When the polls close on Tuesday, we will be watching, of course, for statewide outcomes in the presidential battlegrounds. But as we wait for calls, there will be individual counties you can look to for clues — though not definitive ones — to the contours of the vote.
Here are some counties whose results may speak to whether different demographic groups are trending toward Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald J. Trump.
Working-class white voters
Macomb County, Mich.
Macomb County, a stretch of suburbs and exurbs north of Detroit, is home to large numbers of the working-class white voters who broke the so-called Blue Wall in 2016, flipping Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to Republicans for the first time in more than a quarter-century and winning Mr. Trump the presidency.
Four years later, just enough of them returned to vote Democratic, helping Joseph R. Biden Jr. flip those states back. How those voters break this year could be decisive again.
In 2020, Mr. Trump won 53.4 percent of the vote in Macomb County.
College-educated suburban voters
Chester County, Pa.
Chester County, an affluent area west of Philadelphia, is filled with the sort of highly educated suburban voters who have shifted toward voting for Democrats since 2016, one of the more electorally significant realignments of the Trump era.
Educated suburban voters, especially women, helped fuel Democratic victories in 2018, 2020 and 2022. Abortion has been a motivating issue for suburban women, and if we see a big “Dobbs effect” of backlash to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, this is one place where it could be visible.
In 2020, Mr. Biden won 57.8 percent of the vote in Chester County.
Black voters
Fulton County, Ga.
Black voters are a powerful bloc in Fulton County, home to Atlanta, and Mr. Trump has been trying to cut into the Democrats’ advantage there.
Democrats have historically relied on huge margins in heavily Black metropolitan areas in order to win states that, on a traditional results map, appear mostly red because of strong Republican support in geographically large but less populated areas. This was a big part of what enabled Mr. Biden to win Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In 2020, Mr. Biden won 72.6 percent of the vote in Fulton County.
Latino voters
Yuma County, Ariz.
Yuma County, in the southwestern corner of Arizona along the border with Mexico, is about two-thirds Latino and has been at the center of debates over the effects of illegal immigration. How it votes will offer some indication of how Latino voters are weighing that issue, though it’s important to note that there is also a sizable minority of white working-class voters here.
Another word of caution: It’s tough to identify bellwethers for Latino voters at large, in part because Latinos are so diverse. Cuban Americans in Florida, for instance, are politically distinct from Mexican Americans in Arizona.
In 2020, Mr. Trump won 52.2 percent of the vote in Yuma County.
Arab American voters
Wayne County, Mich.
Wayne County is home to Detroit, a heavily Black city, but it’s also home to Dearborn, a majority-Arab suburb that has been an epicenter of anger at the Biden administration’s and Harris campaign’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas.
Many voters here have historically backed Democrats but are disillusioned with Ms. Harris because she says she would continue to provide weapons to Israel. Some have said they will reluctantly vote for her anyway, but others plan to vote for Mr. Trump or a third-party candidate, or not to vote at all. Victory margins and turnout numbers will both be significant.
In 2020, Mr. Biden won 68.4 percent of the vote in Wayne County.
Jewish voters
Montgomery County, Pa.
Montgomery County is home to significant Jewish populations, particularly in Lower Merion Township, west of Philadelphia. It is an imperfect bellwether — no county is majority Jewish, and many places with the largest Jewish minorities, like New York City, aren’t in battleground states — but it will help show another piece of the electoral impact of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Mr. Trump has been trying to woo Jewish voters, saying his support of Israel would be uncompromising compared with that of Ms. Harris, who has sometimes criticized it. In doing so, though, he has often used antisemitic tropes.
In 2020, Mr. Biden won 62.6 percent of the vote in Montgomery County.
Young voters
Dane County, Wis.
Dane County is home to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and like other counties with large college campuses, it will point to trends among young people, including first-time voters.
Young voters have historically been an important constituency for Democrats, and Ms. Harris has drawn more enthusiasm from them than Mr. Biden was drawing earlier this year. But there are still questions surrounding her support, especially because of Israel, and there is evidence of a growing gender gap caused by young men moving to the right.
In 2020, Mr. Biden won 75.5 percent of the vote in Dane County.
Rural voters
Peach County, Ga.
It’s hard to choose one bellwether county for rural voters because they are spread across such a vast number of counties, most of which are heavily Republican.
But one option is Peach County, a swath of central Georgia that — unlike most rural counties — is closely split between white and Black voters. It has swung back and forth between Republicans and Democrats in past elections.
In 2020, Mr. Trump won 51.8 percent of the vote in Peach County.
The post These 8 Counties Could Hint at Where the Election Is Headed appeared first on New York Times.
