After four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, many voters who typically vote Republican turned against him.
For example, in Winnebago county, Wisconsin, about 72% of voters cast their ballot for the Republican House candidate – either Glenn Grothman or Mike Gallagher, depending on where they live. But just 52% cast their vote for Trump.
This happened in county after county: Trump performed worse than other Republicans on the ballot. Here’s how Trump performed in each county compared with the Republican House candidate on the same ballot:
House v Trump 2020 map
This is why Trump lost the election, but why Republicans gained seats in the House.
To be clear, Trump also underperformed other Republicans in 2016. But since the last election, the gap between Trump and other Republicans grew in all kinds of communities in the US. In other words, the election wasn’t just about Democrats rejecting Trump by turning out in record numbers. It was also about Republicans and independents who preferred the Republican party – but just without Donald Trump.
White Republican counties turned away from Trump
Trump’s appeal in 2016 was especially salient in very white counties, where he actually outperformed Republican House candidates.
But this time around, Trump underperformed in these areas – and he did even worse everywhere else.
Race chart
For example in Christian county, Illinois, where about 95% of the population is white, Trump won about 73% of the votes. But the Republican house candidate, Rodney Davis, did 10 percentage points better.
Meanwhile, Trump severely underperformed Republican House candidates in places with more people of color, which tend to be metropolitan areas. But these places aren’t a monolith. In fact, in a few areas with more people of color, Trump actually outperformed the House candidate.
For example, in Zapata county, Texas, a predominantly Hispanic area near the southern border, Trump won with 53% of the votes. But the Republican House candidate, Sandra Whitten, lost by nearly 20 points.
We can see that distribution in this chart showing how Trump did in every county:
Still, the overarching takeaway is that even the Republican base in racially homogeneous parts of white America moved away from Trump this election.
Trump lost ground with Republicans in metropolitan areas
Metropolitan areas tend to skew Democratic, but there are still a huge number of Republicans. In those areas, Trump underperformed the House candidate with those voters by four points in 2016. This time around, he underperformed by more than 12 points.
urban/rural chart
This tracks with the data on how Biden won the 2020 presidential election. Democrats made huge gains in the suburbs of big cities, like Philadelphia and Milwaukee. But not only did they get big turnout there; many Republicans also didn’t vote for Trump.
Meanwhile, in rural areas Trump actually performed better than he did in 2020.
But if Republicans are doing electoral math here, just 8 million presidential voters live in what this analysis categorizes as rural counties. Even though Trump won those areas by 3.5 million votes, it’s only a fraction of the amount by which Trump underperformed in more populous areas.
Trump did far worse than Republicans down-ballot in areas with more college degrees
One of the biggest determinants of how an area voted was the portion of the population that has a college degree.
In places with more degrees, Trump largely kept up with ballot Republicans in 2016. In 2020, that gap widened.
Education chart
For example in Madison county, Mississippi – a Jackson suburb where nearly half the residents over 25 have college degrees – Trump won 58% of the vote. But the Republican House candidates in the county got 73% of the vote.
Meanwhile, in the parts of America with the lowest rate of college degrees, Trump did quite well compared with the Republican House candidate. In fact, in the majority of these counties, which tend to be more rural, Trump actually outperformed down-ballot Republicans.
One caveat of this analysis is that it uses county-level data, which means some of the nuances in larger counties are left unexplored. These metropolitan areas are categorized as having more college degrees. But these areas also have high levels of inequality, which means there are also a lot of people who don’t have high-school diplomas.
Trump may have less appeal – but Trumpism isn’t gone
This data hardly means Trumpism is fading away in the party.
After all, Trump is trying to stage a coup by insisting he won an election that he clearly lost – and many Republicans officials are staying silent or parroting his argument. In addition, 70% of Republicans agree with Trump and they say the election was not “free and fair” despite no evidence backing up this claim.
Still, what this means is that four years of Trump pushed away a significant swath of Republican and independent voters.
So how do Republicans perform without Trump on the ballot? The first test will be in the Georgia special elections in January which will determine the balance of the US Senate. Even though Trump lost Georgia by a few thousand votes, both House and Senate Republicans outperformed Trump – and could do so by even bigger margins in the special election without Trump weighing them down.
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