Changes in Raw Vote By State

[Pennsylvania Deplorable]

I tend to focus more on the margin of victory as a percentage than the raw vote count, but recently I noticed that Trump actually received more votes than Mitt Romney did in the states of Georgia, Texas, and Arizona which trended democrat in 2016. This got me thinking that maybe the swing came more from democrats mobilizing their base in those states with the prospect of a close vote than them flipping huge numbers of erstwhile republican voters in the suburbs. Likewise, Trump won Wisconsin with less votes than Romney got, suggesting that it had more to do with democrats staying home than crossing over.

I decided to make a list of which states saw improvement for Trump and Clinton in terms of raw vote count. Here it is:

States where Clinton gained and Trump lost: CA, WA, UT, VA, MD, MA
States where both went down: AK, NM, ID, MS, KS, WI
States where both went up: OR, NV, AZ, CO, IL, GA, FL, NC, NY, NJ, TX
States where Trump gained and Clinton lost: MT, WY, ND, SD, NE, MO, OK, AR, LA, AL, TN, KY, WV, SC, IN, OH, MI, MN, IA, PA, DE, CT, VT, RI, NH, ME, HI

[Pennsylvania Deplorable]

It's kinda bizarre the Illinois -- Obama's home -- would go up for both. Extremely little population growth.

Even more so when Wisconsin went down. I'd attribute it to the fact that Chicago's suburbs lean democrat, so their turnout rose to oppose Trump, whereas in the republican Milwaukee suburbs turnout decreased due to lack of enthusiasm for Trump (and may have been boosted by Ryan on the ballot in 2012). Trump gained a lot of votes in rural Illinois, not that it matters.