blood-from-stone counties

Shortly before election day 2020, David H. Montgomery wrote,

All told, Trump had 60 different counties [in Minnesota] where he won by fewer than 5,000 votes — small margins that added up to another 135,000 votes.

While Trump racked up nearly 193,000 votes in the 18 counties where his victory margin was large [i.e. > 5,000 votes], Clinton had a lead of more than 237,000 votes from Hennepin County alone.

Considering a > 5,000-vote margin 'large' is a sign of the trajectory the Republican Party has taken. Given that it has taken that trajectory, however, it is worth considering the size of the counties that Republicans have managed to squeeze > 5,000-vote margins out of. It is, for example, not saying all that much to say that Trump got a > 5,000-vote margin out of Delaware County, Ohio (which he did). 

We could look specifically at counties that Republicans have won by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast--which would mean they are both winning those counties by 'large margins', and winning them by over half of the total votes cast. We could call these 'blood-from-stone counties', from Face to Face's comment that 'so much of non-urban America was already sour on the Democrats that there wasn't a whole lot more blood to be squeezed from that stone.' (As it turns out, there might have been.)

1904/1916
In 1904, Theodore Roosevelt carried at least five counties by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

LaSalle, IL (8,605)
Indiana, PA (8,904)
Tioga, PA (9,342)
Somerset, PA (9,358)
Henry, IL (9,838)

And Alton Parker carried at least two:

Jefferson, AL (8,022)
Davidson, TN (9,956)

Data for a number of states are missing for elections this far back, which on its own somewhat limits the utility of this exercise for elections that are long ago, but TR carried no counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast in any of these states, which makes it unlikely the total number is much, if at all, in excess of five. Furthermore, the two counties Parker is known to have carried by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast were the largest and second-largest counties in their states, respectively. 

In 1916, there was only one county that gave either nominee a > 5,000-vote margin out of fewer than 10,000 votes cast: Richmond City, VA, which cast 8,303 votes. It's not unusual for there to be few or no blood-from-stone counties in close elections, but significantly, again, Richmond City was the most vote-casting county or county-equivalent in Virginia in 1916. In fact, (partly) excluding the five states for which there are no data for 1916 (Alabama, Indiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and West Virginia), here were only 71 counties of any size that either nominee won by over 5,000 votes, most of them recognisable amongst today's 'mega-counties':

Wilson: San Francisco, Denver, Fulton, GA, Kenton, KY, Orleans, LA, Baltimore City, MD, Suffolk, MA, Ramsey and Hennepin, MN, Jackson, MO, Silver Bow, MT (then the largest county in Montana), Douglas, NE, The Bronx, Manhattan, Berks, PA, Shelby and Davidson, TN, Harris, Dallas, and Tarrant, TX, Salt Lake, UT, Richmond City, VA, King, WA, Milwaukee, WI, Jefferson, AL, and four in Ohio

Hughes: Los Angeles and Alameda, CA, Fairfield, CT, Middlesex, Worcester, and Norfolk, MA, Wayne, MI, St Louis City, MO, Passaic, Union, Bergen, and Essex, NJ, Hamilton, OH, Multnomah, OR, Marion, IN, six in Pennsylvania, eight in New York, and 13 in Illinois

In the next close election (1948), there were 71 > 5,000-vote county margins in New York and Pennsylvania alone (40 in New York, 31 in Pennsylvania). 

Even though there already were some very large counties by 1904/1916 (with Republicans winning at least one county by 100,000 votes in each of 1896, 1900, 1904, 1908, and 1916), the bulk of the country's counties seemed to be of such a size that delivering a > 5,000-vote margin meant that a county was already one of the relatively larger ones. 

In the next landslide (1920), the winner would win 31 counties by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast. This number remained unsurpassed by the later Republican landslides of 1928, 1956, 1972, and 1984 (and quasi- or near-landslides of 1924 and 1952), or indeed by any Republican until 2016. (FDR's 47 in his 1936 landslide would remain unsurpassed by all subsequent Republican landslides as well as by the sole subsequent Democratic landslide of 1964, and indeed by any nominee of either party until 2016.) In the next close election (1948), one nominee (Truman) would win 12 counties by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast, a figure which would remain unmatched by any close-election nominee of either party until 2004 (although Goldwater, losing in a landslide nationally, would also match it in 1964, which probably testifies to the odd dynamics at work in that election more than anything else [he also sextupled the number of blood-from-stone counties carried by the landslide winner that year]). This implies that subsequent shifts in the number of blood-from-stone counties from one election to the next are not primarily a function of changes in the number of counties that are able to deliver > 5,000-vote margins. 

1920
In 1920, Harding carried 31 counties by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

Dunn, WI (6,370)
Sevier, TN (6,417)
Vernon, WI (6,621)
Carter, TN (6,733)
Butler, IA (6,806)
Floyd, IA (7,197)
Brown, MN (7,240)
Bremer, IA (7,269)
Barnstable, MA (7,562)
Mower, MN (7,725)
Faribault, MN (7,775)
Clark, WI (7,833)
Hardin, IA (7,915)
Monroe, WI (8,145)
Chippewa, WI (8,175)
Barron, WI (8,176)
Freeborn, MN (8,263)
Fillmore, MN (8,544)
Sanilac, MI (8,571)
Tuscola, MI (8,809)
Whitley, KY (8,819)
Wright, MN (8,820)
Columbia, WI (8,882)
Page, IA (9,131)
Olmsted, MN (9,245)
Harlan, KY (9,351)
Sauk, WI (9,522)
Eau Claire, WI (9,625)
Lee, IL (9,646)
Wood, WI (9,721)
Waupaca, WI (9,997)

They were located in eight states (one of which Harding did not carry); every state save Illinois and Massachusetts had more than one. Wisconsin had eleven; Iowa had five; and Minnesota had seven, more than any of those states has had again since, in a (since-unreplicated) demonstration of the breadth and depth of the GOP's strength in one of its traditional home regions, the Upper Midwest.

