elections, Alaska excluded	1904		1,652	none (full counts)	County election returns
pan_far_1916	22.0%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the panel's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the panel's own margin	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 40 elections, Alaska excluded	1916		1,652	none (full counts)	County election returns
pan_far_1976	22.0%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the panel's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the panel's own margin	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 40 elections, Alaska excluded	1976		1,652	none (full counts)	County election returns
pan_far_2016	60.3%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the panel's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the panel's own margin	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 40 elections, Alaska excluded	2016		1,652	none (full counts)	County election returns
pan_far_2020	59.4%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the panel's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the panel's own margin	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 40 elections, Alaska excluded	2020		1,652	none (full counts)	County election returns
pan_far_2024	60.5%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the panel's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the panel's own margin	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 40 elections, Alaska excluded	2024		1,652	none (full counts)	County election returns
pan_far_max_before_2016	52.2%	percent of the election's two-party votes	highest share of the panel's votes cast in far counties before 2016	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 40 elections, Alaska excluded	1868-2012			none (full counts)	County election returns
pan_rise_1976_2024	38.5	percentage points of the share of votes	rise in the share of the panel's votes cast in far counties	the fixed panel of counties with a positive two-party vote in all 40 elections, Alaska excluded	2024 against 1976		1,652	none (full counts)	County election returns	Difference of the two rounded shares.
raw20_v_1972	59.0%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties whose own margin is 20 or more points from an even split	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1972		3,110	none (full counts)	County election returns	Raw basis: the county's own margin, not its margin relative to the nation.
raw20_v_1976	26.7%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties whose own margin is 20 or more points from an even split	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns	Raw basis: the county's own margin, not its margin relative to the nation.
raw20_v_2004	48.2%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties whose own margin is 20 or more points from an even split	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2004		3,114	none (full counts)	County election returns	Raw basis: the county's own margin, not its margin relative to the nation.
raw5_v_1976	23.4%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties whose own margin is within 5 points of an even split	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns	Raw basis: the county's own margin, not its margin relative to the nation.
raw5_v_2024	13.2%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties whose own margin is within 5 points of an even split	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns	Raw basis: the county's own margin, not its margin relative to the nation.
reg_c_max_2024	91.8%	percent of counties	highest regional share of counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties in the region, Alaska excluded	2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
reg_c_min_2024	53.9%	percent of counties	lowest regional share of counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties in the region, Alaska excluded	2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
reg_max_1976	31.2%	percent of the election's two-party votes	highest regional share of votes cast in far counties	counties in the region, Alaska excluded	1976			none (full counts)	County election returns
reg_max_2024	70.1%	percent of the election's two-party votes	highest regional share of votes cast in far counties	counties in the region, Alaska excluded	2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
reg_min_1976	18.8%	percent of the election's two-party votes	lowest regional share of votes cast in far counties	counties in the region, Alaska excluded	1976			none (full counts)	County election returns
reg_min_2024	52.5%	percent of the election's two-party votes	lowest regional share of votes cast in far counties	counties in the region, Alaska excluded	2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
rest_far_1904	43.7%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the region's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties outside the former Confederacy, Alaska excluded	1904		1,723	none (full counts)	County election returns
rest_far_1976	24.3%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the region's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties outside the former Confederacy, Alaska excluded	1976		1,968	none (full counts)	County election returns
rest_far_1980	35.2%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the region's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties outside the former Confederacy, Alaska excluded	1980		1,967	none (full counts)	County election returns
rest_far_2024	55.7%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of the region's two-party votes cast in counties 20 or more points from the national margin	counties outside the former Confederacy, Alaska excluded	2024		1,971	none (full counts)	County election returns
rest_far_max	49.0%	percent of the election's two-party votes	highest share of the region's votes cast in far counties	counties outside the former Confederacy, Alaska excluded	1868-2012 except third-party years			none (full counts)	County election returns
rise_1976_2016	33.3	percentage points of the share of votes	rise in the share of votes cast in far counties	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2016 against 1976			none (full counts)	County election returns	Difference of the two rounded shares.
sd_all_1976	18.4	percentage points of two-party margin (standard deviation)	vote-weighted standard deviation of county margins around the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
sd_all_2024	32.7	percentage points of two-party margin (standard deviation)	vote-weighted standard deviation of county margins around the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
sd_between_1904	26.4	percentage points of two-party margin (standard deviation)	vote-weighted standard deviation of state margins around the national margin	states and DC, Alaska excluded	1904		45	none (full counts)	County election returns
sd_between_1924	31.8	percentage points of two-party margin (standard deviation)	vote-weighted standard deviation of state margins around the national margin	states and DC, Alaska excluded	1924		48	none (full counts)	County election returns
sd_between_1976	9.4	percentage points of two-party margin (standard deviation)	vote-weighted standard deviation of state margins around the national margin	states and DC, Alaska excluded	1976		50	none (full counts)	County election returns
sd_between_2024	17.2	percentage points of two-party margin (standard deviation)	vote-weighted standard deviation of state margins around the national margin	states and DC, Alaska excluded	2024		50	none (full counts)	County election returns
sd_between_gap	0.7	percentage points of two-party margin (standard deviation)	lowest spread of state margins from 1892 to 1924 minus the spread in 2024	states and DC, Alaska excluded	2024 against 1892-1924			none (full counts)	County election returns	Difference of the two rounded values.
sd_between_min	17.9	percentage points of two-party margin (standard deviation)	lowest vote-weighted standard deviation of state margins around the national margin	states and DC, Alaska excluded	1892-1924			none (full counts)	County election returns
sd_within_1904	18.9	percentage points of two-party margin (standard deviation)	vote-weighted standard deviation of county margins around their own state's margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1904		2,723	none (full counts)	County election returns
sd_within_1924	18.8	percentage points of two-party margin (standard deviation)	vote-weighted standard deviation of county margins around their own state's margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1924		3,083	none (full counts)	County election returns
sd_within_1976	15.7	percentage points of two-party margin (standard deviation)	vote-weighted standard deviation of county margins around their own state's margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
sd_within_2016	30.3	percentage points of two-party margin (standard deviation)	vote-weighted standard deviation of county margins around their own state's margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2016		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
sd_within_2024	27.9	percentage points of two-party margin (standard deviation)	vote-weighted standard deviation of county margins around their own state's margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
sd_within_gap	0.7	percentage points of two-party margin (standard deviation)	spread of county margins around their own state's margin in 2024 minus the highest value before 2000	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024 against 1868-1996			none (full counts)	County election returns	Difference of the two rounded values.
sd_within_prior_max	27.2	percentage points of two-party margin (standard deviation)	highest vote-weighted standard deviation of county margins around their own state's margin before 2000	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-1996			none (full counts)	County election returns
tail_counties_1904	8.8%	percent of counties	share of counties more than 100 points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1904			none (full counts)	County election returns
tail_votes_1904	1.7%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of votes in counties more than 100 points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1904			none (full counts)	County election returns
third_cut	10%	percent of all votes cast	cutoff for a strong third-party vote	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1868-2024			none (full counts)	County election returns
very_v_1924	24.1%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 40 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1924		3,083	none (full counts)	County election returns
very_v_1976	3.7%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 40 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1976		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
very_v_2016	30.2%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 40 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2016		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
very_v_2024	25.2%	percent of the election's two-party votes	share of two-party votes cast in counties 40 or more points from the national margin	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns
within_share_1904	33.9%	percent of the variance of county margins around the nation	share of the vote-weighted variance of county margins that lies within states	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1904		2,723	none (full counts)	County election returns
within_share_1924	25.8%	percent of the variance of county margins around the nation	share of the vote-weighted variance of county margins that lies within states	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	1924		3,083	none (full counts)	County election returns
within_share_2024	72.4%	percent of the variance of county margins around the nation	share of the vote-weighted variance of county margins that lies within states	counties with two-party returns, Alaska excluded	2024		3,113	none (full counts)	County election returns

