2012 National and State PVI Bellwether Counties for All 50 States

[cinyc]

Wyoming
State PVI:


Wyoming has one state PVI bellwether county - Natrona (Casper).  It has a R+0.55 state PVI and its trend was small to moderate

National PVI:


R+22 Wyoming has no national PVI bellwether counties.  It does, however, have a D+ national PVI county, Teton (Jackson), which is home to Grand Teton and part of Yellowstone National Parks.

[cinyc]

CONUS
State PVI:


National PVI:

[cinyc]

Connecticut Towns
State PVI:


Connecticut has 11 state PVI bellwether towns.  They range from Danbury in the western part of the state to Hartford-suburban South Windsor and Bristol (home of ESPN), to New Haven-suburban Woodbridge, Branford and Guilford to five towns in the eastern part of the state - Essex, Middlesex County and East Lyme, Groton and Stonington, New London County and Hampton, Windham County.  5 of the 11 state PVI bellwether counties are directly on the Long Island Sound shore.

Of the 11, East Lyme, Stonington, Branford, Guilford, Woodbridge and Bristol trended the least compared to the state over the past two cycles.

In general, as you can see from the map, towns in and around the Naugatuck Valley and, to a lesser extent, in the eastern part of the state tend to be relatively more Republican than the rest.

National PVI:


There are 22 national PVI bellwether towns in Connecticut.  They range from Danbury-suburban Bethel in Fairfield County, to New Milford, Warren and Barkhamsted, Litchfield County, to Hartford County's East Granby, Berlin and Southington, to Cheshire, Naugatuck, Bethany, North Haven and Madison, New Haven County.  In eastern Connecticut, national PVI bellwether towns include Killingworth and Haddam, Middlesex County, Salem, Bozrah, Sprague, North Stonington and Ledyard, New London County, Brooklyn and Pomfret, Windham County and Bolton, Tolland County.  The Foxwoods casino is in Ledyard.  

Of the 22, Bethel, Bozrah, Bethany and Pomfret had PVIs of less than 0.5 and trended least compared to the country over the past two cycles.

[cinyc]

Massachusetts Towns
State PVI:


The overall Massachusetts Town PVI Map shows the general Massachusetts trend - the Berkshires, parts of MetroWest Boston and towns in and around Boston, as well as Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and the larger old mill towns are generally more Democratic than the rest of the state.  

But the labels make the map hard to read and obscure some of the bellwether towns.  As always, you can right click and select "View Image" to see a larger map, but here is a map labelled with just the 16 Massachusetts PVI bellwether towns.  (Some county names are in ovals):



The 16 states that voted most in line with the state average over the past two elections are throughout the state.  Four are suburbs of New Bedford or Fall River in Bristol County: Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Somerset and Westport.  Another 5 are in suburban Boston counties:  Milton, Norfolk County, Wellsely, Carlisle and (the unlabelled) Boxborough, Middlesex County, and Swampscott, Essex County.  Four are in the Pioneer Valley near Springfield: Chicopee, Hampden County and Westhampton, South Hadley and Belchertown, Hampton County.  The others are Harvard, Worcester County, Hancock, Berkshire County and tiny Gosnold, Dukes County, the smallest town in the state.

Of the 16, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Milton, Somerset and South Hadley trended least from 2008 to 2012, compared to the state, but had PVI's greater than 0.5.  No towns met both super PVI criteria.

National PVI:


Again, this nationwide PVI town map probably has too many labels to pick out the nationwide PVI bellwether towns, so I've included a map that just labels the bellwethers below.  Note how, in deep (Atlas) red Massachusetts, dark blue state PVI counties become light blue and light blue PVI counties become Atlas red on the national PVI map.



There are 38 nationwide PVI bellwether towns in Massachusetts - too many to name.  They include 4 suburbs of Springfield, 4 Cape Cod towns, two suburbs of Lawrence and Lowell, near the New Hampshire state line, and 10 Worcester County towns.

Six towns had PVIs of less than 0.5 and minor trends: Blackstone, Chester, Grafton, New Braintree, Plymouth and Webster.  Worcester County's Blackstone, in particular, sticks out with a PVI of D+0.41 and a virtually non-existent trend.

[cinyc]

New Hampshire Towns
State PVI:


Because New Hampshire is long and narrow, a map labeling all towns is way too busy.  Thus, the above map only labeled the state PVI bellwether towns.  Note that towns in white reported no results.

