NY Times’ Analysis of Democratic Party Finds ‘Problems Run Deep, Nearly Everywhere’
“Donald J. Trump’s victory in 2024 was not an outlier. It was the culmination of continuous gains by Republicans in much of the country each time he has run for president.”
Over the course of three elections, President Donald Trump has reshaped America’s political landscape, according to a newly released analysis by The New York Times. Support for Trump began at the county level in 2016 — and has only grown stronger with each subsequent election.
The study found:
Donald J. Trump’s victory in 2024 was not an outlier.
It was the culmination of continuous gains by Republicans in much of the country each time he has run for president, a sea of red that amounts to a flashing warning sign for a Democratic Party out of power and hoping for a comeback.
The steady march to the right at the county level reveals not just the extent of the nation’s transformation in the Trump era but also the degree to which the United States now resembles two countries charging in opposite directions.
The Times’ map below illustrates the counties that shifted in one direction over the last three presidential elections which the authors call “triple-trending.” [Note: “Circle size is proportionate to county population.”]
Perhaps the most troubling sign for Democrats is Trump’s strength in Pennsylvania. While the map shows Democratic support holding in Dauphin County — home to Harrisburg — the areas surrounding Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are awash in red.
Trump’s strength in the border area of South Texas, where almost 84% of the total population is Hispanic, should be a red flag for the Democrats.
Another surprise was Trump’s dominance in Honolulu, Hawaii.
According to the Times, of the roughly 3,100 counties in the U.S., Trump increased the GOP’s share of the presidential vote in 1,433 — nearly half.
In contrast, Democrats expanded their share in just 57 counties over the same period.
The Times notes, “It is a staggering political achievement, especially considering that Mr. Trump was defeated in the second of those three races, in 2020.”
[I’ll say it was a staggering political achievement. At the risk of being labeled a conspiracy theorist, it makes one wonder how former President Joe Biden was able to win 81 million votes in 2020, doesn’t it?]
Some enormous trends pop out right away when looking at the latest NYT map showing counties that shifted in one direction during each of the last three elections.
1) Dems are cooked in Ohio. Permanently.
2) The Richmond suburbs are what has propelled Virginia into the Dem… pic.twitter.com/PsSn3deHFI— Christian Heiens 🏛 (@ChristianHeiens) May 26, 2025
The map illustrates the political realignment that has taken place since Trump emerged on the national stage. The Times offers context to help make sense of the shift:
While roughly 8.1 million Americans of voting age live in triple-trending Democratic counties, about 42.7 million live in Republican ones.
Even more ominous for the Democrats are the demographic and economic characteristics of these counties: The party’s sparse areas of growth are concentrated almost exclusively in America’s wealthiest and most educated pockets.
…
Counties that have become steadily more Republican exist in some of the country’s bluest strongholds, including New York City, Philadelphia and Honolulu. Mr. Trump’s party is still losing in those places, but by significantly less.
The Times is right about that. In some cases, Trump cut the size of his 2020 losses in blue states in half. For example, in 2020, Trump lost New York to Biden by 23.2 points. In 2024, he narrowed the gap to 11.2 points. CBS News reported that Trump won 30% of the vote in New York City, the biggest margin for a Republican candidate since then-President Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Trump’s gains in urban areas trickled down across the eastern seaboard. In 2020, Trump lost New Jersey by 15.8 points. In 2024, the gap was just 5.5 points.
Similarly, Trump cut his 2020 loss of 16.9 points in Illinois to 9 points in 2024. And in California, he narrowed his 2020 loss of 29.2 points to 19.9 points.
Comparing 2024 election results with those from 2012, the Times found:
435 counties voted more Democratic in 2024 than did so in 2012, by an average improved margin of 8.8 percentage points.
And 2,678 counties became more Republican, by an average of 13.3 percentage points. That’s six times as many counties moving toward the G.O.P. than toward the Democratic Party — and by a substantially wider margin.
The Times reported a “broad erosion” of Democratic support among working-class voters across all demographics and took a deep dive into the numbers. There was also a widespread decline in support for Democrats among men. Professor Jacobson wrote about this on Sunday.
