Breaking down 20 years of election data that shows how the two parties have evolved in the Trump era

The 2024 election was the first in two decades that saw a Republican popular vote victory. The trends since then illustrate extreme changes in the two parties in that time.

President Donald Trump’s second election win was different from his first in one big, important way: He won the popular vote, just the second time in the last two decades that Republicans had done so.

And in the time between those two victories, from 2004 to 2024, there have been dramatic shifts in the nation’s politics along geographic, racial, educational and economic lines. Trump is operating in a very different Republican Party than George W. Bush was 20 years earlier. A look at where the vote has shifted most in that time tells an eye-catching story.

Over the last 20 years, the counties where Republicans have improved their presidential vote share by the largest margins are predominately centered in Appalachia and the surrounding areas. The 100 counties that saw the largest shifts include: 11 of West Virginia’s 55 counties, 27 of Tennessee’s 95 counties, 18 of Arkansas’ 75 counties and 17 of Kentucky’s 120 counties.

These counties, on the whole, are much more heavily white than average, according to census data, with white residents making up at least 90% of the total population in about two-thirds of these counties. All but 12 of those counties are at least 75% white. The unemployment rate across these counties is about twice the national average. Residents are more likely to be reliant on food stamps and less likely to have moved in the last year. Residents of these counties, on average, also are significantly less likely to have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

While the national average in the American Community Survey’s most recent five-year estimate is that 35% of Americans have a bachelor’s degree or higher, the average in these counties is just 14%.