19 New Hampshire towns are state PVI bellwethers.  These towns range from the shore town of Rye and Greenland in Rockingham County, to Barrington, Rochester and Farmington, Strafford County to Francestown and Wilton, Hillsborough County, Allenstown, Pembroke and Northfield, Merrimack County, Tilton, Belknap County, and Shelburne and Lancaster in northern Coos County.  They also include Lyman, Landaff and Grafton, Grafton County, Newport, Sullivan County and Gilsum and Richmond, Cheshire County, along the Connecticut River.

Of the 19, Rochester, Barrington and Wilton had PVIs of less than 0.5 points and trended the least.

National PVI:


Because New Hampshire is a D+1 state, 9 state PVI bellwether towns are also national PVI bellwether towns: Shelburne, Rye, Grafton, Lyman, Rochester, Farmington, Tilton, Allenstown and Wilton.  They are joined by 11 other national PVI bellwethers: Stratham, Epping, Ashland, Strafford, New Hampton, Goshen, Bow, Newbury, Bennington, Lyndborough and Temple.

Of the 20 national PVI bellwethers, 5 stand out as having PVIs of less than 0.5 points and below-average trends: Epping, Grafton, Farmington, Bow and Temple.

To make up for not labeling every town, a map labeling every town that cast 2,500 or more votes in 2012 is below:

[cinyc]

Rhode Island Towns
State PVI:


Little Rhode Island has a lot fewer towns than the other New England states.  Three of Rhode Island's 39 towns qualify as state PVI bellwethers - Bristol and Warren in Bristol County, and North Providence in Providence County.  Of the three, Bristol had the smallest PVI and trend.

Note that Rhode Island suburbs and rural areas are relatively more Republican than most cities.

National PVI:


Rhode Island also has three national PVI bellwether towns: Foster, Smithfield and North Smithfield, all in Providence County.  Of the three, North Smithfield had the smallest PVI and trend.

Note how much Atlas redder the national PVI map is than the state PVI map.

[cinyc]

Vermont Towns
State PVI:


Again, because Vermont is long and narrow, I've only labeled the bellwether towns.  Also, towns colored white reported no results.

There are 20 Vermont PVI bellwether towns: Bethel, Brookline, Cabot, Hardwick, Marshfield and Sudbury with D+ PVIs less than 1 and Brandon, Chester, Eden, Fletcher, Hancock, Randolph, Shoreham, St. Albans City, Stockbridge, Tunbridge, Waterville, West Fairlee, West Windsor and Wilmington with R+ PVIs less than 1.

Of the 20, 5 had PVIs less than 0.5 and minor trends: St. Albans City, Franklin County, Tunbridge, Orange County, West Fairlee, Orange County, West Windsor, Windsor County, and Wilmington, Windham County.

National PVI:


Because Vermont is a D+16 state, it has only 7 national PVI bellwether towns: Lemington and Maidstone, Essex County, Waterford and Groton, Caledonia County, Addison, Addison County, Wells, Rutland County, and Vernon, Windham County.  None are particularly good bellwethers, though.  Waterford is the only one with a small trend, but has a relatively high PVI of D+0.75.

Vermont is so Atlas red that only 7 towns have R+ PVIs: Addison, Lemington, Morgan, Norton, Orange, Searsburg and Stratton.  Mitt Romney only won two towns - Morgan and Maidstone.

Like for New Hampshire, a map showing towns that cast more than 2,500 2012 votes is below:

[cinyc]

**Experimental**

Note: Trying to figure out PVIs for Maine towns is a bit more difficult than the rest of New England.  Unincorporated Maine townships sometimes report results separately, and at other times with the nearest larger incorporated town.  As such, I did not calculate PVIs for townships that only reported results for one cycle.  Also, in order to show unincorporated townships, I am using a shapefile from the State of Maine.  I was able to translate most of the results into that shapefile's list of town names, but am missing about 2000 votes statewide in the 2008 election.  So caveat emptor on these maps.

State PVI:
Because even bellwether-only PVI maps are very busy in Maine, I'm posting two state PVI maps - one with no labels at all and one with most of the bellwethers and counties labeled (county labels are in ovals):




Maine has 35 state PVI bellwether towns - far too many to name here.  Limiting the analysis to super bellwethers - those towns with state PVIs of less than 0.5 and minor trends - leaves 4 super state two-party margin predictors:  Portland-suburban Gorham, Cumberland County, Harpswell, Cumberland County (south of Brunswick on the coast), Surry, Hancock County, and Eliot, York County (on the New Hampshire border).