Cox carried Montgomery, AL by more than 5,000 votes out of 6,775 cast (with no data from Mississippi or South Carolina).

1924
In 1924, Coolidge carried 11 counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

Caledonia, VT (7,422)
Lapeer, MI (7,528)
Barnstable, MA (8,577)
Clinton, MI (8,641)
Montcalm, MI (8,791)
Huntingdon, PA (8,875)
Windham, VT (9,183)
Sanilac, MI (9,188)
Somerset, ME (9,285)
Tuscola, MI (9,319)
Elk, PA (9,352)

They were located in five states, with all but Massachusetts and Maine having more than one. Michigan had five, nearly half the total, despite the disappearance of these countries in the rest of the Upper Midwest (where Robert La Follette had strong showings).

1924 is the only election, incidentally, in the 1920s in which I know of the Democratic nominee having carried counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast, although data for some Deep South states in the 1920s are missing:

Navarro, TX (7,481)
Williamson, TX (7,578)
Hunt, TX (7,810)
Ellis, TX (9,040)
Collin, TX (9,365)
Bell, TX (9,457)
Travis, TX (9,827)

1928
In 1928, Hoover carried 14 counties by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

Lapeer, MI (7,867)
Scotts Bluff, NE (8,167)
Dunn, WI (9,274)
Montcalm, MI (9,318)
Franklin, KS (9,370)
Yates, NY (9,395)
Bourbon, KS (9,556)
Canyon, ID (9,619)
Sanilac, MI (9,668)
Whitley, KY (9,680)
Tuscola, MI (9,703)
Fillmore, MN (9,925)
Hancock, ME (9,946)
Chelan, WA (9,954)

They were located in ten states, although only Kansas and Michigan had more than one--Michigan had four. This was the first time (going back to 1880) that a county in either Kansas or Nebraska had given a nominee a > 5,000-vote margin out of fewer than 10,000 votes cast, and the first time any county in Idaho or Washington had done so going back to their first participating election in 1892. To date, this was the last time a Republican carried a county in either Michigan or Minnesota by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast.

With no data available for Mississippi or South Carolina, it appears the smallest county Smith carried by over 5,000 votes was Stearns, MN, which cast 22,615 votes.

1932
In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt carried 44 counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast, across 11 Southern states and Indiana (where he carried Dubois County, in the southwest of the state, by 5,190 votes out of 9,996 cast).

Although Dubois County, IN is barely outside the South, FDR's near-misses outside the South did tend to be concentrated in the Midwest in 1932 (unlike in 1936, when they were concentrated in the Mountain West). He carried Shawano, WI (which cast 10,367 votes) and Clinton, IL (which cast 10,466) by over 5,000 votes; and he carried Carroll, IA by 4,909 out of 9,499; Brown, MN by 4,689 out of 8,955; Morrison, MN by 4,514 out of 9,123; Platte, NE by 4,827 out of 8,627; and Charles Mix, SD by 4,002 out of 6,846. (He also carried Clark, NV--not, then, the largest county in Nevada--by 4,490 out of 7,184.) By electoral history, this was an eclectic group of counties. Clinton and Platte were traditionally Democratic counties at the time; Carroll had been a traditionally Democratic county until it voted for Hughes in 1916, but then it seemed to return to its traditional loyalties by voting for Smith in 1928. Carroll, along with Shawano, Brown, and Morrison, had voted for Hughes in 1916; Carroll, Brown, and Morrison were Hughes-Smith counties. Most of these counties saw a steep dropoff in Democratic support in 1936 and/or 1940. All of these counties (in the Midwest--not Clark) voted for Trump in 2020.

Hoover carried none; the smallest county he carried by a margin of > 5,000 votes was Tioga, PA, which cast 12,778 votes.

1936
In 1936, Franklin Roosevelt won 47 counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast, across ten Southern states.

Alf Landon carried none; the smallest county which gave him a > 5,000-vote margin was Hancock, ME, which cast 12,700 votes.

1940
In 1940, Franklin Roosevelt won 40 counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast, across ten Southern states.

Wendell Willkie carried none; the smallest county which gave him a > 5,000-vote margin was Clinton, MI, which cast 11,076 votes.

1944
In 1944, Franklin Roosevelt carried 28 counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast across nine Southern states; ten were in Texas alone.

Dewey carried none; the smallest county to give him a > 5,000-vote margin in that election was Fulton, OH, which cast 10,405 votes.

1948
In 1948, Truman won twelve counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast (number is number of votes cast):

Wilson, NC (6,966)
Fannin, TX (7,065)
Halifax, NC (7,109)
Edgecombe, NC (7,142)
McCurtain, OK (7,314)
Lamar, TX (8,365)
Garvin, OK (8,460)
Nash, NC (8,576)
Bell, TX (9,113)
Bryan, OK (9,114)
Robeson, NC (9,133)
Pitt, NC (9,522) 

They were in three Southern states, with half (six) being in North Carolina.

Dewey won one:

Wayne, PA (9,992)

(Dewey had none in 1944; the smallest county to give him a > 5,000-vote margin in that election was Fulton, OH, which cast 10,405 votes.)

1952
In 1952, Eisenhower won ten counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

Lincoln, ME (8,074)
Sevier, TN (8,310)
Snyder, PA (8,545)
Dawson, NE (8,950)
Carroll, NH (9,076)
Custer, NE (9,256)
Caledonia, VT (9,423)
Door, WI (9,430)
Yates, NY (9,670)
Cass, IA (9,727)

They were in these nine states; although only Nebraska had more than one, eight of the nine states form one of two contiguous blocs. To date, this was the last time a Republican has carried a county in either Iowa or Wisconsin by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast.

