Comparison of the parties' best county margins in close elections of the 20th and 21st centuries
These are lists of the major county margins (margins amounting to at least 0.1% of the national popular vote) won by each major nominee in the close elections of the 20th and 21st centuries. This, perhaps, is a more context-sensitive metric of depth of candidate support in the country's large counties than looking at how many counties each candidate carried by a certain fixed number ( such as 100,000 votes ). For 1948, 1960, 1968, 1976, 2000, 2004, and 2012, I additionally listed the dodrant-major county margins for both nominees ( i.e. , counties carried by 0.075% of the national popular vote, or by 3/4 of what would constitute a major margin). By 2016 and 2020, there are so many major Democratic county margins that I listed only the fully major Democratic county margins, but the dodrant-major Republican county margins (otherwise, as will be seen, there would be no counties to list for the Republican at all). In instances where I listed both major and dodrant-major county margins...