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Election results, 2024: Pivot Counties in the 2024 presidential election
Last updated: Dec. 16, 2024
Pivot Counties are the 206 counties nationwide Ballotpedia identified as having voted for Barack Obama (D) in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections and Donald Trump (R) in 2016. Media and political observers sometimes refer to these counties as swing counties.
Trump won 181 pivot counties in all three of his presidential runs and won 177 of them by a larger margin in 2024 than in 2020. Harris won by a smaller margin than Biden in seven of the nine pivot counties they each won. Overall, pivot counties favored Trump by an additional 4.2 percentage points on average over non-pivot counties in 2024.
On this page you'll find:
- An overview of the counties each candidate won in 2024
- A comparison of pivot counties and non-pivot counties in 2024
- A list of all 206 pivot counties and their margins in each presidential election since 2008
- Additional background on pivot counties
Overview
- See also: Presidential election, 2024
Trump won 197 pivot counties across 32 states in 2024 with a larger average margin of victory than any previous pivot county winner since 2008, including his first two candidacies. Harris won nine pivot counties across eight states with a smaller average margin of victory than Biden in 2020, and smaller than all of Obama's and Trump's.
| Pivot Counties Won in 2024 by Candidate | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 overview | ||||||
| Trump | Harris | |||||
| Number | 197 | 9 | ||||
Margin of victory analysis
Of the 181 pivot counties Trump won in 2020 and 2024, his margin of victory increased in 177 and decreased in four. In the nine pivot counties Biden won in 2020 and Harris won in 2024, Harris had a smaller margin of victory than Biden in seven of them. She had a smaller margin of victory in eight of them than Obama in 2012.
This table provides an overview of the 2024 presidential election results in the 206 Pivot Counties. The first section shows an overview of those counties following the 2024 presidential election—including the number of Pivot Counties that Donald Trump (R) and Kamala Harris (D) won as well as both candidates' respective average and median margins of victory in each county. It also shows an overview of those counties following the 2020 presidential election. The second section shows the average and median margins of victory in these 206 counties from 2008 to 2016.
| Overview of counties won by Trump in 2016 and Obama in 2012 and 2008 following the 2024 presidential election | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 overview | 2020 overview | |||
| Trump | Harris | Trump | Biden | |
| # Won | 197 | 9 | 181 | 25 |
| Average margin of victory | R+18.4 | D+2.3 | R+14.1 | D+3.3 |
| Median margin of victory | R+17.3 | D+1.9 | R+13.2 | D+3.4 |
| Historical overview | ||||
| 2016 (Trump) |
2012 (Obama) |
2008 (Obama) |
||
| Average | R+11.5 | D+8.2 | D+12.3 | |
| Median | R+9.4 | D+7.3 | D+11.9 | |
The table below highlights the counties that the 2024 candidates won by a smaller margin than the 2020 candidate of the same party.
| Closer margins in the 206 Pivot Counties by party, 2024 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| County | State | 2024 margin | 2020 margin | 2016 margin | ||
| Closer margins for Trump | ||||||
| Manistee County | Michigan | R+13.8 | R+15.1 | R+15.3 | ||
| Tillamook County | Oregon | R+1.6 | R+1.7 | R+5.6 | ||
| Grays Harbor County | Washington | R+4.9 | R+6.6 | R+7.0 | ||
| Mason County | Washington | R+1.4 | R+3.9 | R+5.8 | ||
| Closer margins for Harris | ||||||
| County | State | 2024 margin | 2020 margin | 2012 margin | ||
| Kent County | Delaware | D+2 | D+4.1 | D+4.9 | ||
| Clay County | Minnesota | D+0.5 | D+7.7 | D+7.9 | ||
| Hillsborough County | New Hampshire | D+2.8 | D+4.1 | D+1.1 | ||
| Rensselaer County | New York | D+1 | D+5.6 | D+12.1 | ||
| Saratoga County | New York | D+1.3 | D+5.4 | D+2.4 | ||
| Montgomery County | Ohio | D+0.2 | D+2.2 | D+4.6 | ||
| Kent County | Rhode Island | D+1.9 | D+7.7 | D+17.7 | ||
Map of Pivot Counties
As of December 16, 2024, there were:
- 181 Pivot Counties across 31 states that voted for Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024
- 16 Pivot Counties across 12 states that voted for Trump in 2016, Biden in 2020, and Trump in 2024
- Nine Pivot Counties across eight states that voted for Trump in 2016, Biden in 2020, and Harris in 2024
See also
- Presidential election, 2024
- Election results, 2020: Pivot Counties in the 2020 presidential election
Footnotes
- ↑ This analysis does not include counties in Alaska and certain independent cities due to variations in vote total reporting.