Did some snooping; the last time a Democrat won a majority of counties was 1976.
Which is interesting. From 76 to 92 to 08 you get larger overall Democratic wins but a decreasing number of counties won.
1976:
+2.06 1,711 counties won
1992:
+5.56 1,519 counties won
2008:
+7.27 875 counties won!
That last one really jumps out at you. I guess this confirms what we've been seeing for a while. Democrats are becoming the party of cities and suburbs while Republicans are becoming the party of rural areas.
Thanks for the data and sorry about the size of the map!
