Voting against your party, and where it happens
Cross a partisan with the county they live in and four cells fall out. Partisans surrounded by the other side defect at twice the rate of their aligned counterparts — and the effect is nearly symmetric.
Share voting for the other party's presidential candidate by the partisan lean of the respondent's county, over how many respondents live at each lean. Switch the axis to the respondent's own party and the two curves lie almost on top of each other.
- Democrats
- Republicans
Voted for the other party's presidential candidate
Respondents in each bin · Democrats above the line, Republicans below
Hover, tap or arrow through the bins to read each rate against the observations behind it.
Negative values are counties that lean toward the other party. Laid on this axis the two parties' curves nearly coincide: defection runs from about 2–3% where a respondent's own party dominates to about 16% where the other party does. The steepest points rest on the thinnest bins, as the counts beneath show. Intervals, when shown, assume simple random sampling and understate a weighted survey's uncertainty.
Chart data · 24 rows
| Party | County margin, D − R (pp) | Crossover (%) | Respondents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Democrats | -65.6 | 15.5 | 1,707 |
| Democrats | -48.4 | 10.9 | 8,561 |
| Democrats | -31.9 | 9.2 | 12,272 |
| Democrats | -19.8 | 7.2 | 13,551 |
| Democrats | -10.1 | 6.7 | 15,394 |
| Democrats | -2.4 | 6.7 | 9,731 |
| Democrats | 2.3 | 6.2 | 10,964 |
| Democrats | 9.9 | 5.1 | 28,119 |
| Democrats | 19.7 | 4.5 | 24,068 |
| Democrats | 32.1 | 4.1 | 21,488 |
| Democrats | 48.5 | 3.1 | 26,072 |
| Democrats | 70.9 | 3.4 | 11,742 |
| Republicans | -67 | 2.1 | 4,419 |
| Republicans | -48.8 | 2.9 | 15,231 |
| Republicans | -32.3 | 3.5 | 16,870 |
| Republicans | -20 | 4.2 | 15,418 |
| Republicans | -10.2 | 4.8 | 15,141 |
| Republicans | -2.4 | 6.1 | 7,918 |
| Republicans | 2.3 | 6.6 | 8,530 |
| Republicans | 9.8 | 6.6 | 18,805 |
CES/CCES cumulative 2008–2024 via voting-almanac/v1
Each party's local minority against its aligned partisans. The gap is the cost of living outnumbered — there in every election for both parties.
- Local minority
- Aligned
Democrats
Republicans
Hover, tap or arrow through the years to compare every panel's gap at once.
Solid: partisans in counties the other party carried. Dashed: partisans in counties their own party carried. The shaded gap is the extra defection that comes with living outnumbered. It appears in every election for both parties, though for Democrats it has nearly closed since 2020. n is the number of respondents in the cell that year.
Chart data · 10 rows
| Party | Year | Local minority (%) | Local minority n | Aligned (%) | Aligned n | Gap (pp) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democrats | 2,008 | 12.9 | 2,860 | 5.9 | 5,736 | 7 |
| Democrats | 2,012 | 9.1 | 4,805 | 5 | 9,075 | 4.1 |
| Democrats | 2,016 | 11.9 | 5,973 | 6.2 | 11,024 | 5.7 |
| Democrats | 2,020 | 5.5 | 5,714 | 3.2 | 12,469 | 2.3 |
| Democrats | 2,024 | 4.9 | 6,918 | 4 | 9,984 | 0.9 |
| Republicans | 2,008 | 8.2 | 4,109 | 4.7 | 4,277 | 3.5 |
| Republicans | 2,012 | 6 | 5,134 | 3.4 | 6,465 | 2.5 |
| Republicans | 2,016 | 9.6 | 4,652 | 4.4 | 6,469 | 5.1 |
| Republicans | 2,020 | 8.1 | 5,307 | 3.6 | 6,657 | 4.5 |
| Republicans | 2,024 | 5.1 | 4,197 | 2.7 | 8,316 | 2.4 |
CES/CCES cumulative 2008–2024 via voting-almanac/v1. Presidential vote, CES/CCES cumulative file. Crossover, maps and demographics pool every 2008–2024 wave (respondents report their most-recent presidential vote); the trend uses the five presidential-year waves. County cells use the county's presidential winner; counties with N<50 partisan voters are blank; Alaska excluded from county maps.