Trump:
The Machine Politician
Whether you see it as delivering for his voters or telling everyone what they wanted to hear, Trump ran effectively unopposed in his outreach to communities that vote in blocs. Biden was near death's door. Harris never showed up.
The single strongest predictor of how a county swung in 2024 wasn't education. Wasn't race. Wasn't rural vs urban.
It was language.
Nationwide: Non-English Households vs Electoral Swing
Counties with higher non-English speaking populations swung more heavily toward Republicans in 2020→2024
Loading 3,100+ counties...
Pattern: The darkest red areas on both maps overlap significantly— Texas border counties (90%+ non-English) saw 20-30+ point swings toward Republicans. Miami-Dade (78% non-English) swung R+19. The visual correlation is striking.
Non-English speaking communities of all stripes—Hispanic, Arab, Asian, Eastern European—swung massively toward Trump. The correlation is striking: r = -0.77, weighted by population. Look at those maps. The overlap is uncanny.
| County | CVAP Non-Eng% | 2020 | 2024 | Swing | Community |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Webb County (Laredo), TX | 89% | D+23.3 | R+2.2 | R+25.4 | Hispanic border |
| Hidalgo County, TX | 79% | D+17.1 | R+2.9 | R+19.9 | Hispanic border |
| Imperial County, CA | 73% | D+24.4 | R+0.9 | R+25.2 | Hispanic agricultural |
| Miami-Dade County, FL | 71% | D+7.4 | R+11.4 | R+18.8 | Cuban/Latino |
| Cameron County, TX | 70% | D+13.2 | R+5.8 | R+18.9 | Hispanic border |
| El Paso County, TX | 68% | D+35.1 | D+15.1 | R+20.0 | Hispanic border |
| Bronx County, NY | 52% | D+67.5 | D+44.9 | R+22.6 | Hispanic/Black working class |
| Osceola County, FL | 49% | D+13.8 | R+1.5 | R+15.3 | Puerto Rican |
| Queens County, NY | 48% | D+45.2 | D+24.1 | R+21.1 | Diverse immigrants |
| Los Angeles County, CA | 48% | D+44.0 | D+32.9 | R+11.1 | Diverse metro |
| Yuma County, AZ | 48% | R+6.2 | R+20.4 | R+14.2 | Hispanic border |
| Hudson County, NJ | 47% | D+46.6 | D+27.9 | R+18.7 | Hispanic + diverse |
| Passaic County (Paterson), NJ | 42% | D+16.7 | R+2.9 | R+19.5 | Arab + diverse |
| Brooklyn (Kings), NY | 38% | D+54.8 | D+43.0 | R+11.8 | Diverse urban |
| San Bernardino County, CA | 38% | D+10.7 | R+2.1 | R+12.8 | Diverse working class |
| Rockland County, NY | 35% | D+1.7 | R+11.7 | R+13.5 | Orthodox Jewish |
CVAP Non-English: Share of Citizen Voting Age Population speaking a language other than English at home (Census CVAP 2023). All margins and swings from Akashic Edge election database.
The Full Model: 13 Other Variables
Beyond CVAP non-English %, our model captures 13 other demographic and political factors. Each tells its own story about how Trump assembled his coalition.
Work From Home %
Remote workers in the knowledge economy swung toward Democrats. For every 10 percentage points higher a county's work-from-home share, it swung nearly 3 points more Democratic—the "laptop class" effect.
Swing State
Counties in swing states (AZ, GA, MI, NC, NV, PA, WI) swung 1.1 points more Democratic than equivalent counties elsewhere. Campaign investment and media saturation matter.
Arab Ancestry %
Gaza broke the Arab-American vote. For every 1 percentage point higher a county's Arab ancestry share, it swung 0.74 points more toward Trump. Paterson's Arab community exemplifies the collapse.
Ukrainian Ancestry %
Ukrainian-Americans rewarded Biden's Ukraine support. Each 1 percentage point higher Ukrainian ancestry correlated with nearly a full point more Democratic swing—the strongest pro-Dem ancestry effect.
Indian Ancestry %
South Asian Americans shifted right. Counties with higher Indian-ancestry populations swung modestly toward Trump, part of a broader pattern of immigrant-origin communities moving Republican.
German Ancestry %
German-American counties—think Wisconsin and Minnesota—resisted the national swing toward Trump. Small per-point effect, but German ancestry is common enough to matter at scale.
Portuguese Ancestry %
Portuguese-American communities in California's Central Valley and Massachusetts shifted right. Working-class Catholic voters following the broader Hispanic realignment.