National PVI:
Again, there are two maps:




Maine has a whopping 51 national PVI bellwether towns.  As you can see from the map, a good number of them are towns along the York/Cumberland County and Oxford County border, ranging from Limington to Summer.  Nevertheless, all these towns are too numerous to name.  

Limiting the analysis to super bellwethers - those towns with state PVIs of less than 0.5 and minor trends from 2008 to 2012 - leaves 10 super national PVI bellwethers: Durham and Sabattus (just east of Lewiston), Androscoggin County, Standish, Cumberland County (just north of state PVI super bellwether Gorham in the Portland area)  Belgrade and Monmouth in Kennebec County, Wiscasset, Lincoln County, Lovell and Porter, Oxford County, Alton, Penobscot County, and The Forks Plantation, Somerset County.

Like for New Hampshire and Vermont, below is a map of Maine towns that cast more than 2,500 votes in 2012:

[cinyc]

**Experimental**

Because it may be competitive in 2016, I've calculated the PVIs for ME-02 (using the 2012 boundaries for 2008 data).  Like with the main Maine maps, I've only calculated PVIs for towns with data from both cycles.

ME-02 PVI


ME-02 has 34 towns that voted within one point of the two-cycle average of the CD the past two cycles.  They range from Sweden to Poland to Moscow, and Caribou, Presque Isle and Fort Fairfield, and many towns in between.  The others are too numerous to name, but most are on the map (except where labels would collide).  

Of the 34, only 3 had PVIs of less than 0.5 and a slight trend from 2008 to 2012 - Moscow, Somerset County, Avon, Franklin County, and Searsport, Waldo County.  These towns could the best predictors of the ME-02 tally on election night.

[cinyc]

**Experimental**

Here are some Michigan town PVI maps.  Note that the Census Bureau's County Subdivision shapefile divides cities that span county into two or more parts.  Usually, Michigan reports results for those cities by county, but I found a few instances where they did not.  Those towns are white on the map.  Also, I had no 2012 results for Grosse Pointe Township.  I'm not sure if it dissolved between 2008 and 2012.  

There are three Michigan maps for each PVI type: one of the Lower Peninsula "mitt", one of the Upper Peninsula, and a Southeast Michigan close-up, since a good portion of the state's population lives there.

Michigan PVI:

LP:


SE:


UP:


62 Michigan towns qualify as Michigan PVI bellwethers.  These range from Detroit-suburban Clinton, Clawson and Allen Park to Sugar Island on the U.P.  Only 3 of these 62 qualify as super-bellwethers with a PVI of less than 0.5 and a minor trend: Marine City, St. Clair County, Crystal Township, Oceana County, and Plainwell, Allegan County.  Marine City is not labeled and in white on the map because its PVI is so low (< D+0.01) that my mapping software rounded its PVI to 0.  It is the white town on the upper far right of the Southeast Michigan map.


National PVI:
LP:


SE:


UP:


Michigan has 107 national PVI bellwether towns.  Some, like Traverse City, are city fragments in only one county.  In Traverse City's case, it's the less-populated part of the city in Leelanau County.  Some of the more well-known national PVI bellwethers include the Grand Rapids suburb of Kentwood, Detroit-suburban Sterling Heights, and Escanaba, Ironwood and Sault Ste. Marie in the U.P.

25 of these 107 towns qualify as super national PVI bellwethers: Crystal Lake, Bedford, Potterville, Branch, St. Ignace, Monroe, Hastings, Sault Ste. Marie, Lyndon, Humboldt, St. Charles, Fraser, St. Clair Shores, Sterling Heights, New Haven, Perry, Sciota, Venice, Belvidere, Cheshire, Clayton, Flushing city, Flushing Township, Clement and Gibraltar.

[cinyc]

New Jersey Towns

Like Michigan, I'm posting two New Jersey town maps, one statewide and one North Jersey closeup.

State PVI:
State:


North Jersey:


New Jersey has 23 state PVI bellwether towns.  In North Jersey, these towns include Elmwood Park, Bergen County, Millburn, Essex County, Secaucus, Hudson County, Roselle Park, Union County and Phillipsburg, Warren County.  They also include Jamesburg and South River, Middlesex County, Bradley Beach and Lake Como, Monmouth County and South Bound Brook, Somerset County in Central Jersey.  Philadelphia-suburban Bordentown, Delanco, Delran and Lumberton, Burlington County, Haddonfield, Laurel Springs and Stratford, Camden County and Monroe, West Deptford and
Westville, Gloucester County make the list, along with South Jersey's Wildwood, Cape May County,
Commercial Township, Cumberland County and Carneys Point, Salem County.

