Election Results by County 2020: What Most People Get Wrong

Maps can be really deceiving. You’ve probably seen that famous 2020 election map—the one where almost the entire United States is a sea of deep red, with just a few scattered dots of blue on the coasts and in the big cities. If you just glanced at it, you’d think it was a landslide for the Republicans. But we know it wasn't. Honestly, it’s one of those things where the visual doesn't match the math.

Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election with 306 electoral votes to Donald Trump's 232. He also took the popular vote by a pretty massive margin—81,268,773 to 74,216,728. Yet, if you look at election results by county 2020, Trump won the vast majority of the actual landmass. He carried about 2,588 counties, while Biden only won about 551.

Wait. How does that even work?

The Land Doesn't Vote, People Do

The biggest misconception about the 2020 data is that the number of counties won is a metric for success. It really isn't. Think about it this way: Loving County, Texas, has a population of about 50 people. Los Angeles County, California, has nearly 10 million. In the eyes of a mapmaker using a standard geographic layout, Loving County might look like a respectable little block, but in the eyes of the Electoral College, it's a drop in the bucket.

Biden's strategy—and where he eventually found his path to victory—was in the "Blue Wall" and the rapidly diversifying Sun Belt suburbs. He didn't need to win thousands of counties. He just needed to win the ones where the people actually live.

Take a look at the sheer scale of the divide in some of these places. In Los Angeles County, Biden netted over 3 million votes. Trump got about 1.1 million. Even though Trump lost that county, he actually got more raw votes in LA than he did in entire states like West Virginia or Idaho. It’s wild when you think about it.

The Suburbs That Flipped the Script

If 2016 was the year of the "forgotten" rural voter, 2020 was the year the suburbs decided they’d had enough. We saw some pretty shocking shifts in counties that were long-standing GOP strongholds.

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Maricopa County in Arizona is the perfect example. It's home to Phoenix and its massive suburban sprawl. For decades, Maricopa was the crown jewel of Arizona Republicanism. In 2020, Biden became the first Democrat to win it since 1948. That one county alone basically handed him the state.

Similar things happened in the suburbs of Atlanta. Gwinnett and Cobb Counties had been trending blue for a few cycles, but 2020 was the tipping point. The margins there were so wide that they overwhelmed the rural red vote from the rest of Georgia. Honestly, it’s why the "recounts" and audits in those specific counties became such a hot-button issue. The math was just so different from what people were used to seeing.

Those Surprising Swings Nobody Talks About

While the general narrative is "cities go blue, rural goes red," the election results by county 2020 had some weird outliers that didn't fit the mold.

Starr County, Texas, is one of the most fascinating data points from that year. It sits right on the border in the Rio Grande Valley. It’s over 95% Hispanic. Hillary Clinton won it by 60 points in 2016. In 2020? Biden only won it by 5 points. That is a massive, 55-point swing toward Trump.

Why? There are a bunch of theories. Some experts, like those at the Brookings Institution, pointed to the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on local economies. Others mentioned the heavy presence of Border Patrol agents in the area, who often lean conservative. Whatever the reason, it proved that the "Hispanic vote" isn't a monolith, and it’s something both parties are still obsessed with today.

The "Blue Shift" or "Red Mirage"

You might remember the chaos of election night. Trump looked like he was winning comfortably in states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Then, over the next few days, those leads evaporated.

This wasn't magic or fraud; it was just how the counties were reporting. Because of the pandemic, a record number of people used mail-in ballots. Many states, including Pennsylvania, had laws that prevented election workers from even opening those envelopes until Election Day.

Democratic voters were way more likely to vote by mail, while Republicans tended to show up in person. The in-person "Election Day" votes from smaller, rural counties usually get counted first because there are simply fewer of them. The massive "mail-in" tranches from places like Philadelphia or Milwaukee—which are overwhelmingly Democratic—take much longer to process.

This created the "Red Mirage," where it looked like a Republican blowout at 10:00 PM, followed by the "Blue Shift" as the urban and suburban county results finally trickled in.

Looking at the Raw Numbers

To really get a feel for the 2020 county landscape, you have to look at the concentration of power.

Biden won 551 counties.
Those 551 counties account for 67 million more people than the 2,588 counties Trump won.
The counties Biden carried produce roughly 70% of the U.S. GDP.

It’s a tale of two Americas, basically. One is concentrated, urban, and economically diverse. The other is vast, rural, and culturally traditional.

What You Can Do With This Data Now

Understanding these results isn't just about history. It’s about knowing how your own community fits into the bigger picture. If you want to dive deeper into the specific numbers for your area, here are the most reliable ways to do it without getting lost in the weeds:

1. Check the FEC Official Reports: The Federal Election Commission publishes the "Official 2020 Presidential General Election Results." It’s a dry PDF, but it’s the "gold standard" for accuracy.
2. Use the MIT Election Data & Science Lab: This is probably the best place for "clean" data if you're a bit of a nerd and want to see precinct-level details. They do a great job of standardizing results across different states.
3. Visit Your Secretary of State's Website: Every state has a "Statement of Vote." This is the official document certified by the state government. It’ll show you not just who won the county, but how many people didn't vote for either of the big two. You'd be surprised how many people in some counties wrote in "Mickey Mouse" or voted for the Libertarian candidate, Jo Jorgensen.

The biggest takeaway from the election results by county 2020 is that geography is not destiny. Just because a county is red doesn't mean there aren't hundreds of thousands of Democrats living there (like in Tarrant County, Texas, which Biden actually flipped). And just because a county is blue doesn't mean there isn't a massive Republican base (like in Los Angeles, where Trump got over a million votes).

Don't let the big blocks of color on a map fool you. The reality is much more purple, and much more complicated, than a simple red-and-blue graphic can ever show.