Stevenson carried six counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

Martin, NC (5,908)
Gwinnett, GA (7,041)
Chambers, AL (7,190)
Troup, GA (9,017)
Lauderdale, AL (9,027)
Madison, AL (9,920)

These were located in three Southern states, of which Alabama and Georgia each had more than one.

1956
Eisenhower won seven counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

Waldo, ME (7,974)
Sevier, TN (8,038)
Lincoln, ME (8,355)
Carroll, NH (8,816)
Snyder, PA (9,064)
Caledonia, VT (9,304)
Yates, NY (9,516) 

They were in these six states, with, again, only one state (this time Maine) having more than one, but with five of the six forming a contiguous bloc. This was the last time a Republican would win a county in Vermont by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast.

Stevenson carried four counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

Martin, NC (6,179)
Colbert, AL (8,937)
Sumner, TN (9,527)
Edgecombe, NC (9,670)

These were located in three Southern states, of which North Carolina contained more than one.

Incredibly, this appears to have been the last time that a Democrat 1) carried more than three counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast, or 2) carried more than one 'blood-from-stone' county in a single state. Every county which Stevenson won by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast in either 1952 or 1956 was one in which Kennedy got a lower percentage than Stevenson received in 1956.

1960
Nixon carried six 'blood from stone' counties in 1960:

Cocke, TN (8,095)
Sevier, TN (9,192)
Carroll, NH (9,405)
Union, PA (9,472)
Laurel, KY (9,794)
Lincoln, ME (9,899)

They were in these five states, with Tennessee being the only one with more than one. All three in the South were historically unionist and Republican counties, although Nixon did improve on Eisenhower's vote share in Laurel County. This was the last time any Republican would win a county in the Yankee Kingdom by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast.

Kennedy carried two:

Martin, NC (6,563)
Evangeline, LA (9,764)

This election was noteworthy in that Nixon carried nearly as many blood-from-stone counties in 1960 as Eisenhower had in 1956, despite 1960 being a close election and 1956 having been a landslide. Even more surprisingly, Kennedy carried only two, fewer than Stevenson had carried in either 1952 or 1956, despite narrowly winning the election as opposed to losing in a landslide or near-landslide as Stevenson had done both times. In both Union, PA and Laurel, KY, Nixon got a higher vote share than Eisenhower in 1956, and in Cocke and Sevier, Nixon's vote share was only marginally lower than Eisenhower's (and Kennedy's only marginally higher than Stevenson's).

1964
In 1964, Lyndon Johnson carried two blood-from-stone counties:

Calloway, KY (8,886)
Williamson, TX (9,202)

Goldwater carried 12:

Neshoba, MS (5,724)
Leflore, MS (5,969)
Dallas, AL (6,607)
Lowndes, MS (6,668)
Pike, MS (6,961)
Morehouse, LA (7,113)
Lincoln, MS (7,187)
Elmore, AL (7,596)
Rankin, MS (7,873)
Warren, MS (9,040)
Covington, AL (9,175)
Webster, LA (9,932)

All twelve were in the Deep South, and more specifically in these three states, with each state having more than one (although Mississippi contained an outright majority). Unlike with the Southern counties Eisenhower and Nixon had carried by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast, these were almost all, at the time, traditionally Democratic counties (and all had been traditionally Democratic in recent times). Most of them switched to Goldwater either from Kennedy or from unpledged Democratic electors in 1960, and all save Dallas, AL and Warren, MS (the latter of which voted for Kennedy in 1960) had voted for Stevenson at least once. Before 1952, Dallas County, AL had last voted Republican in 1876.

1968
In 1968, Nixon carried no counties by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast; the smallest county which gave him a > 5,000-vote margin was Sevier, TN (which cast 10,217 votes). Neither did Humphrey; the smallest county which gave him a > 5,000-vote margin was Webb, TX (which cast 11,826 votes). This was the only election from 1920 on in which neither major-party nominee carried a county by at least 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast, although George Wallace carried eight in three states: Chilton, St Clair, Lawrence, Dale, and Geneva, AL; Neshoba and Lincoln, MS; and Plaquemines, LA.

1972
In 1972, Nixon carried 30 counties by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

Catoosa, GA (6,902)
Walton, FL (7,235)
Douglas, GA (7,592)
Neshoba, MS (7,725)
Colquitt, GA (7,830)
Plaquemines, LA (7,941)
Columbia, FL (8,387)
Pearl River, MS (8,504)
Crawford, AR (8,566)
Marion, MS (8,570)
Yadkin, NC (8,621)
Shenandoah, VA (8,644)
Monroe, MS (8,648)
St Clair, AL (8,710)
Oconee, SC (8,728)
Lincoln, MS (8,828)
Chilton, AL (8,867)
Spalding, GA (8,885)
Poinsett, AR (8,998)
Hutchinson, TX (9,121)
Snyder, PA (9,345)
Gray, TX (9,444)
Laurens, GA (9,480)
Newberry, SC (9,521)
Sevier, TN (9,578)
Escambia, AL (9,591)
Laurel, KY (9,620)
DeSoto, MS (9,789)
Cherokee, SC (9,800)
Lowndes, GA (9,827) 

These 30 counties were located in 13 states; all save one (Snyder, PA) was in the South, and with few exceptions, there was at least one in every Southern state. (There was one in every former Confederate state.) Seven states, mostly in the Deep South, had more than one.

The smallest county that gave McGovern a > 5,000-vote margin was Johnson County, Iowa, which cast 36,236 votes. This remains the only time since 1928 that the smallest county giving the Democratic nominee a > 5,000-vote margin was outside the South. It also appears likely that this was the largest county to be the smallest one to give a major party nominee a > 5,000-vote margin in the 20th century.

