Donald Trump recently told us the wrong yardstick for the 2020 presidential election

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An article by Daniel Dale at CNN on April 25, 2023 is titled Fact Check: Trump, in 2023, tells a new lie about the 2020 election. Mr. Dale tells us that:

 

“In a speech to a Republican gathering in Florida on Friday, during which he repeated his usual lie that the 2020 election was ‘rigged and stolen,’ Trump pointedly noted that Biden got more votes than Trump in fewer than a fifth of US counties in 2020. Trump then said, ‘Nothing like this has ever happened before. Usually it’s very equal, or – but the winner always had the most counties.’ ”

 

As shown above in a pair of bar charts, in 2020 Biden only won ~17% of the counties, while in 2016 Trump won ~84% of them. At the end of his article Mr. Dale points out that Obama only won ~28% of the counties in 2008, and ~22% of the counties in 2012. The winner only had the most counties in 2016 (one of the last four elections), as described in an article by Kin LaCapria at Snopes on December 2, 2016.

    

Mr. Dale quoted William Frey, a senior fellow from the Brookings Institution, who said in an email that:

 

“There is nothing suspicious about winning the presidency with a smaller number of counties. Counties vary widely in size, with large urban counties – where Biden did best – housing far larger populations than most of the outer suburb, small town and rural counties that Trump won."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s look at the four counties with the largest populations, as are shown above in a bar chart. (They came from the Wikipedia page with a List of the most populous counties in the United States). Biden won all of them, as can be seen in the Wikipedia pages with election results for the states of Arizona, California, Illinois, and Texas.I also have shown the smallest county in the same state. Biden won Alpine County, and Trump won the other three. The total for four counties with largest populations is 24,441,263 (about 7.4% of the U.S. population), and the total for four with smallest is just 14,570.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The electoral college results, shown above in a bar chart, are the right yardstick for the 2020 presidential election. Using the number of counties won is about as silly as claiming the winner for each game in the World Series should be based on the number of strikeouts (a measure of pitching) rather than the number of runs scored (a measure of hitting).