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.
Percentage point: The unit for the difference between two percentages. A change from one share to another is stated in points, not in percent, so that absolute and relative change are not confused.
Standard deviation: A measure of how far values typically fall from their average. A larger standard deviation means the values are more spread out.
Party sorting: The alignment of party with other traits, such as ideology, religion, race and place, so that people who share a party also tend to share those traits.
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: county presidential returns for the 40 elections from 1868 to 2024 (Algara and Amlani for 1868 to 2020, MIT Election Data and Science Lab for 2024), from the repaired file whose 2024 totals are corrected for 173 counties in South Carolina, Wisconsin and West Virginia. The county handling is that of chapter 10.1: 41 Alaska rows are dropped (Alaska reports election districts and has no returns before 2024), then 50 rows with no FIPS code (defunct counties), 88 rows with no vote count, 53 more rows with two-party votes but no total (chapter 10.1 drops them too; keeping them changes no share by more than 0.2 points) and 74 rows with no two-party votes. A year holds 1,696 to 3,115 counties. Counties are as reported in each election and their boundaries are not harmonized. The District of Columbia enters in 1964, and the 1868 returns lack Florida, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia, so the 1868 values are not on the same set of states as those of 1872. Estimand: the two-party margin is 100 times the Democratic minus the Republican votes over their sum; the national margin is the same quantity on the summed votes of the kept counties; a county's relative margin is its margin minus the national margin of the same election; a county is far when the absolute relative margin is at least 20 points and very far at 40 points. The headline is the share of the election's two-party votes cast in far counties, with a second version that counts each county once. The raw version compares the county's own margin with an even split. Weights: none from a survey, because the returns are full counts; shares of votes weight each county by its two-party votes. Third-party years: elections in which candidates outside the two major-party nominees won at least 10% of all votes (1892, 1912, 1924, 1968, 1992, 1996) and 1948, when a States' Rights ticket won Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina; they are shaded in the figures and not removed. In Alabama in 1948 the returns file records the States' Rights ticket, which held the Democratic line because Truman was not on the ballot, as the Democratic vote, so those votes are in the two-party margin, and the state's total in the file counts them again. Regions: the former Confederacy (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA), Other South (DE, DC, KY, MD, OK, WV), Northeast (CT, ME, MA, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT), Midwest (IL, IN, IA, KS, MI, MN, MO, NE, ND, OH, SD, WI) and West (the rest, without Alaska); the two South groups make up the Census South of chapter 10.1. Robustness: a fixed panel of 1,652 counties with a positive two-party vote in all 40 elections and a panel of 2,068 counties from 1872, each measured against its own summed margin; the vote-weighted standard deviation of county margins around the national margin, split into the standard deviation of state margins around the national margin and of county margins around their own state's margin (the variances add); cutoffs of 15, 25 and 30 points in place of 20. Distribution: shares of votes and of counties in bins of 5 points of relative margin from minus 100 to plus 100. Map: each county's margin minus the national margin is rounded to one decimal place, and a county whose rounded value would fall in another class of the map keeps the fewest further decimals that leave it in the class of its unrounded margin, so the classes count the counties named in the title; the classes break at minus and plus 40, 20 and 5 points. Correlations: Pearson correlations across elections between the absolute national margin and the share of votes cast in far counties, over the 33 elections that are not third-party years, the 26 of them through 1996 and the 7 from 2000. Interval method: none for shares, counts and spreads; a full count has no sampling error, so no confidence interval is reported, and differences between measures come from definitions and the county set, not from chance. The three correlations carry 95% Fisher z intervals that treat the elections as independent, which adjacent elections are not, so the intervals are narrower than they should be. Suppression: a region-year cell needs at least 30 counties, and every cell meets that floor.