The gist of their message is that the results of the past three presidential elections have upended long-held political assumptions.
Ben Tulchin, a pollster who worked on Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaigns, told the Times that “the old political calculations for how Democrats can win elections were now obsolete.”
According to Tulchin, “The math doesn’t work. For years, the belief was Democrats have had demographic destiny on our side. Now, the inverse is true.”
Some Democrats believe that once Trump is off the ballot, Republicans will lose their advantage.
But Chris Kofinis, who served as chief of staff to former Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), essentially said ‘not so fast.’
He pointed out, “Trump is the symptom, not the disease. The disease is the fact that you have lost touch with a whole swath of voters that used to consistently vote Democratic.”
It turned out that voters are smarter than Democrats thought they were. Ultimately, despite the media’s elevation of Harris to rockstar status and the Democrats’ relentless fearmongering and gaslighting, voters overwhelmingly chose Trump.
They chose America First over America Last and common sense over insanity. Trump’s resounding victory was a collective shout of “Enough.”
Trump’s coalition has strengthened as the Democrats’ has weakened. A coalition consisting of well-educated and affluent citizens who are concentrated in large coastal cities will not win them many elections.
How did such a highly-educated, elite, and enlightened bunch not see this coming? And why are they still struggling for answers?
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn or X.
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The Devil suffers setbacks but is never defeated.
“NY Times’ Analysis of Democratic Party Finds ‘Problems Run Deep, Nearly Everywhere’”
Now do the NY Times.
“At the country levels”
not exactly
b/c at those country levels its actually lefty that has made inroads by making sure they send the “excess” immigrants into those areas as they dont need those votes in the already big blue cities
the crime wave that came along with it caused soooo many blacks etc to vote djt….as the mexican cartel is a direct
threat to the monopoly that the crips/bloods etc have had a hold on
even the latinkings see the ms13 as mostly non friendly to them
correction:
at the county levels
“The steady march to the right at the county level reveals not just the extent of the nation’s transformation in the Trump era but also the degree to which the United States now resembles two countries charging in opposite directions.”
Correct. I’ve said for years, “We are at war. Prepare accordingly.” Why? We cannot share a country with these leftists. Their entire 2024 platform was ‘trans the kids who didn’t get murd/ered by taxpayer funded abortions, and pay no attention to the torrential ooze of illegal aliens ra/ping, and murd/ering your daughters in broad daylight.’
We are at war. Prepare accordingly.
The country has not “marched to the right”, it is left that has become more and more radical
Not marching to the right so much as fleeing in terror from the left.
Two things can be true at once. Stauffer’s post presents data that confirms the country has marched to the right, and data that confirms your assertion that the left has become more and more radical.
Who would have thought that the educated wealthy self-titled elites in the country are actually the socialists. Marx should be spinning in his grave. However, it makes a certain sense since they see themselves above the hoi polloi looking down on and ruling over them. In other words, socialism for thee and for me.
The only way for the NY Times to do an analysis of the Democratic party…..
…..is by doing a self-analysis
A very oversimplified way of understanding this is the trope of the ‘Mommy party’ d/prog and the ‘Daddy party’ GoP. It may be simplistic but it is accurate. The d/prog ‘Mommies’ continue to demand understanding and sympathy for those who transgress, an endless flow of tax dollars to support them and to withhold serious consequences such as prison or deportation. The folks in favor of the opposite are by and large already voting for the GoP/Daddy party or becoming far more open to doing so b/c they are tired of being exploited financially and emotionally by the criminals, the grifters and credentialed/bureaucratic class whose own salaries depend on perpetuating the grift not solving the problems.
The Dems biggest problem is the fact that a racist criminal got elected. They have to be realistic about the amoral lack of intelligence is very prevalent in the American electorate. I mean, did yu ctach that surreal West point commencement speech where THE BLOB, wearing his moronic MAGA hat reagled the cadets about trophy wives,the dangers of men in women sports and his many criminal criminal cases. HArd to believe , but it’s true.
The left is insane in every way. The left love violence and think murderers are heroes.
“…the amoral lack of intelligence…”
Do you ever read the hot garbage you write? This illiterate dumpster fire of a post clearly falls under the category of “amoral lack of intelligence.”