Italian Ancestry %
Italian-Americans continued their multi-decade drift from the Democratic Party. Staten Island—23.6% Italian—delivered Trump's largest swing in any NYC borough.
Jewish Population %
Jewish communities swung toward Trump across the board. Palm Beach County—15% Jewish, mix of secular and Orthodox retirees—saw a 12-point swing. Fears over Israel and antisemitism drove the shift.
Evangelical %
Counterintuitive but real: high-evangelical counties swung less toward Trump than expected. They were already maxed out—there was no room to grow. Some suburban evangelicals even drifted away.
Black Protestant %
Trump made inroads in Black church communities. Wayne County (Detroit)—10.4% Black Protestant adherents—saw a 9-point swing toward Republicans. Someone was working these churches.
LDS (Mormon) %
Mormon country resisted Trump. High-LDS counties swung less Republican than demographically similar areas—lingering distaste from 2016 and Romney's influence.
Migration Effect
Migration reshapes electorates. Based on NYT analysis of partisan lean of movers by state. Counties receiving Democratic-leaning movers (Atlanta suburbs) held up; counties receiving Republican-leaning movers (Idaho exurbs) swung harder right. See NYT analysis →
Model Fit
County-level WLS, CVAP-weighted
Dearborn, Michigan
| Year | Dem | Rep | Other | Net Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 68.8% | 29.7% | 1.5% | D+39.1 |
| 2024 | 36.3% | 42.5% | 18.4% | R+6.2 |
| Swing | R+45 | |||
America's largest Arab-American community gave Jill Stein her best result in the entire country. Nearly 1 in 5 voters chose a third-party protest candidate over Harris.
Trump's play: promise everything to everyone. Pro-Israel donors got their messaging. Arab voters got theirs. The bet was that these audiences wouldn't see each other's ads.
It worked.
The Michigan math:
Trump won Michigan by 80,106 votes. In 2020, Biden carried Dearborn by 17,480 net votes. In 2024, Trump won it by 2,594.
That's a 20,074 vote swing from a single city. One-quarter of Michigan's entire margin.
The Harris campaign's response to Gaza? Essentially nothing. No counteroffer. No outreach. Just silence while votes walked out the door—and Michigan with it.
Laredo, Texas
In 2012, the Laredo metro was Obama's second-best in the entire country—trailing only Santa Cruz, California. In 2024, it voted for Trump.
| Year | Dem % | Rep % | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 76.4% | 22.5% | D+53.9 |
| 2024 | 48.5% | 50.6% | R+2.1 |
| Swing | R+56 | ||
Webb County is 95% Hispanic. This isn't a story about white voters. It's not about rural resentment. It's about a community that gave Obama his second-best metro performance in America—and flipped to Trump twelve years later.
The border wasn't an abstraction here. It was daily life. And somewhere along the way, the Democratic coalition lost the plot.
From Obama's second-best metro to voting Republican. A 56-point swing in twelve years.
Lake & Peninsula Borough, Alaska
| Year | Dem % | Rep % | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 55.7% | 35.9% | D+19.8 |
| 2024 | 40.1% | 52.3% | R+12.3 |
| Swing | R+32 | ||
One of the biggest swings in America. Population: ~1,500.
Mostly Yup'ik Native Alaskans whose ancestors intermarried with Russian Orthodox missionaries in the 1800s. They've been Orthodox Christians for generations.
On October 29, 2024, Trump did something no major presidential candidate had done before: he addressed Coptic Christians by name. One tweet. That's all it took.
The Orthodox world noticed. The Coptic bishops issued a statement congratulating him after the election. And in remote Alaska, Yup'ik communities who share the Orthodox faith swung 32 points.
A 32-point swing from a single tweet. That's the return on investment of targeted micro-coalition outreach.
Small community. One tweet. R+32 swing. That's machine politics.
The Lumbee Tribe
Robeson County, North Carolina. Home of the Lumbee Tribe—55,000 members, the largest tribe east of the Mississippi, fighting for full federal recognition since 1888.
| Year | Margin | Shift |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | D+17.4 | — |
| 2016 | R+4.3 | R+21.7 |
| 2020 | R+18.6 | R+14.4 |
| 2024 | R+27.6 | R+9.0 |
Trump promised federal recognition. On January 28, 2025, he signed a presidential memo directing Interior to advance recognition. On December 18, 2025, he signed the Lumbee Fairness Act into law. The Lumbee became the 575th federally recognized tribe.
137 years of waiting. Democrats had decades to deliver. They didn't.
