The last decade has seen a pointed augment in voter turnout – for both parties. Between the 2012–2020 presidential elections, overall voter turnout increased by 23%, with Democratic turnout increasing by 23% and Republican turnout increasing by 22%.
However, due to the changing distribution of votes, the results were significantly different. The 2012 election was not close: Mitt Romney could not reverse the Electoral College results without erasing Barack Obama’s margin of 481,806 votes in four states (Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Virginia). For comparison, Donald Trump won in 2016 by only 77,736 votes in three states (Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin), and Joe Biden owes his victory in 2020 to an even smaller margin of 42,918 votes in three states (Arizona, Georgia , Wisconsin).
One party’s gains in one voting bloc were largely offset by the other party’s gains in another, leaving the Democrats with a enormous popular vote advantage, but both parties faced a stiff attempt to block the other party from winning enough electoral votes.
One way to assess these changes is to look at the presidential results in each of the 435 congressional districts, helpfully and meticulously calculated by the left-leaning website Daily Kos. All numbers for 2012, 2016, and 2020 are based on 2020 district boundaries of 435 districts and take into account court decisions that have significantly helped Democrats in three states since 2012 (Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania).
In 2012, these districts were closely split: 218 for Romney and 217 for Obama. Political redistricting helped Republicans, while the natural disadvantage in districts of equal population to a party whose votes are concentrated in relatively few areas hurt Democrats. In 2016, Trump did better, carrying 226 districts to Hillary Clinton’s 209.
Where did the biggest party shifts occur in 2012–2020? In 2020, Trump was at least 10% behind Romney in 95 districts and 10% or more ahead in 73. Interestingly, the results in many of the 267 remaining districts look almost the same in both elections. The revolution in party preferences was real, but often exaggerated.
But in 2020, as Trump’s share fell among white voters in marginal districts and rose among Latinos and Blacks, mostly in districts with solid Democratic support, Joe Biden carried 224 districts and Trump had 211. It is no coincidence that in the era of straight voting, Democratic candidates won 222 House and Republican seats 213.
The decline in the percentage of Republicans was greatest in UT3, Utah’s 3rd Congressional District centered on Brigham Young University, and the greatest augment in Republicans was in Ohio’s 6th District, OH6, along the Ohio River across from West Virginia. As I first noted in March 2016, support for Donald Trump is inversely related to social connectedness. The heavily Mormon UT3 district may be the most socially connected congressional district in America, and the oxycontin-affected OH6 may be the smallest in America.
The second-largest augment in the Republican share came in OH13, which includes the long-troubled factory towns of Youngstown and Akron. The second-biggest decline among Republicans was in GA6, an affluent Atlanta suburb that ranks sixth among 435 districts in its college graduation rate.
OH13, once represented by Democratic labor hero Jim Traficant, voted 51% for Donald Trump twice after voting 63% to 35% against Romney. It is a symbol of many working-class neighborhoods that have been popular in Trumpward over the past eight years.
GA6, once represented by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, voted for Romney over Obama by a 61% to 37% margin. But the Democrat nearly won the 2017 special election, was easily flipped in 2018, and then voted 55% to 44% for Biden over Trump. This is typical of many affluent, college-educated neighborhoods in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Austin, and Phoenix, as well as in northern Virginia and Orange County, which rose in the 1990s in the 2010s.
These changes in presidential preferences were echoed in the congressional elections. Eleven of the 20 districts where Republicans suffered the largest percentage losses currently have Democratic House members, even though all but one were easily elected by Republicans over the years. Similarly, 11 of the 20 districts where Republicans made the largest percentage gains currently have Republican congressmen, although only five have solidly Republican heritage.
The partisan conflicts of the past decade have produced neither the long-awaited natural Democratic majority nor the sometimes envisioned MAGA nation. However, it showed that both sides are able to adapt to unforeseen challenges. It also brought the highest voter turnout in over a century.
Michael Barone is a senior political analyst at the Washington Examiner, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.