Get the hell out of here.
Please don’t respond to the troll other than downclick him.
Racist criminal(s) got elected? Glad to.see you’re taking a hard stance on the d/prog officials in some Mayor’s offices and more than a few in Congress.
Keep going with the tripe, just like the Times described. Trump and the shift are because of you, your cult, and the destruction wreaked on the rest of us by sharp as a tack practicing border perfection by autopen. You support the actual racists and criminals with such fake outrage pretending you are better, when reality is just the opposite. Happy Memorial Day!
The Times notes, “It is a staggering political achievement, especially considering that Mr. Trump was defeated in the second of those three races, in 2020.”
Huh. It’s as if there was some other factor affecting vote totals in 2020. How odd.
/sarc
The only problem that wasnt uncovered was liberals still without question vote lockstep. What was found was finally there are fewer.
“The steady march to the right at the county level …”
How dumb. There has been no march to the right. The Democrat Party was highjacked by far left loons who opened the borders; pushed to defund the police; ended the Senate filibuster for judicial nominations; advocates for people born as males to play female sports in school; promotes and celebrates homosexuality; wants to ban gasoline powered cars, plastic straws, and destroy the livelihood of everybody who supports their family in the oil, gas, coal, refinery, pipeline, nuclear industries; and so on.
My views have not materially changed since I first began voting in 1980. Support a strong military; more emphasis on free enterprise and less emphasis on government; against most surgical abortions; mild concern for civil liberty but consider the huge progress in that area over the past several decades has gone far enough. In 1980, someone with those views was called a centrist by the Democrat media complex. By 1992 they called me center-right. By the GWB administration they called me hard right. Under Obama they called me a far right extremist. Today they call me a Nazi/Fascist/Hitler wannabe.
So… people who’ve gone through left wing indoctrination camps (colleges) are more likely to vote for democrats.
The comments section on the NYT is not even remotely surprising. They’re blaming the stupid, racist rubes and trying to figure out how to trick them into voting democrat.
this was the nytimes after their celebration of george floyds life and sainthood anniversary the other day
the left wing has alwayssss been for criminals
those who think that the dems “use to be for freedom” etc are at best naive /pollyannaish
the dems are war mongering thugs who “marched” for blacks only as a ruse to hide their continued abuse of the same black people as their pawns to keep the welfare state intact
The large shift of the hispanic community did not surprise me.
During the spring of 2024 I had a bicycle crash that left me with a concussion. The standard question from the ambulance medical care is to ask who the president is and what year it was. My answer to the medics was the president was either bush or obama ( 10-12 years off ). I had a serious concussion.
I was telling the story a few weeks later to several hispanic cyclists friends of mine. They immediately went off on biden and were very pro trump. fwiw, discussion of any politics is very rare in the cyclying community and yet, this group just exploded with praise of trump.
To paraphrase LBJ, if Trump paid a lot of attention to Hispanics he could have them voting Republican for 200 years. That is the voting bloc that really matters.
It would be so fresh if the Democrats committed mass seppuku for letting them all in.
Don’t worry Democrats. As soon as President Trump is out of office, the Republican party will do everything they can to reverse the gains he gave them.
FACT CHECK: True
The Dems’ “problems” go to the core of the party: as a general matter, they don’t like America’s history, culture or people.
It will be forever unknown what may have occurred if the 2020 election was challenged in Congress as intended, rather than interrupted by a riot.
Democrats must come to grips with what they have allowed themselves to become, if they can, but it seems they are too far gone. They cannot be trusted about anything and their only way is peformance. Not good on any level.
The fact that Sharia lovers overwhelmingly swarm to the Democrat Party hive is very telling, considering their motto “Death to America.”
Please know that “Republican” “victories” mean nothing if the Republicans govern like slow motion Democrats.
The OBBB, where the middle “B” stands for “Bullsquirt” is the best possible example of how Republicans routinely break their promises and lie to their delusional voters. They punk out on tax breaks, add trillions to the debt, promise to fix things sometime in an indefinite future and call it a win
Please give me a Democrat who actively works against my interests and proudly says that he/she/zhe will. Honesty is nice even when it brings bad news.