President-elect Donald Trump’s 2024 victory was powered by an overall voter shift in most places and most demographics compared to 2020 — with a new analysis of precinct data in pivotal Pennsylvania coloring in additional details about how Trump won.
The NBC News Decision Desk collected and monitored precinct-level vote results in 50 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, totaling more than 8,300 of the state’s roughly 9,000 precincts. This granular data provides a detailed insight into what was happening neighborhood to neighborhood and block to block in the nation’s biggest battleground state.
On average, Pennsylvania’s precincts shifted 1.6 percentage points toward the Republicans and 1.6 points away from the Democrats — a 3.2-point swing overall that flipped Pennsylvania from a 1-point victory for Democrats in 2020 to an approximately 2-point Republican win in 2024.
The chart below shows the difference between Trump’s vote percentage in 2020 and his percentage in 2024 in Pennsylvania precincts. Dots above the dotted black line are precincts where Trump out-performed his vote percentage four years ago. The red line shows the average shift in Trump support from 2020 to 2024.
On average, Trump improved on his 2020 vote percentage in nearly all precincts in Pennsylvania, except those where he had already received more than 80% of support in 2020. Trump’s strongest improvements occurred in places where he received 20% to 30% of the vote in 2020 — that is, he managed to lose by significantly less in what had been very Democratic corners of the state.
Trump’s overperformance in Democratic areas was clear when looking at the precinct results in the Philadelphia metro area — a key region for Biden’s 2020 victory. In 2024, voters in Philadelphia and its four suburban collar counties made up just under 33% of all voters in the state.
The map shows that nearly all of the region’s 3,100 precincts shifted their votes in Trump’s favor. While there are a few precincts that moved in Harris’ favor (in blue on the map), Trump improved on his 2020 vote percentage in 82% of the region’s precincts.
While Harris and Biden both won this region comfortably, Harris’ vote margin was nearly 120,000 votes smaller than Biden’s. That’s a significant decrease: Biden carried the state by 82,000 votes in 2020.
The regional map also shows that the precincts where Trump improved the most were heavily concentrated in the city of Philadelphia.
The Philadelphia map on the left shows that Harris comfortably won the vast majority of the city’s 1,700 precincts. But the right side shows that Harris underperformed Biden’s margins and nearly 84% of the city’s precincts shifted toward Trump.
On average, Trump performed 2 percentage points better in Philadelphia precincts — overall, similar to his improvement in the rest of the state. But there are key differences in different types of neighborhoods.
The biggest of these shifts occurred in north and northeastern Philadelphia neighborhoods with high concentrations of Hispanic residents. This is yet more evidence of a recurring pattern in pre-election polling and the NBC News Exit Poll, which showed Trump significantly improving his vote percentage among Latino voters around the nation, including in Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, the blue areas that shifted toward Harris in northwest and central/southern Philadelphia (including the highly dense, downtown region of Center City) are neighborhoods with the highest concentration of college-educated residents. NBC Exit Poll results showed Trump’s support among this group in Pennsylvania decreasing by 3 percentage points from his 2020 level.
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