What these data cannot show

Returns record where votes were cast.
A county far from the national margin can contain voters of both parties in large numbers, and returns cannot tell voters who changed their choice from people who started or stopped voting or moved in or out, a limit known as ecological inference.
Returns also count votes cast and not residents.
Where the franchise was restricted, as in the former Confederacy for much of the period before the Voting Rights Act, the shares for the region describe the electorate that voted and not the adult population.
Southern returns from the Reconstruction years were collected under contested counts and political violence that the returns do not record.
The two-party margin leaves out the third-party votes in the third-party years, and it cannot say where those voters would have gone.
Counties are as reported in each election and their boundaries are not harmonized, so the fixed panels and the state comparison reduce the concern about unit size and do not remove it.
The panels cover 63.5% and 74.7% of the 2024 votes and are not a sample of the country.
The chapter measures how far counties sit from the nation in each election.
It does not say what a far county is like, how competitive its own contests are, or whether the far counties of 2024 differ from those of 1904 in the kinds of people who live in them.
The series ends with 2024 and makes no forecast.
The share for all counties rose from 1976 to 2016 and has not risen since.
The returns cannot say whether the plateau will hold.

References

Amlani, Sharif; Algara, Carlos (2021). Partisanship & Nationalization in American Elections: Evidence from Presidential, Senatorial, & Gubernatorial Elections in the U.S. Counties, 1872-2020. Electoral Studies 73: 102387. doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2021.102387
Key, V. O., Jr., with the assistance of Alexander Heard (1949). Southern Politics in State and Nation. Alfred A. Knopf.
Hopkins, Daniel J. (2018). The Increasingly United States: How and Why American Political Behavior Nationalized. University of Chicago Press.
Rodden, Jonathan A. (2019). Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide. Basic Books.
Bishop, Bill, with Robert G. Cushing (2008). The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart. Houghton Mifflin.
Abrams, Samuel J.; Fiorina, Morris P. (2012). “The Big Sort” That Wasn’t: A Skeptical Reexamination. PS: Political Science & Politics 45(2): 203-210. doi:10.1017/S1049096512000017