1976
In 1976, Carter carried one blood-from-stone county (Lawrence, AL, which cast 8,284 votes). Ford carried none; the smallest county to give Ford a > 5,000-vote margin was Carroll, NH, which cast 12,198 votes. This was the last time the smallest county to give the Republican a > 5,000-vote margin was somewhere other than the South or the Mountain West. It is also the most recent election in which the smallest county to have given each major-party nominee a > 5,000-vote margin voted for the opposite party in 2020. The second- and third-most recent are 1956 and 1952.

1980
In 1980, Reagan carried four counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

Jefferson, ID (6,933)
Madison, ID (7,414)
Cassia, ID (8,259)
Dawson, NE (8,609) 

Three were in Idaho; one was a county in Nebraska that had given Eisenhower a > 5,000-vote margin in 1952. This was the first time since at least the Second World War that a Republican had won a county in the Mountain West by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast.

Carter carried one:

Macon, AL (8,774)

This was the first of a run of nine out of eleven straight elections in which Macon County, Alabama would give the Democrat a > 5,000-vote margin out of fewer than 10,000 cast, through 2020 (the two exceptions thus far being 2008 and 2012, when it cast over 10,000 votes).

1984
In 1984, Reagan carried ten counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

Jefferson, ID (6,563)
Madison, ID (7,319)
Cassia, ID (7,597)
Colonial Heights City, VA (7,630)
Iron, UT (8,251)
Rockwall, TX (8,349)
Dawson, NE (8,407)
Uintah, UT (8,574)
Lamar, MS (9,930)
Campbell, WY (9,995)

Six were in the three Mountain West states of Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming; five (or half of the total) were in the two states of Utah and Idaho alone. The other four were relatively disconnected; one was, again, Dawson, NE; the other three were in the South, but were relatively disparate both geographically and in nature. Rockwall, TX was a rapidly growing suburb of Dallas (in 1972, just twelve years prior, it had cast just 2,518 votes). Colonial Heights is an independent city adjacent to the Richmond-area suburb of Chesterfield County. Lamar County is the only one to have given a Republican nominee in the 21st century (Bush in 2004) a higher vote share than it gave Reagan in 1984, although it has begun trending less Republican more recently.

Mondale carried one:

Macon, AL (9,499)

1988
George H. W. Bush carried one county by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast: Madison, ID, which cast 7,302 votes. Dukakis carried two: Macon, AL, which cast 7,756 votes, and Starr, TX, which cast 8,211 votes.

1992
In 1992, Bill Clinton carried three counties by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

Macon, AL (8,762)
Starr, TX (9,261)
McDowell, WV (9,781)

This is the most recent election in which a Democrat carried a county by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast that went on to vote for Trump in 2020--namely, McDowell County. The second-most recent was 1976, and in fact, both McDowell, WV and Lawrence, AL were amongst those relatively rare cases of counties where Trump expanded his margin by at least 6% in 2020. The next-most recent after 1976 was 1964 (Calloway, KY), followed by 1960 (both Martin, NC, and Evangeline, LA), which, before the 1996 election, would have overlapped exactly with the last four times a Democrat had won the White House. (The next-most recent after 1960 was, of course, 1956.)

George H. W. Bush carried none; the smallest county that gave him a > 5,000-vote margin was Lamar, MS, which cast 13,032 votes. This was the first time since the 1960-1972 run of elections in which the smallest county to give the Republican nominee a > 5,000-vote margin was in the South.

1996
In 1996, Bill Clinton carried three counties by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

Starr, TX (7,260)
Macon, AL (8,203)
San Miguel, NM (9,647)

This appears to be the only time since at least the Second World War that a Democrat has carried a county outside the South by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast.

Bob Dole carried none; the smallest county that gave him a > 5,000-vote margin was Yadkin, NC (which cast 12,313 votes)--once again a Southern county.

This was the last election in which the Democratic nominee would carry more blood-out-of-stone counties than the Republican (which had also been the case in 1992 and, counterintuitively, 1988).

2000
In 2000, George W. Bush carried six counties by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

Jefferson, ID (7,836)
Gray, TX (8,185)
Uintah, UT (8,397)
Madison, ID (8,970)
Hutchinson, TX (9,351)
Gillespie, TX (9,920)

These were located in three states, two in the Mountain West along with Texas; Texas and Idaho both had more than one. Gray County was a 'Bush 2000 country county' (i.e. a county that both gave Bush more than 60% of the vote, and gave him a higher vote share than it had given Reagan in '84 or any subsequent nominee). In 2020, Trump improved his vote share in both Gray and Hutchinson Counties, unlike in Rockwall County (Reagan's one blood-from-stone county in Texas in '84), where he did worse than Romney in 2016 and then worse still in 2020.

Al Gore carried one: Macon, AL, which cast 8,831 votes.

At the time, this would have been a fairly dramatic development. In a close election (in which Bush narrowly lost the popular vote), Bush carried more counties by more than 5,000 out of fewer than 10,000 than any nominee since 1984, and more than any losing or close-election nominee since 1964. Gore's carrying only one made things even more lopsided. In the last two close elections (1976 and 1968), the two nominees had carried very similar numbers of blood-out-of-stone counties. However, things have only continued to get more lopsided since.

2004
In 2004, Bush carried 12 counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

Sevier, UT (7,641)
Cassia, ID (7,763)
Lincoln, WY (7,904)
Dawson, GA (8,117)
Sanpete, UT (8,507)
Gray, TX (8,572)
Bandera, TX (8,741)
Jefferson, ID (8,828)
Hutchinson, TX (9,369)
White, GA (9,498)
Baker, FL (9,955)
Uintah, UT (9,955)

These were located in six states in the Mountain West and the South, with four having more than one each. This was the first time since 1972 that a Republican had carried a county in either Georgia or Florida by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast. This was also the largest number of distinct states that had more than one Republican blood-from-stone county since 1972. Sevier, Lincoln, Dawson, Sanpete, Gray, Hutchinson, White, and Baker were 'Bush 2004 country counties'.

