Bellwether counties, long regarded as reliable indicators of national electoral outcomes, have an uncanny ability to reflect the will of the American electorate. Since 1984, these counties have consistently backed the winning presidential candidate—except, curiously, in the highly contentious 2020 election. In that year, Donald Trump won a staggering 94% of bellwether counties, yet somehow lost the presidency to Joe Biden. The anomaly raised more than a few eyebrows, especially given the decades-long streak of accuracy broken under these peculiar circumstances.
Among these bellwether counties is Valencia County, New Mexico, a jurisdiction that had faithfully picked the winning candidate in every election since 1952—until 2020. Valencia joined 18 other bellwethers in choosing Trump, mirroring his success in 2016 when he secured their votes and the presidency. Yet, despite this overwhelming alignment, Biden’s victory defied the historical trend, leaving critics to question whether such an outcome was the result of an improbable statistical fluke or something less benign.
The 2024 election, however, saw a return to normalcy in bellwether behavior, with the counties once again predicting the winner almost perfectly—save for two outliers. This abrupt resumption of historical patterns begs the question: What made 2020 so different? In that anomalous year, Biden managed to win just one of the traditionally predictive counties, breaking a streak that had held steady through decades of electoral cycles. For those skeptical of the official narrative, the contrast between the 2020 and 2024 outcomes seems too glaring to dismiss as mere coincidence.
A look back at history underscores just how unusual the 2020 election was. In 1984, Ronald Reagan swept all bellwether counties, mirroring his landslide national victory, which included 49 states and 525 Electoral College votes. The trend continued with George H.W. Bush in 1988, who won 88% of bellwether counties and claimed 40 states. Bill Clinton carried the bellwethers in both of his successful campaigns, including a clean sweep in 1996. George W. Bush and Barack Obama followed suit, each enjoying strong support from these pivotal regions during their respective campaigns. Then came 2020, when Trump’s dominance in bellwether counties failed to translate into victory—a deviation so striking that it shattered a 36-year streak.
In the aftermath of 2020, Biden’s unlikely performance in bellwether counties remains a point of contention. How does one explain a candidate losing nearly all historically predictive counties yet securing both the popular vote and the Electoral College? The subsequent restoration of the bellwether trend in 2024 only deepens the mystery, as it suggests that the system’s predictive power wasn’t broken—it was simply bypassed for one election cycle. For critics, the 2020 results raise legitimate questions about anomalies and irregularities that deserve closer scrutiny, especially in light of the bellwether counties’ storied track record.
I will never stop sharing this chart.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 8, 2024
Bellwether counties: pic.twitter.com/EEaSUcWXpR
