Where Biden’s Primary Showing Was (And Wasn’t) Especially Strong

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE

—As with our current examination of the Republican main, President Biden—like former President Trump—has received most of his contests simply, however some areas stand out.

—The Higher Midwest has been an attention-grabbing area within the Democratic main the place Biden has held up higher in rural areas than in city core counties.

—In some “ancestrally Democratic” states which have closed primaries, there was a small however clear protest vote in opposition to Biden.

— Pennsylvania’s current outcomes on this context principally affirms a few of its longer-term realigning actions.

Now, for the Democratic main…

Final week, we thought-about Donald Trump’s efficiency within the Republican main. After all, Trump ended up dominating what was initially a crowded discipline and has been the presumptive nominee for greater than a month. However after we went into the weeds in every state and checked out the place his 2024 coalition was particularly robust (or weak), some acquainted patterns have been current. Typically talking, whereas Trump’s maintain on rural America stays robust, there are clearly some indicators that he’s persevering with to battle in lots of suburban counties.

So, for this week, we’re doing one thing of a follow-up article and shifting our focus to the Democratic aspect. If the Republican main was a lopsided affair this cycle, the Democratic main has been much more of a cut-and-dry occasion: aside from American Samoa’s caucus—the place entrepreneur Jason Palmer, a former pupil of the Heart’s Director, Larry Sabato, pulled an upset—President Biden has handily received every contest this yr. That mentioned, there was a substantial quantity of media curiosity within the “protest” vote in opposition to Biden, particularly over his overseas coverage, within the context of a number of state contests, notably Michigan and Minnesota (we’ll get to these later).

In our evaluation of the Republican main, we handled the competition as if it have been a two-way race between Trump and his strongest (and we’re being considerably charitable with that descriptor) rival, former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. This was as a result of Haley was Trump’s sole energetic competitor for a lot of the time that the first was dwell, and a two-way format simply made for simpler comparisons throughout the board. Biden, although, lacked a Haley-caliber challenger. In most primaries, his two most seen challengers, Rep. Dean Phillips (D, MN-3) and self-help writer Marianne Williamson, would declare a number of proportion factors every. In another primaries, “uncommitted” can be the only real possibility apart from Biden. In New York, the place voters lacked an “uncommitted” possibility, there was an effort by some Democrats to only depart their poll clean as a type of protest—however as undervotes weren’t accounted for by our state supply, we couldn’t think about them right here.

So, with that in thoughts, for our evaluation this week, we’re wanting on the Biden vs “Not Biden” vote, with the latter class encompassing all votes forged for somebody apart from Biden.

With that background, Map 1 considers how Biden carried out in every county in comparison with his general share in every state. In blue counties, Biden’s share was greater than his general statewide share whereas the reverse was the case in orange counties. Map 1 excludes states which have held caucuses and contains each main state the place Biden confronted at the very least some opposition aside from Pennsylvania, which voted on Tuesday and continues to be processing votes (though we’ll have some temporary feedback and maps particularly for the Keystone State afterward).

Map 1: Counties the place Biden was over/below his complete share in every main state

(Click on on the map for a bigger model)

Earlier than we get into our extra particular observations, we might observe once more, considering greater image, that the Democratic main was hardly aggressive. Biden’s vote share exceeded 90% in about one-third of the practically 2,000 counties/equivalents that Map 1 considers—his share was at or above 85% in 60% of the counties. So Biden’s excessive start line signifies that, in most counties the place he did particularly effectively, he simply didn’t have that a lot room to beat his general quantity in most states. That is one purpose why there may be a lot extra darkish orange than darkish blue on the map.

The one huge exception to this rule, although, was Minnesota. Statewide, “Uncommitted” obtained virtually 19% of the vote, and its help was concentrated within the core Twin Cities metro counties—in Hennepin County, for example, it took 25% countywide and 37% in Minneapolis correct. Exterior the fast neighborhood of the Twin Cities, the one county the place Biden ran below his statewide share was Rice, which is close to Carleton School, the place the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D) taught political science earlier than his time in elected workplace. With a number of counties successfully weighing down his statewide share, Biden was above his general quantity in 83 of Minnesota’s 87 counties; he additionally ran at the very least 10 proportion factors over his statewide share in 36 counties.

A few of the darkest blue counties in Minnesota have been concentrated within the rural northwest—although she dropped out earlier than her dwelling state’s main in 2020, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) additionally had some notable energy there. Actually, Klobuchar’s greatest county from 2020, Crimson Lake, was additionally Biden’s greatest county, in relative phrases, nationally on Map 1. We’d additionally observe that this doesn’t imply we count on Biden to truly carry most of these areas within the common election—Crimson Lake County was two-to-one for Trump in 2020, and Klobuchar might effectively lose it for the primary time in her profession later this yr —however it does illustrate that the “city” protest vote made these rural areas seem comparatively extra pro-Biden within the context of the first.

One final observe on Minnesota: it was, after all, Phillips’s dwelling state. Phillips, who was nonetheless an energetic candidate when the state voted on Tremendous Tuesday, carried out a number of factors higher in his MN-3 than he did statewide—he took 14% in his district whereas pulling lower than 8% general. However as a result of the Uncommitted vote was decrease in MN-3 than within the adjoining MN-5, which has Minneapolis correct, Biden’s share in MN-3 (69.95%) about matched his general exhibiting in Minnesota (70.12%).