Only one of these 23 towns qualify as a super bellwether - Phillipsburg, Warren County, across the Delaware River from Easton, Pennsylvania.


National PVI:
State:


National:


26 New Jersey towns are national PVI bellwethers, many in North Jersey.  In North Jersey, these towns are Demarest, Lyndhurst, North Arlington, Ridgewood and River Edge, Bergen County, Livingston, Essex County, Califon, Hunterdon County, Boonton and Parsippany-Troy Hills, Morris County, Woodland Park (nee West Paterson), Passaic County and Summit and Westfield, Union County.  Parsippany-Troy Hills' PVI is almost exactly even, turning it white on the map, but the township had a moderate trend from 2008 to 2012, making its PVI misleadingly low.  In Central Jersey, Cranbury and Old Bridge, Middlesex County and  Matawan and Tinton Falls, Monmouth County make the national PVI bellwether list.  Philadelphia-suburban Berlin, Camden County and Elk Township, Franklin Township and Pitman, Gloucester County are on the list, along with 6 South Jersey towns: Somers Point and
Ventnor City, Atlantic County, Cape May Point, Cape May County, Deerfield and Greenwich, Cumberland County and Woodstown, Salem County.

Berlin, Camden County and Cranbury, Middlesex County are the only two super bellwethers of the 26.

[cinyc]

Wisconsin Towns

Wisconsin has over 1,900 towns, cities and villages.  Some are double counted because the census database and (generally) the Wisconsin election results break up cities and villages that cross county lines.  Because of the sheer number of municipalities, the state has over 100 state and national PVI bellwether towns.  Labels clutter up the map, so I posted maps of the state with and without bellwethers.

State PVI:
Bellwethers Labeled:


No Labels:


Wisconsin has 142 state PVI bellwether towns or town fragments - far too many to name.  What's noticeable is the lack of bellwethers in the Milwaukee metropolitan area, due to its polarization.  Only Fox Point, Whitefish Bay and South Milwaukee, Milwaukee County qualify.  Other notable state PVI bellwether towns include the city of Manitowoc in the county of the same name, the town (not the city) of Beloit, Rock County, and Middleton and Bristol, Dane County, near Madison.

Note that there's at least one labeling error - Bloomfield village is not a bellwether - it likely didn't exist in 2008, making its calculated PVI zero, which fools the mapping software.

The 142 state PVI bellwethers can be whittled down to 18 super bellwethers with a PVI of less than 0.5 and a minor trend from 2008 to 2012 compared to the state.  In central and northern Wisconsin, they are the cities of of Alma, Buffalo County, Rice Lake, Barron County, River Falls, St. Croix County, and Waupaca in the county of the same name, the towns of Highland, Douglas County,  Pine Lake, Oneida County, Oulu, Bayfield Couny, and Somo, Lincoln County and Exeland village, Sawyer County.  In Southeast Wisconsin, Somers town, Kenosha County and Fox Point village, Milwaukee County qualify.  The Madison-area super bellwethers are the towns of Lowville, Columbia County, Akan, Richland County, and Bristol, Dane County.  The city of Manitowoc qualifies, as do West Salem village and Shelby town, La Crosse County, and the city of Tomah, Monroe County in the La Crosse area.

I think the Census bureau has Somers town and Somers village, Kenosha County mislabeled on their maps.

National PVI:
Bellwethers Labeled:


No Labels:


Wisconsin has 159 national PVI towns or town fragments - again, far too many to name.  The most prominent of them are West Allis and Wauwatosa, Milwaukee County, Dane and Vienna, Dane County and North Fond du Lac, Fond du Lac County.

Only 17 super bellwethers remain after further filtering the results.  The Madison area is heavily represented, with the towns of Fort Winnebago and Pacific, Columbia County, Jordan, Green County, Crystal Lake, Marquette County, Dayton, Richland County and Bradley, Lincoln County qualifying, along with the town of La Valle town and village of Rock Springs, Sauk County.  Two Southeast Wisconsin towns are super bellwethers - the city of West Allis, Milwaukee County, and Darien village, Walworth County.  Eau Claire-area towns Otter Creek and Tainter, Dunn County make the list, as do La Crosse-area Burns town, La Crosse County, Clifton town, Monroe County, and Chaseburg village, Vernon County.  Rounding out the national super bellwethers are Sturgeon Bay town, Door County and Ripon city, Fond du Lac County, the birthplace of the Republican party.