Meanwhile, Kerry carried one: Macon, AL, which cast 9,407 votes.

Bush had doubled the number of his 'blood-out-of-stone' counties from 2000, even as nationally the election remained close. He carried more than any nominee since 1972--more than Reagan in 1984. Kerry, meanwhile, carried only one, as Gore had in 2000. This made 2004 more lopsided in this respect than any close election since 1948. (1964 had been nearly as lopsided in favour of Goldwater, although Goldwater's blood-from-stone counties were far more geographically concentrated.)

2008
In 2008, Obama carried two counties by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast: Holmes, MS (which cast 8,513 votes) and Starr, TX (which cast 9,792). Meanwhile, McCain carried 11:

Woodward, OK (7,750)
Sevier, UT (8,007)
Gray, TX (8,133)
George, MS (8,551)
Grant, LA (8,558)
Holmes, FL (8,616)
Hutchinson, TX (8,761)
Sanpete, UT (8,771)
Itawamba, MS (9,382)
Llano, TX (9,629)
Dawson, GA (9,986) 

Woodward, Gray, George, Grant, Holmes, Hutchinson, Itawamba, and Dawson were 'McCain country counties', although Woodward, Gray, George, Grant, Hutchinson, Itawamba, and Dawson had also been 'Bush 2004 country counties'.

This was fairly dramatic. In 1992 and 1996, which were defeats of a similar magnitude, the Republican nominee carried no counties by over 5,000 out of fewer than 10,000 cast. With the marginal exception of 1988, the last time a losing nominee had carried more blood-out-of-stone counties than the winner was 1964. And while Goldwater had carried a large number in 1964 despite losing in a landslide, his were concentrated in three adjacent states. McCain's were spread out across seven states (of which three had more than one). Although, outside the outlier of Utah, these states were all in the South, they represented a much more expansive South than Goldwater's blood-from-stone counties in 1964.

That said, Republicans' ability to squeeze blood out of stone receded, at least temporarily, in the Mountain West, where Obama improved on both Kerry's and Gore's vote share substantially in Lincoln, WY, Jefferson, ID, and Cassia, ID (although, in Jefferson County's case, McCain did get a > 5,000-vote margin, but it cast more than 10,000 votes).

2012
In 2012, Obama carried one county by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast: Holmes, MS (which cast 9,288 votes). Romney carried 27. (Henceforth, I won't be naming the individual counties.) This was their distribution:

Texas: 8
Utah: 4
Kentucky: 3
Georgia: 2
Mississippi: 2
Alabama: 2
Florida: 1
Idaho: 1
Wyoming: 1
Louisiana: 1
Oklahoma: 1
Virginia: 1

This is a colour-coded map of their distribution. The smallest was Duchesne County, Utah, which cast 6,379 votes.

This, obviously, represented a dramatic proliferation of Republican 'blood-out-of-stone' counties, even with respect to the Bush years. They were all still either in the South or the Mountain West. At least one, Letcher County, KY, had voted Democratic as recently as 2000, for Al Gore. It had also voted for Mondale in 1984; it was a Bush breakthrough county in 2004.

2016
In 2016, Hillary Clinton carried two counties by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast: Holmes, MS (which cast 8,076) and Macon, AL (which cast 9,140). Donald Trump carried 64:

Texas: 10
Kentucky: 10
Missouri: 6
Georgia: 5
Tennessee: 5
West Virginia: 5
Mississippi: 5
Louisiana: 3
Alabama: 2
Oklahoma: 2
Illinois: 2
Florida: 2
Virginia: 2
Arkansas: 1
Idaho: 1
Utah: 1
Wyoming: 1
Colorado: 1

(Colour-coded distribution map)

The smallest was LaSalle Parish, Louisiana, which cast 6,569 votes.

This was more than any nominee since at least the Second World War (and more than Franklin Roosevelt in 1936), and more than double as many as Romney. Trump also carried blood-from-stone counties in states where no Republican ever had since at least the Second World War, such as Colorado (Logan County) and Illinois (Wayne and Fayette Counties). At least two--Mingo, WV and Buchanan, VA--had voted Democratic as recently as 2004 (and both had voted for Mondale). The Republican blood-from-stone counties were not only becoming vastly more numerous, but also expanding their geographic breadth, although they remained concentrated in the South and Mountain West. (Of the two in Illinois, one is in Little Egypt, and one is on the border of Little Egypt.) Trump's 2016 blood-from-stone counties spanned 18 states, a greater number than any nominee since at least the Second World War (as well as a greater number than FDR in 1936). Thirteen contained more than one.

2020
In 2020, Joe Biden carried three counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast: Holmes, MS (which cast 8,115 votes), Macon, AL (which cast 8,723), and Falls Church City, VA (which cast 8,839). This was the first time since 1996 that any county other than Macon, AL, Holmes, MS, or Starr, TX had given a Democrat a margin of more than 5,000 out of fewer than 10,000 cast. Falls Church had last voted Republican in 1984; it had last voted for a losing Republican in 1976, when it narrowly backed Ford.

Trump carried 75 counties by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast:

Texas: 13
Tennessee: 9
Kentucky: 8
Missouri: 7
Georgia: 5
Idaho: 4
Alabama: 4
Virginia: 4
Louisiana: 3
Florida: 3
Wyoming: 2
Oklahoma: 2
Pennsylvania: 2
Arkansas: 2
Illinois: 1
Utah: 1
West Virginia: 1
North Carolina: 1
Mississippi: 1
Kansas: 1
Oregon: 1

(Colour-coded distribution map)

These counties spanned 21 states, with 14 containing more than one. The smallest was Franklin, ID, which cast 6,664 votes.