The Clinton Echo
History rhymes—and these communities remember
A strong inverse relationship. Counties where Bill Clinton improved most in 1996 are the same counties that swung hardest to Trump in 2024. What does that mean?
Three Eras, Four Counties
| County | 1992 | 1996 | Δ | 2020 | 2024 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Webb County (Laredo), TX | D+27 | D+58 | +31 | D+23 | R+2 | -26 |
| Queens, NY | D+35 | D+52 | +17 | D+45 | D+24 | -21 |
| Miami-Dade, FL | D+4 | D+20 | +16 | D+7 | R+11 | -19 |
| Bethel Census Area, AK | D+0 | D+27 | +27 | D+28 | D+11 | -17 |
| National | D+5.6 | D+8.5 | +3 | D+4.5 | R+1.5 | -6 |
Clinton's 1996 Formula
- •Signed the Illegal Immigration Reform Act
- •Passed welfare reform ("end welfare as we know it")
- •"The era of big government is over"
- •Ran to center on cultural issues
Trump's 2024 Reversal
- •Border security as central message
- •Direct outreach to Hispanic working class
- •Economic populism, anti-inflation focus
- •Targeted ethnic/religious bloc appeals
The same communities that responded to Clinton's 1996 message responded to Trump's version of it in 2024. Twenty-eight years later, the realignment Clinton started is completing—just not in the direction Democrats hoped.
Why Trump Ran Unopposed
The real story isn't inflation—it's absence
The standard explanation for 2024 is "inflation" or "vibes" or "incumbency drag." Those matter. But they don't explain why the swing was so concentrated in non-English-speaking communities and ethnic/religious blocs.
The real story: Trump practiced politics, and Democrats didn't.
Since 1972, when Democrats reformed their primary process to eliminate party bosses, they became allergic to transactional coalition-building—the kind of politics where you make a specific promise to a specific group and deliver. The kind of politics that built the New Deal coalition.
Modern Democrats think that's corruption. They think "good policy" should speak for itself. They staff campaigns with credentialed millennials who say "Latinx" to Hispanic voters who've never heard the word. They lecture instead of listen.
Biden's 2024 collapse wasn't just about age. It was a White House full of yes-men who couldn't tell him the truth, surrounded by staffers who thought posting on social media was the same as organizing.
Harris inherited this mess and ran a bizarrely low-energy campaign. No outreach to Arab voters on Gaza. No counter-programming to Trump's ethnic coalition plays. Just... nothing.
Trump filled the vacuum. He showed up. He made promises. He treated these communities like their votes were worth fighting for.
That's not genius. That's basic politics. But when your opponent isn't playing, basic is enough.
The Ephemeral Coalition?
2025 suggests the swing might not stick
One caveat: this swing might not stick.
Non-English-speaking immigrants are disproportionately price-sensitive. They don't have deep ideological commitments to either party. They voted their wallets in 2024, and their wallets were hurting.
We're already seeing the snapback.
In the November 2025 governor elections, Democrats recovered sharply in exactly the communities that swung hardest to Trump:
The 2025 Recovery
| County | State | 2020 Pres | 2024 Pres | 2025 Gov | Recovery |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hudson County | NJ | D+46.6 | D+27.9 | D+51.2↑ | +23.3+4.6 vs 2020 |
| Manassas Park city | VA | D+33.1 | D+19.9 | D+42.5↑ | +22.6+9.4 vs 2020 |
| Passaic County | NJ | D+16.7 | R+2.9 | D+16.3 | +19.298% back |
| Prince William County | VA | D+27.0 | D+17.9 | D+34.4↑ | +16.5+7.4 vs 2020 |
| Fairfax County | VA | D+41.9 | D+34.7 | D+48.0↑ | +13.3+6.1 vs 2020 |
Passaic County—home to Paterson's Arab community—went from D+16.7 (2020) to R+2.9 (2024) to D+16.3 (2025). Nearly the exact same margin as 2020. A complete reversal in twelve months.
"Hispanics married President Trump, but they're only dating the GOP."
The 2024 coalition was a rental, not a realignment. Trump delivered a masterclass in transactional politics. But transactional coalitions require continuous delivery. The question is whether Democrats can remember how the game works—or whether they'll keep losing to an opponent who actually shows up.
Data: Akashic Edge 14-variable WLS regression (n=3,143 counties, R²=0.77, weight=CVAP). Full model output in backend/scripts/regression-2024.py. Dearborn city results from Wayne County election records. Alaska 2020 borough estimates from RRH Elections; Alaska 2024 borough estimates via proportional allocation of non-ED votes. 2025 governor results from Virginia and New Jersey Secretaries of State.