The Most Remarkable Map From the 2020 Election

Why did Trump dominate in Ohio but not Michigan?

Behold, the most striking electoral map I’ve ever seen:

I pulled the above infographic from the USA Today article “No blue wave, no red tide: Historic election turnout boosts Biden in Michigan, Trump in Ohio”.

That piece, written on November 14, 2020, purports to explain why Trump did so well in Ohio but was beaten soundly in Michigan right across the border. The map above ostensibly reveals the answer. Joe Biden improved on his share of rural white voters in Michigan but got clobbered in Ohio.

In the map above, the redder the county, the greater the change in the voting margin percentage in Trump’s favor. The bluer the county, the more the voting margin moved away from Trump.

According to this map, Trump absolutely dominated in Ohio in 2020, increasing his margin of victory in virtually every rural county in the state by more than 3 percentage points. That isn’t surprising to me. Trump is very popular in the upper midwest. The landscape was dotted with Trump signs and flags. His rallies in the region, of which I attended two in the fall of that year, were packed with thousands of people.

And on election day, it showed. Trump won cruised to victory with an 8 point win in the state: 53% to Biden’s 45%.

Michigan was a whole different story. As you can see above, Trump’s margin decreased in most of the rural counties in the state and what growth he did see was much lower. Biden won Michigan with 50% of the vote to Trump’s 47%.

Here is what I find so odd, however: Michigan and Ohio are culturally, demographically, and economically nearly identical. So why were the election results so different?

The data bears the similarities out. Michigan is 79% White and 14% Black. Ohio is 81% White and 13% Black. Ohio has a household median income of $58,000 a year. Michigan has a household median income of $59,000. 31% of Michigan’s population has a college degree. 30% of Ohio’s does. Both states are old industrial hubs where manufacturing is one of the top two largest sectors of the respective economies. Ohio is 53% Protestant and 18% Catholic. Michigan is 51% Protestant and 18% Catholic.

If it weren’t for the signs and the slightly better roads there would be absolutely no way to tell you’d crossed over the border between the two states.

It therefore boggles the mind how Trump could do so much better (relatively) in counties located just 30 miles south of where I sit right now than counties 30 miles north. Compounding this mystery is the fact that the rural counties in southern Michigan and northern Ohio are even more homogenous demographically and culturally than the states as a whole.

Again, what gives?

I am happy to be informed by the Wise. But I can hazard a pretty good guess on my own. Michigan and Ohio, though very similar, have different election laws. For instance, after 2018 Michigan adopted same day voter registration. Ohio, by contrast, requires that voters be registered at least 30 days before election day.

Those legal differences probably explain Michigan’s noticeably higher turnout rate.In Ohio in 2020, 74% of registered voters came out to the polls. In Michigan, 78% did. That 4% difference in turnout is the equivalent of 284,000 more votes. Biden’s margin of victory was just 150,000 votes. That turnout difference helps explain why Michigan went blue.

Whatever the cause, the underlying point is clear—relatively minor legal and policy tweaks can have serious outcomes in elections. Which also goes to show that “Our Democracy” is far more malleable and open to procedural manipulation than the partisans of liberal values pretend.

Change the rules and you change the outcome. A people as similar as those between Michigan and Ohio produce wildly different election results under different electoral rules.

The media’s constant refrain that Trump’s claims of election fraud are “baseless” is self-serving idiocy. If Michigan had conducted the 2020 election under Ohio’s election rules, procedures, and election staff then Donald Trump would have won the state.

The Democratic Party in Michigan is not more effective or savvy than that south of the border. The idea that the striking differences in Trump’s margin in conservative rural counties is a result of the power of the Democratic ground game in Michigan is likewise absurd. I have never once seen Democrats campaigning door to door in rural areas of the state. Not once.

Was it then the magic of internet advertising that convinced rural whites to favor Biden more than Clinton in rural Michigan? If so, why didn’t that same magic cross the Ohio border?

No matter how you slice it the 2020 election was not legitimate. It was not a genuine expression of the will of the country. When elections are made less secure then Democrats win. When they are more secure Republicans win.

If this country required that every voter register at least 30 days in front of the election and required that all votes be cast on paper ballots, only on election day, only in English, and only in person then Donald Trump would have won the 2020 election in an electoral landslide. If all states, in addition, periodically purged the voters rolls and required citizens to re-register, the Republican Party would win the popular vote in a landslide, too.

With these facts in mind, how can we possible assign any serious weight to the ginned up results of our malleable and mutilated “Democracy?” American elections as we conduct them now are a farce.

If you make the electoral process more secure and require voters to demonstrate even a modicum of effort, intelligence, and civic mindedness to vote the Republican Party wins. Open up elections to the point every felon, bum, and political illiterate can cast his ballot to determine the Commander in Chief and the Democrats have smooth electoral sailing.

Funny how that works.

Of course there is gross misbehavior throughout our electoral system. Of course! The Democrats are LARPing like they are in an existential war with fascism. You think they wouldn’t bend the rules or cheat outright to win? Look at that map again and tell me with a straight face you think everything was on the up and up in 2020.

The truth is obvious to those with the eyes to see and the ears to hear.