The geographic expansiveness of the Republican blood-from-stone counties continued to grow, although perhaps not as much as the map suggests. (The county in Oregon was Baker County, on the border with Idaho; and the county in Illinois was Wayne County, again in Illinois' Little Egypt region.) A blood-from-stone county appeared in the free-soil Plains West for the first time since 1984, in Dickinson County, Kansas, although (like Dawson, NE before it) it remained an outlier in its region (and even as its state continued to shift less comfortably Republican). Perhaps most impressive was the appearance of two blood-from-stone counties in Pennsylvania, where there had been one in 1948, 1952, 1956, 1960, and 1972, but not one since 1972. One, Fulton County, borders Maryland and was historically Democratic up through 1936.The other--Potter County--is in the Twin Tiers region and borders New York, and has always been historically Republican. Ultimately, however, these counties remained overwhelmingly concentrated in the South and the Mountain West.

Perhaps more seriously, the overall number of counties, while enormous, did not represent a significant proportional increase with respect to the previous election (or the last comparable election), unlike 2016, 2012, 2008 (compared to 1944, 1992, and 1996), 2004, or 2000 (compared to 1988, 1976, and 1968). (Of course, this might have to do with limits to the availability of such counties--no nominee had tested the limits of how many counties could do this as much as Trump.)

In general, the rapid proliferation of Republican 'blood from stone' counties in the 21st century likely helps explain how Republicans have remained competitive at the national level despite ever-increasing Democratic domination of the country's large counties (both in terms of carrying them and in terms of drawing large margins out of them). However, the expansion appeared to slow down rather dramatically in 2020, and, for the most part, failed to seriously break out of the party's traditional regional bases of support in the Mountain West and the South. Trump's upset in 2016 was powered by his breakthroughs in the Upper Midwest and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania aside, Trump succeeded in creating no new blood-from-stone counties in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, or Iowa (or the Yankee Kingdom, where he had come unexpectedly close in Maine in 2016)--nor in the Northeast in general, where he had done unusually well for a Republican in 2016.

There are some factors other than partisan domination that affects the presence or absence of blood-from-stone counties. For example, South Carolina and Maryland, in the South, have remained conspicuously devoid of blood-out-of-stone counties; but Maryland and South Carolina have relatively few counties compared to other Southern states, and they are relatively populous. In 2016, there were only seven counties in South Carolina that cast between 5,000 and 10,000 votes, as opposed to 26 in Tennessee and 31 in Mississippi. (Trump got a higher vote share in a county in Maryland--76.9% in Garrett County, MD--than he got in any county in South Carolina in 2016 [73.9%, in Pickens]; and in 1972, when Nixon carried a blood-out-of-stone county in almost every Southern state, there were 15 counties that cast between 5,000 and 10,000 votes in South Carolina, and nine in Maryland. Even so, one county in Maryland came fairly close to making it in 1972: Dorchester, which Nixon carried by 4,723 votes out of 9,149 cast.)

However, while some states in a particular region might be oddities in this sense, it is usually meaningful if an entire region is devoid or nearly devoid of blood-from-stone counties. In 2020, there were 21 counties in Minnesota that cast between 5,000 and 10,000 votes (14 between 6,000 and 10,000), and 40 in Iowa (30 between 6,000 and 10,000). There were only nine (/eight) in Wisconsin, and only eleven (/nine) in Michigan--although there were only three in Pennsylvania. As we have seen, these are all states in which Republicans have carried counties by more than 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast in the past, sometimes routinely. Meanwhile, Biden was becoming the first Democrat to carry Oakland County, Michigan by more than 100,000 votes, and the first nominee of either party to win Washtenaw County, Michigan by more than 100,000 votes.

(The Northeast--even including the Yankee Kingdom--does seem to be a region that it is no longer meaningful to look for blood-from-stone counties in. In New York in 2020, there was only one county that cast between 5,000 and 10,000 votes [and only two that cast fewer than 10,000 votes at all]; and in all of New England, there were only two: Nantucket and Piscataquis, ME. New Jersey has always typically been a state where all the counties are relatively large.)

On the other hand, it remains striking how few blood-from-stone counties Democrats carry. In general, it seems we can say that historically, comfortably-winning nominees carry at least a few blood-from-stone counties, and those counties usually indicate a party's staunchest regional base of support: for the GOP, for example, the Yankee Kingdom/rural Northeast and Upper Midwest in 1952, the Yankee Kingdom/rural Northeast in 1956, the Yankee Kingdom and certain areas of the Upper South in 1960, the Deep South in 1964, the South in general in 1972, the Mountain West in 1980 and 1984, and the Mountain West (perhaps more limited to 'Utah' in 2008) and the South (perhaps more limited to 'Texas' in 2000) from 2000 on. Usually, there tend to be a number of such counties that are obviously geographically related to one another, and one can infer from them that there are also likely a number of counties in that region that that party is carrying by comparable margins--perhaps ones that cast somewhat over 10,000 votes, or ones that cast fewer than 10,000 votes and where the proportional margin was impressive but not quite enough to reach 5,000, or ones that even cast fewer than 5,000 votes but where the proportional margin was 50% or greater (after all, as the graph on Montgomery's article shows, a large proportion--a little over 40%--of Trump's cumulative lead across all the counties he carried in Minnesota in 2016 came from counties where his margin was not 'large'--so even though these add up more slowly, they are still significant).

