MARKETING NEWS
Counties That Suffered Higher Unemployment Rates Voted for Biden
The counties won by President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. experienced worse job losses, on average, during the initial wave of pandemic layoffs than the counties where President Trump was strongest in his bid for re-election.
2020 presidential vote margin vs. April unemployment rates, by county
After the worst of the downturn in April, many of the most affected red counties recovered far more swiftly than blue counties did. By September, as unemployment fell nearly everywhere, blue counties were more likely to have higher unemployment rates.
vs. September unemployment rates
The economy is usually a big issue in election battles, and this election season saw both historically low levels of unemployment before the pandemic and later the worst rates of job loss since the Great Depression.
Mr. Trump’s supporters said consistently as the election approached that the health of the economy was important to them. In exit polls conducted by Edison Research, among those who said the economy mattered the most across a range of issues, 83 percent voted for Mr. Trump, compared with only 17 percent who supported Mr. Biden.
This gap in unemployment between Trump and Biden counties plays out on a state level as well, and has persisted even after many people returned to work.
Unemployment rates by county
States across the U.S. saw an unemployment gap between blue and red counties.
Average for Biden counties
Average for Trump counties
Note: Only counties where at least 95 percent of the estimated vote has been counted are shown.
Research has shown that Democratic areas, which tend to be more urban and have higher concentrations of service jobs, were particularly devastated by the economic fallout early in the pandemic. Many of these blue-leaning areas, including Clark County, Nev., home to Las Vegas, rely on tourism. Miami-Dade County, Fla., is another blue county where the disappearance of tourists damaged the economy.
In states such as Alabama and Mississippi, blue-leaning counties also have higher concentrations of Black residents — a group that has been disproportionately vulnerable to job loss and has lagged behind white workers during the economic crisis.
This pattern, however, does not hold true in every part of the country. The state with the highest county unemployment rates in April was Michigan, with one out of every three residents in some counties out of work. Several of the worst-hit counties in Michigan went on to vote for President Trump.
Unemployment rates in Michigan counties
Republican counties in Michigan had higher unemployment in the peak of the economic crisis, but they made more gains on average than Democratic ones.
Average for Biden counties
Average for Trump counties
The unemployment gap in Michigan was short-lived: By September, the average unemployment rate for blue counties was similar to the average for red ones.
According to Steven R. Miller, an economist at Michigan State University, unemployment levels in the state can be at least partly explained by underlying seasonal trends. Rural Cheboygan and Mackinac Counties, which had the two highest unemployment rates in the country in April, rely heavily on outdoor recreation and tourism. Both had high unemployment rates before the virus outbreak during the off-season months of January and February, but as people spent time outdoors for pandemic-safe recreation over the summer they bounced back. “Over the summer what was surprising is that tourism and outdoor activities actually picked up,” Dr. Miller said. “These northern counties had somewhat of a positive economic offset.”
Both Cheybogan and Mackinac Counties went to Mr. Trump by more than 20 percentage points.
Those summertime economic boosts, however, will not sustain many rural counties through the fall and winter. While the economy has been slowly adding back jobs since April, the current surge of cases spreading through the middle of the country could squeeze the economy, including in places that have so far escaped the worst job losses.
