Republicans are surging, and Democrats are in deep trouble. That’s what a new report from The New York Times concluded after assessing polling data from the past four presidential elections.
The new study concluded that the GOP was gaining ground in working-class counties, while Democrats were earning support increasingly in the best-educated enclaves of the U.S.
Donald Trump “has increased the Republican Party’s share of the presidential vote in each election he’s been on the ballot in close to half the counties in America—1,433 in all,” the report concluded.
Democrats managed to expand their vote share continuously during the Trump election years in just 57 counties out of the country’s more than 3,100 political subdivisions. Some 435 counties were more Democratic in 2024 compared to 2012, while an astounding 2,678 counties became more Republican during that time period.
The Times dubbed those counties that went further Republican or Democrat during the Trump presidential election years of 2016, 2020, and 2024 elections as “triple-trending.” For Democrat triple-trending counties, that meant counties where 8.1 million Americans of voting age live, but for the GOP’s triple-trending counties that meant a whopping 42.7 million voting-age people.
Democrats had disproportionate gains among wealthier households. Eighteen of the 57 counties that moved steadily to Democrats had a median household income exceeding $100,000. Only three of the 1,433 counties that moved toward Trump had incomes of over $100,000.
The median U.S. income sits at about $80,000, which means the Democratic Party is increasingly skewing wealthier than the majority of Americans. The Times found that areas with incomes below the U.S. median “account for 95 percent of counties voting steadily more Republican.”
Republicans and Democrats are also deeply divided in terms of educational attainment. Trump did not increase his voter share continuously over the course of his three presidential races in any county that had a majority of adults with a college degree. Likewise in the counties that went steadily blue all had a percentage of college-educated adults at 20% or larger.
Republicans are also having a surge in support from Hispanic voters in the South. The president saw an astounding 89% swing in 2024 from 2012 in Starr County, a Texas county that borders Mexico and includes Rio Grande City. That county has a voting-age population that is 96% Hispanic. Meanwhile, Democrats gained support in the counties surrounding Dallas.
Former Texas congressman and Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke sounded the alarm in an interview with The New York Times for the report.
“This may sound crazy to you: Maybe this had to happen for the Democratic Party to wake up and stop taking people for granted based on the color of their skin, or their country of national origin, or where they live in the state,” O’Rourke opined.
Up north, things were not much better for the liberal party. The only New York county to continuously move further into the Democrats’ camp was also home to the uber-left city of Ithaca, known for being the home of Cornell University and Ithaca College, and according to The Times, it’s a place where almost 60% of residents have a college degree. Trump, on the other hand, showed consistent gains in previously unlikely places: the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. Those areas also are some of the most ethnically diverse in the U.S.
Jacob Adams is a journalism fellow at The Daily Signal.
Reproduced with permission. Original here: New York Times Study Reveals GOP Gains, Alarming Democrats
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