From 1932 through 1956, the Democracy fairly clearly had a regional base of support in the South. The solidity of this regional base rather suddenly fell apart in 1960 and never really recovered, and the party never found a new regional base--that is, a region where its support was such that here and there it reached near-unanimous levels of support in thinly populated areas. Interestingly, even after 1956, when Democrats have carried blood-out-of-stone counties, they have still been in the South (with the sole exception of San Miguel County, NM in 1996), although after 1976 they have (apart from McDowell, WV in 1992) not been particularly representative of their broader regions (as could be deduced from their fewness and from the fact that it has generally been the same few specific counties showing up [or not, as the case may be]). (In contrast, when Republicans used to regularly carry blood-from-stone counties in states such as Pennsylvania or Maine, the specific counties would often be different from one election to the next, likely depending on the vagaries of the specific number of votes cast and the specific margins in the various counties.)

It is somewhat surprising that Democrats in the New Deal era (almost) never carried blood-from-stone counties outside the South. In 1936, Franklin Roosevelt had a number of near-misses in the Mountain West, carrying Cochise County, AZ by 6,038 votes out of 10,499 cast, Sweetwater County, Wyoming by 4,435 votes out of 8,097 cast, Placer County, CA by 5,638 votes out of 10,388 cast, Kings County, CA by 4,836 votes out of 9,404 cast, and Valley County, MT by 4,866 votes out of 7,057 cast. (He also had a near-miss in Minnesota, carrying Carlton County by 4,973 votes out of 9,478 cast.) Even in the close election of 1948, Truman carried Eddy County, NM by 5,288 votes out of 10,021 cast. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson had at least a few near-misses outside the South, although they don't appear to have been regionally concentrated: Columbia County, OR, which he carried by 5,239 votes out of 10,268 cast; Koochiching County, MN, which he carried by 4,276 votes out of 7,491 cast; Las Animas County, CO, which he carried by 4,758 votes out of 8,453 cast; and Kauai County, HI, which he carried by 6,742 votes out of 10,684 cast. Like most actual Democratic blood-from-stone counties from this period, most of these have gone on to be Republican. Carlton County voted for Biden by 307 votes out of over 20,000 cast; Kauai County voted for Biden by over 28%.

(Since 1920, there has been at least one non-Southern county other than San Miguel County, NM in 1996 that has given a Democrat a > 5,000-vote margin out of fewer than 10,000 cast: Dubois County, IN in 1932, which FDR carried in his first landslide by 5,190 votes out of 9,996 cast. That said, this county, in southwestern Indiana, never voted Republican until 1952. In 1896, William Jennings Bryan carried four counties in the Mountain West by over 5,000 votes out of fewer than 10,000 cast: Pueblo, Boulder, and Lake Counties, CO, and Utah County, UT.)

More recently, the Democracy has, again, come close to carrying blood-from-stone counties outside the South; in 2008, Obama carried Dukes County, MA (Martha's Vineyard) by 5,471 votes out of 10,553 cast, and Pitkin County, CO (Aspen) by 4,865 votes out of 9,966 cast. However, these would not have been particularly representative of their region, as could be inferred from the fact that there were not a number of other counties in the general area of a similar size that were carried by a similar Democratic margin (some of which would likely have made the cut, if there had been enough of them). These smaller strongly Democratic counties fit the profile of 'lifestyle communities'. Similarly, it is somewhat fortuitous that Falls Church, Virginia happens to be in the South; it is clearly an example of what the CQ Almanac called in 1996 'cultural elite' counties (or county-equivalents). If Falls Church outgrows 10,000 votes cast (as seems likely), the Democracy will likely simply revert to having no blood-from-stone counties in Virginia again.

To give some more context, these are the smallest counties to have given Democrats > 5,000-vote margins in select states in some recent elections:

Wisconsin
1988: Douglas (20,449)
1992: Douglas (22,253)
1996: Douglas (18,591)
2000: Douglas (21,706)
2004: Douglas (25,187)
2008: Douglas (24,066)
2012: Douglas (22,894)
2016: La Crosse (63,674)
2020: Eau Claire (58,275)

Iowa
1988: Story (33,105)
1992: Dubuque (42,968)
1996: Dubuque (38,051)
2000: Dubuque (40,323)
2004: Dubuque (47,043)
2008: Cerro Gordo (24,293)
2012: Clinton (25,000)
2016: Story (50,667)
2020: Story (51,038)

Minnesota
1988: St Louis County (103,237)
1992: Washington (85,499)
1996: Mower (18,063)
2004: St Louis County (119,565)
2008: Winona (27,935)
2012: St Louis County (115,594)
2016: St Louis County (112,421)
2020: Olmsted (91,385)

Michigan
1988: Bay (49,152)
1992: Marquette (31,629)
1996: Marquette (26,758)
2000: Bay (51,636)
2004: Bay (57,059)
2008: Isabella (28,350)
2012: Muskegon (76,163)
2016: Kalamazoo (126,299)
2020: Kalamazoo (143,746)

(These are four states where, until 2016, there had been relatively high levels of rural support for the Democracy in the previous several decades.)

Kentucky
1976: Graves (12,420)
1980: Floyd (15,385)
1984: Floyd (15,543)
1988: Floyd (17,764)
1992: Floyd (18,674)
1996: Floyd (14,384)
2000: Floyd (15,394)
2004: Jefferson (337,350)
2008: Fayette (127,637)
2012: Jefferson (339,524)
2016: Fayette (136,315)
2020: Fayette (152,902)

(Kentucky is a Southern state that doesn't contain any Black Belt counties, where Democrats have continued to carry counties up to the present [unlike in West Virginia and Oklahoma].)

