Honestly, if you look at a 2020 presidential election map today, it looks like a sea of red. Most of the country’s physical landmass is covered in that bright Republican crimson. But as we all know, land doesn't vote. People do. And when you actually dig into the county-level data, the story of how Joe Biden took the White House is way more complicated than just a few blue dots in a red ocean.
It was a weird year. 2020 was. We had a global pandemic, masks were a political statement, and everyone was stuck at home watching the "red mirage" and "blue shift" happen in real-time.
The 306-232 Split
The final tally was 306 electoral votes for Joe Biden and 232 for Donald Trump. If that number sounds familiar, it's because it's the exact same margin—just flipped—that Trump won by in 2016 against Hillary Clinton. Back then, Trump called it a "landslide." In 2020, the shoe was on the other foot.
But the map tells a story of razor-thin margins. Biden won the popular vote by over 7 million people, yet the whole thing really came down to about 43,000 votes spread across three states: Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin. If those had gone the other way, we'd have had a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College. Can you imagine the chaos?
Why the Map Flipped
The real magic (or math, depending on who you ask) happened in the "Blue Wall." These are the Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Trump famously cracked that wall in 2016. In 2020, Biden glued it back together.
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The Georgia Shocker
Georgia hadn't gone for a Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992. Seeing it turn blue on the 2020 presidential election map was the biggest surprise of the night. Biden won it by a tiny hair—specifically 11,779 votes. That's basically the size of a small college football stadium.
Experts like Stacey Abrams are often credited with the massive boots-on-the-ground effort to register new voters there. It wasn't just Atlanta, either. The suburbs—places like Cobb and Gwinnett counties—shifted hard. They used to be Republican strongholds, but the shifting demographics and an influx of younger, more diverse residents changed the game.
Arizona’s Desert Shift
Then you have Arizona. Biden was the first Democrat to win there since 1996. Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, is a behemoth. It accounts for about 60% of the state's entire vote. When Maricopa went blue, the state followed.
The Red Pockets in Blue States
It’s easy to forget that even in "Deep Blue" California, over 6 million people voted for Trump. Conversely, in "Deep Red" Texas, Biden pulled in over 5 million votes.
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One of the biggest misconceptions is that states are monoliths. They aren't. They're collections of very different communities. In Pennsylvania, you have Philadelphia and Pittsburgh (the "blue ends") and what people sometimes call "Alabama in the middle." Biden won because he didn't just win the cities; he slightly improved on Hillary Clinton's numbers in those rural, red areas, and he absolutely crushed it in the suburbs.
The Mail-In Ballot Factor
You can't talk about the 2020 map without talking about how we voted. Because of COVID-19, mail-in voting exploded.
- Democrats leaned heavily into mail-in ballots.
- Republicans tended to show up in person on Election Day.
This created the "Red Mirage." On election night, it looked like Trump was winning big in states like Pennsylvania because the in-person votes were counted first. It took days for the mail-in ballots to be processed, which is why we saw those late-night and early-morning shifts toward Biden. It wasn't a "dump" of votes; it was just the slow process of opening envelopes and verifying signatures.
What Most People Get Wrong
A lot of people think Biden won because of a "blue wave." Honestly? It was more of a blue trickle in the right places.
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Trump actually grew his base in 2020. He got 11 million more votes than he did in 2016. That’s insane for a losing candidate. He also made surprising gains with Latino voters, particularly in South Texas (the Rio Grande Valley) and Florida (Miami-Dade).
In Florida, Trump’s message against socialism really resonated with Cuban and Venezuelan communities. That’s why Florida went from a "toss-up" to a pretty solid "Red" state on the 2020 presidential election map. It wasn't even that close in the end.
Actionable Insights: How to Read the Map
If you’re looking at these maps to understand future elections, here’s what you should actually focus on:
- Look at the Suburbs: The "Donut" counties around major cities are where elections are won and lost now. If they are trending blue, the GOP has a math problem.
- Ignore the Big Red Spaces: Vast empty counties in Nebraska don't mean much for the final count. Always look for "cartograms" that resize states based on population.
- Check the Margins: A state that goes 51-49 is a "swing state" forever. A state that goes 60-40 is a "safe" state. 2020 showed us that "safe" states like Georgia and Arizona aren't as safe as we thought.
The 2020 map wasn't just a snapshot of a moment; it was a map of a changing country. The movement of people from cities to suburbs, the aging of the population, and the shifting loyalties of minority voters all showed up in those red and blue blocks.
If you want to dive deeper, I'd suggest looking at the MIT Election Data and Science Lab or the Cook Political Report. They have the most granular data that breaks things down beyond just the "Winner Take All" colors we see on TV.
Next time you see a political map, remember: it's not a map of land, it's a map of us.