Provenance

Pipeline version: 1.0.0
Build script: book3/chapters/the-landslide-county/build.py (sha256 66fe27dd4140f86d20c0eb2a96e17b034b7f68359fd3bc815fd6e17d9e9e14a6)
Built on: 2026-09-30
Site commit: 16414b2c7257546a7042d0b1734657f208999f60

Inputs

File	Size (bytes)	SHA-256, first 1 MB	SHA-256, last 1 MB
data/county/pres_county_1868_2024.parquet	6,295,675	bec11c7a0cb5d4180bbd6809d048bc892dd00dfcdde527fa4da871b1dd3f835f	b2a4f000f2eea72d09af8939555289e924875cca40cd95ec8869104cd575bed7

Outputs

File	SHA-256
facts.json	90c1469f140b8c5aee48e8089f092252d4becb8478257ca356be0d71c2409f9e
figures/county_counts.json	3729c0ecb6f4ce10a7d27ca531519bc8643b8f638924af27f809b906331a1243
figures/county_margin_map.json	aca94ff8228f0c36785138025ca0fdd08cac52a753fea78bd0098aff621188a9
figures/far_by_region.json	f64edef1158c4bc97e1511c5b3a7597ae38222c1d088b62ae518d5bc82fb033f
figures/far_share.json	d7e4918fda6923a5001f7f38a70b8575ce35016b3998d84a8d18bb5f2ff46a37
figures/fixed_panel.json	8a9c5cec4c962199a6cbd688653b0ca39af0620fd256e20ecef14e4820272aa5
figures/margin_distribution.json	a081d20520413fac757a0f0f7febb77737897ad3bf8b697590049058975a3d3a
figures/states_and_counties.json	51fc58b9d77fa26d54e60b4615ab8cdf4a4b630f68fea6d17fedd9a604942124
figures/step_changes.json	4608cd901bb56a6753ea93f6f5ed9fa5b3fd261a93567982763d7bf7d7d59e54
meta.json	5a49ba1aa7c6a38ecc185a7615baff6fb064ae2e3979ec8b9358c37ed13a74c5
public/data/the-landslide-county/county_margin_map.json	5113ca666ebcca37db1bfaf01158f408cf7853c92e404a5c9edc53a504cee801
refs.json	4a329e24f6775c11c567d41dab94baa819a2ec2b2cc011a3e6d1cdfdaddc3199

Machine formats

Report (Markdown): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/the-landslide-county/report.md
Every estimate (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/facts.json
Table 1, figure "far_share" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/far_share.json
Table 2, figure "step_changes" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/step_changes.json
Table 3, figure "far_by_region" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/far_by_region.json
Table 4, figure "county_margin_map" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/county_margin_map.json
Table 5, figure "county_counts" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/county_counts.json
Table 6, figure "margin_distribution" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/margin_distribution.json
Table 7, figure "fixed_panel" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/fixed_panel.json
Table 8, figure "states_and_counties" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/report/the-landslide-county/figures/states_and_counties.json
Payload of "county_margin_map" (JSON): https://vishalsingh.org/politics/data/the-landslide-county/county_margin_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

A low in 1976, a plateau since 2016

The former Confederacy stood apart until 1944; now every region is far

Far counties are mostly Republican by count and even by votes

Fewer votes fall near the national margin, but not steadily

Fixed panels and state margins also show a rise

The far share and the size of the national margin

Several accounts of the rise fit these returns

What these data cannot show

Tables

Table 1. The share of votes cast in counties far from the national margin rose from 25.5% in 1976 to 58.8% in 2016 and was 56.5% in 2024

Table 2. The share rose by more than 7 points in 3 elections after 1976, in 1980, 2000 and 2016, and no other election moved it by more than 3.2

Table 3. The former Confederacy fell from 86.3% of its votes in far counties in 1904 to 58.0% in 2024, and the rest of the country rose to 55.7%

Table 4. In 2024, 79.1% of counties were 20 or more points from the national margin, against 37.3% in 1976

Table 5. In 2024, 229 far Democratic and 2,234 far Republican counties each cast 28.2% of two-party votes

Table 6. The share of votes cast within 5 points of the national margin was 22.9% in 1976, 9.4% in 2016 and 14.7% in 2024

Table 7. In a fixed panel of counties the share rose 38.5 points from 1976 to 2024, against 31.0 for all counties

Table 8. The spread of state margins around the national margin rose from 9.4 points in 1976 to 17.2 in 2024

All estimates

Definitions

Methods

What these data cannot show

References

Provenance

Machine formats