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Given the varying number of counties casting 5,000-10,000 votes in different states, another way of tracking Republican progress, at least within a given state, is by looking at whether the smallest county giving the Republican nominee a > 5,000-vote margin in that state changes from one election to the next (and whether it is getting smaller)--and, concomitantly (as is likely if it does get smaller), whether there are an increasing number of such counties from one election to the next. Given the current Republican electoral strategy, it needs to at least increase the number of counties yielding > 5,000-vote margins, even if they are not quite 'blood-from-stone' counties.

Michigan is a good example of this. Here are the smallest counties to give the Republican nominee a > 5,000-vote margin in Michigan in 1976, 1988, and the last six elections:

1976: Grand Traverse (21,150)
1988: Hillsdale (15,479)
2000: Barry (26,244)
2004: Hillsdale (20,216)
2008: Allegan (55,279)
2012: Barry (28,512)
2016: Wexford (15,298)
2020: Osceola (12,340)

Here, even though Trump created no blood-from-stone counties in the state, we can see that the final breakthrough in Michigan in 2016 was correlated with a significant reduction in the size of the smallest county yielding a 'large' Republican margin. This smallest county became even smaller in 2020, although apparently this was not enough.

Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota underwent similar processes:

Iowa
1976: Sioux (12,935)
1988: Sioux (13,288)
2000: Sioux (14,692) (Bush '00 country county)
2004: Sioux (16,570) (Bush '04 country county)
2008: Sioux (16,679)
2012: Sioux (17,308)
2016: Plymouth (13,190) (Trump '16 country county)
2020: Mahaska (11,404) (Trump '20 country county)

Wisconsin
1976: Walworth (31,307)
1988: Walworth (30,685)
2000: Dodge (37,701)
2004: Waupaca (26,974)
2008: Ozaukee (53,365)
2012: Dodge (44,488)
2016: Shawano (19,810)
2020: Clark (14,898) (Trump '20 country county)

Minnesota
1976: Olmsted (39,647)
1988: Olmsted (47,504)
2000: Otter Tail (28,511)
2004: Otter Tail (32,178) (Bush '04 country county)
2008: Sherburne (44,990)
2012: Otter Tail (31,670)
2016: Cass (15,999) (Trump '16 country county)
2020: Todd (13,257) (Trump '20 country county)

As well as in Nevada, which, of the states that voted twice for Bush and then for Hillary Clinton in 2016, has remained surprisingly competitive:

1976: Washoe (53,227)
1988: Washoe (88,728)
2000: Elko (14,180) (Bush '00 country county)
2004: Elko (15,309) (Bush '04 country county)
2008: Elko (16,019)
2012: Elko (15,986)
2016: Churchill (10,938)
2020: Churchill (12,890)

This even sheds light on how states that have remained reliably red from 1976 through 2020 have done so despite a waning of Republican strength in (some of) their large counties:

Idaho
1976: Twin Falls (19,233)
1988: Madison (7,302)
2000: Jefferson (7,836)
2004: Cassia (7,763)
2008: Jefferson (10,434)
2012: Cassia (8,396)
2016: Idaho (8,233) (Trump '16 country county)
2020: Franklin (6,664)

Montana
1976: Yellowstone (44,125)
1988: Yellowstone (50,647)
2000: Ravalli (17,238)
2004: Ravalli (19,792)
2008: Flathead (43,975)
2012: Ravalli (22,206)
2016: Ravalli (22,346)
2020: Lincoln (11,747) (Trump '20 country county)

Kansas
1976: Shawnee (67,730)
1988: Johnson (152,199)
2000: McPherson (12,461)
2004: Barton (11,547)
2008: Saline (22,788)
2012: Barton (10,341) (Romney country county)
2016: Barton (10,268) (Trump '16 country county)
2020: Dickinson (9,349) (Trump '20 country county)

Nebraska
1976: Lancaster (69,131)
1988: Madison (11,975)
2000: Madison (12,853)
2004: Adams (13,286)
2008: Platte (13,382)
2012: Platte (13,473)
2016: Saunders (10,860) (Trump '16 country county)
2020: Washington (12,467)

Indiana
1976: Kosciusko (22,124)
1988: Montgomery (14,472)
2000: Noble (14,216)
2004: Daviess (10,599) (Bush '04 country county)
2008: Dearborn (22,217)
2012: Daviess (10,250)
2016: Randolph (10,458) (Trump '16 country county)
2020: Fayette (10,136) (Trump '20 country county)

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Here are the numbers of blood-from-stone counties each major nominee carried, without any commentary, from 1920-2020 (although the numbers for the Democratic candidates in the 1920s are a little uncertain):

1920
Harding: 31
Cox: 1

1924
Coolidge: 11
Davis: 7

1928
Hoover: 14
Smith: 0

1932
Roosevelt: 44
Hoover: 0

1936
Roosevelt: 47
Landon: 0

1940
Roosevelt: 40
Willkie: 0

1944
Roosevelt: 28
Dewey: 0

1948
Truman: 12
Dewey: 1

1952
Eisenhower: 10
Stevenson: 6

1956
Eisenhower: 7
Stevenson: 4

1960
Nixon: 6
Kennedy: 2

1964
Goldwater: 12
Johnson: 2

1968
Nixon: 0
Humphrey: 0

(I listed Nixon first because the smallest county out of which he netted at least 5,000 votes was smaller than the smallest county out of which Humphrey did so.)

1972
Nixon: 30
McGovern: 0

1976
Carter: 1
Ford: 0

1980
Reagan: 4
Carter: 1

1984
Reagan: 10
Mondale: 1

1988
Dukakis: 2
George H. W. Bush: 1

1992
Clinton: 3
George H. W. Bush: 0

1996
Clinton: 3
Dole: 0

2000
Bush: 6
Gore: 1

2004
Bush: 12
Kerry: 1

2008
McCain: 11
Obama: 2

2012
Romney: 27
Obama: 1

2016
Trump: 64
Hillary Clinton: 2

2020
Trump: 75
Biden: 3.