Although it was one thing of an excessive case, Minnesota’s basic dynamic was at play all through the Higher Midwest. In Michigan, which had a extra publicized, if in the end much less impactful, Uncommitted effort than Minnesota, Biden confirmed some relative weak point in city areas. Some notable counties the place Biden was below his state share have been Wayne (Detroit and Dearborn), Washtenaw (Ann Arbor and the College of Michigan), Ingham (Lansing and Michigan State College), and Kent (Grand Rapids). Biden ran greater than 5 proportion factors above his general share in a number of rural counties in northern Michigan, and in addition overperformed in some massive suburban counties, notably Oakland in suburban Detroit and Ottawa immediately west of Grand Rapids.

In Wisconsin, Biden was equally below his general share within the state’s most Democratic counties, Dane (Madison and the College of Wisconsin) and Milwaukee. Apparently sufficient, a number of counties within the northwest, which share a media market with the Twin Cities, have been additionally orange on the map.

With states like Minnesota and Michigan in thoughts, it does appear that Biden’s relative weak point in some huge metropolis/campus areas does dovetail with some polling exhibiting him with softness amongst some key Democratic constituencies (particularly, younger individuals and nonwhite voters).

Trying on the main returns of their entirety, an open vs. closed main distinction appeared to materialize. Although there have been some exceptions, states the place the pro-Biden coalition was most “rural” tended to have open primaries whereas the pro-Biden vote was extra “city” in closed main states.

This rule holds true for the three Higher Midwest states that we talked about earlier—Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin all have open primaries. We might additionally level to our state, Virginia. Although Biden confirmed some weak point alongside the Appalachian Blue Ridge mountains, most of Northern Virginia’s massive localities are orange.

Simply to our southwest, in Tennessee, which can also be open, Biden was below his statewide share in three of the state’s 4 most populous counties. The only real exception, Memphis’s Shelby County, has the most important Black inhabitants, a gaggle that has been maybe Biden’s most loyal bloc within the main.

Closed main states the place Biden was particularly weak in rural areas included Louisiana and Oklahoma. Each states are overwhelmingly Republican on the whole elections, however the former continues to be plurality-Democratic by registration, and Republicans solely claimed a registration benefit within the latter lower than a decade in the past. So each states retain noticeable “ancestrally Democratic” blocs—these voters don’t have any intention of backing Biden within the fall, and as registered Democrats, voted in opposition to him within the main. In 2016, Bernie Sanders benefitted from this dynamic: as he misplaced the Louisiana main by virtually 50 factors to Hillary Clinton, he carried La Salle and Cameron parishes, each of that are darkish orange on Map 1. Sanders additionally ran effectively within the historically Democratic elements of rural Oklahoma the place Biden was effectively below his statewide share this yr.

Elsewhere, some predictable traits appeared no matter main format. In Maine, which is successfully closed, Biden was weakest in Obama-to-Trump Aroostook County and in Texas, which is open, the closely Hispanic southern a part of the state, which swung to Trump in 2020, has among the darkest shades of orange on the map. Biden was below his statewide exhibiting in a lot of rural west Texas, however we suspect these sparsely populated counties are simply “noisy”—that is most likely the case for a lot of western Kansas. The South Texas outcomes, in the meantime, do appear to sq. with Biden’s comparatively poor exhibiting within the area in 2020 (Biden was unopposed within the Florida main, so we don’t have any outcomes there to evaluate Biden in South Florida, one other closely Hispanic space the place Biden did a lot worse than Hillary Clinton had carried out in 2016).

Lastly, we might be remiss to not contact on the latest main, Pennsylvania, given its significance within the Electoral School. Although we didn’t embody it on Map 1—because it voted solely two days in the past, we figured its outcomes would nonetheless be a little bit in flux—Map 2 seems to be at each the closed Democratic and Republican primaries within the Keystone State based mostly on the outcomes from mid-day Wednesday (needless to say each maps exclude write-in votes, which aren’t but accessible from a statewide supply, so the inclusion of these votes might influence the maps, particularly on the Democratic aspect).

Map 2: Biden and Trump’s relative performances within the 2024 Pennsylvania main

Not surprisingly, the 2 maps are practically an identical. As of yesterday, Greene County, a small county that makes up the southwestern nook of the state, was each Trump’s greatest and Biden’s worst county. Although it seems to have excellent mail-in ballots, it might nonetheless retain its superlative standing. Why? As with among the examples from Louisiana and Oklahoma, this was a Democratic-leaning county on the whole elections till the early 2000s and sure nonetheless incorporates voters who’re registered as Democrats—and thus take part in Democratic primaries—however vote as Republicans on the whole elections. Another formerly-Democratic strongholds within the common neighborhood that behaved equally have been Cambria and Fayette counties.

In the meantime, the Philadelphia metro space and far of south-central Pennsylvania was comparatively extra pro-Biden and anti-Trump. Once more, this principally mirrors among the state’s longer-term common election shifts, and it’s additionally potential that there are “ancestral Republicans” on this a part of the state who retain Republican registration however are functionally now Democrats when it comes to common election voting. On a associated observe, yesterday, we moved PA-10, held by Republican Scott Perry, right into a extra aggressive class. On the Republican map, Cumberland County, which is generally within the tenth District, was Trump’s worst county outdoors of the Philadelphia Collar.

So what does all this imply going ahead? Nicely, we’d emphasize that it might be arduous to attract sweeping conclusions from such lopsided primaries. That mentioned, within the common election, we wouldn’t be stunned if, utilizing Pennsylvania for instance, Biden improves within the blue counties however loses floor within the orange ones (and vice versa for Trump).