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by scantis 1468 days ago
Why are the democratic counties nearly halfed over the study, while the republican counties increase slightly? While the number of people increase? Are democrat counties growing together?

"The study period covered five presidential elections from 2000 (673 Democratic counties, 132 833 397 population; 2439 Republican counties, n=147 957 141) to 2019 (490 Democratic counties, n=176 971 611; 2622 Republican counties, n=145 413 920) (supplementary tables 1 and 2)."
1 comments
1986 1468 days ago
You'll notice the totals are the same (673 + 2439 = 3112, 490 + 2622 = 3112), the changes are likely due to the counties' flipping in elections.
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scantis 1468 days ago
Okay so the counties flip, the democrats loose counties overall and gain 40 million ish people?
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hedora 1468 days ago
Yes. The Democrats keep losing counties and gaining voters.

This is also happening at the state level, and is causing the Senate to become ridiculously radical. It only takes the support of 5.1% of US voters to filibuster a bill, and 12% to defeat a filibuster:

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/2jnmbe/i_did_the_...

The "supervoters" making up that 5.1% and 12% are mostly in Republican states, and this has led to the Republican party drifting farther and farther right of the mainstream over time. For example:

74% of Americans want action on climate change: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/14/americans-a...

69% of Americans want to keep Roe v Wade: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-percentage-of-america...

Yet neither can get 50 votes in the Senate, let alone the 60 required to pass.

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crooked-v 1468 days ago
"County" by itself means very little when it comes to population. There are more people living in Los Angeles County alone than there are in some entire states.
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consp 1468 days ago
Sounds like city vs rural counties.
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scantis 1468 days ago
They address this and find the same gap in the normalized subset of rural vs metropolitan areas. The gap goes from 5 point to 66, which is slightly less.

democrat 143 counties, n=91 809 974 to 156 counties, n=133 796 619 And republican 292 counties, n=61 407 202 to 280 counties, n=46 244 883

So overall health is improving, but it is improving more when increasing sample size. It is normalized, but still different things are compared.

Thanks I didn't know all that about democrats and counties, seems more involved then I thought.

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