[cinyc]

As you can tell, this is still a work in progress.  I have all the maps up, and #analysis for the first 10 states, Alabama-Georgia.  That's it for tonight.  The links to those states on the first page now work.

I'm going to try to finish the county map #analysis over the next two days or so, and then will work on town maps if anyone is interested.

Because I pulled the data from literally 100 different sources and pasted it into a huge spreadsheet, there could be errors.  Please tell me if something looks wrong.

[cinyc]

I finished the #analysis for Hawaii-Mississippi.  I also edited the Maryland map because it didn't show results for Baltimore City (both Baltimore County and Baltimore City showed the Baltimore County results on the map). 

I haven't fixed the nationwide or Carto.com maps to reflect the Baltimore City results yet - I will wait to see if there are more obvious errors before doing so.

[Intell]

Great Job!

[Nym90]

Wow, what an incredible project! Thanks for all of your hard work.

[Bismarck]

Wow, what an incredible project! Thanks for all of your hard work.

[cinyc]

I finished the #analysis for Missouri-Rhode Island.  There are only 11 states left to analyze, probably tomorrow.  Note that I had to update the North Dakota state PVI map due to a technical reason - the mapping software rounded the state PVI number to two decimal places, which created some color mismatches.

If you're wondering how the 2012 PVI bellwethers (I think Cook techinically calls them 2014 PVIs, not 2012) compared to the 2008 PVI bellwethers, I did a similar project for states with Senate races in 2010.  That old thread is available here.  Unfortunately, TinyPic ate some of the images.  I still should have them on my computer somewhere and will try to replace the broken links with new maps eventually.  That's one of the reasons why I'm trying to list all of the PVI bellwether counties in the text in this thread - in case the Atlas gallery eats these maps, too.

[cinyc]

The analysis is now done for every state.

I need to update the nationwide map to reflect errors, decide what type of nationwide analysis I want (probably listing the best-fitting national PVI bellwethers - though I'm open to other ideas), and start adding town maps.

[Vern]

Great job man!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Great job man!

[cinyc]

Here is a map of the 106 national PVI bellwether counties - i.e. counties with PVIs of D+1 to R+1.  Due to label collision avoidance, not all counties may be labeled, but I think they are either labeled or shown:



We can try to pick the best of these bellwether counties by limiting them to PVIs of D+0.5 to R+0.5 with a trend of a point or less from 2008 to 2012 relative to the country.  This leaves us with 9 potential Super PVI Bellwether Counties.  You can see them on this map:



These counties, in order of PVI, are:

County	PVI	Trend
Porter, IN	R+0.01	-0.13
Racine, WI	R+0.06	0.48
Latah, ID	D+0.06	-0.93
Los Alamos, NM	R+0.09	-0.42
Plymouth, MA	D+0.17	0.03
Woodruff, AR	D+0.24	0.02
Las Animas, CO	R+0.36	0.99
Loudoun, VA	D+0.39	0.33
McCormick, SC	R+0.39	-0.96

[Senator Cris]

Wow, what a great job!

[cinyc]

I added town maps for Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.  Some of the maps are very busy with the town labels.  You can always get a larger map by right clicking on the map image and selecting "View Image".

I noticed a typo in the "official" 2012 Vermont results on the state's website: Andover supposedly cast only 1 vote in 2012 after casting 317 votes in 2008.  Obviously, that didn't happen.  Atlas has the 2012 votes cast as 59% Obama 37% Romney, with 315 total votes cast.  I used that for the Vermont town map, backing into the Obama and Romney actual votes cast.  If anyone has the actual Andover tally, please post it here or PM me.  

Fortunately, Andover is such a small part of Windsor County that it shouldn't affect the county results much.  I haven't updated the Vermont county or nationwide maps.  I will eventually update the CartoDB map with all of the recent changes, though.

The next town map will likely be of Maine, if I can sort out the differences in the townships that reported in 2008 and 2012 and sideline those that didn't report results for both years.  After that, I might do Michigan and maybe New Jersey, if I can reconcile their results.  These states are less critical than the 5 New England states I posted tonight, since their results are usually reported by county, not town, on election night.

[Nym90]

I show Norton as having voted for Obama in 2012 while Maidstone and Morgan were the only towns won by Romney. Norton has the most Republican PVI though, considering both 2008 and 2012.