Eric the Blue

About a week ago, Trump said that the federal government should “take over”–“federalize”–voting procedures in 15 states. He didn’t say which 15, but probably not South Carolina or Idaho, right? They get the right results. He did name three cities that he thinks are “crooked”: Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit. These are in the “swing” states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. But what really puts a target on them, I think, is that they are majority African American and overwhelmingly Democratic in their political orientation. What, though, is the evidence that they’re cheating for Democrats? It’s not a secret that African Americans prefer the Dems, and not just by a little. Is there any evidence of something shady going on? Partly to try and answer that question, and partly because I just enjoy wallowing in election data, let’s look back at what happened in these three venues over the last several presidential elections–see if anything seems fishy.

In Fulton County, Georgia, which is where Atlanta is, Trump’s share of the vote has barely budged from election to election. The two times he won the state (2016 and 2024), he got 27 percent of the vote. When he lost in 2020, he got 26 percent. Were all three crooked, or just the one he lost?

In Philadelphia County, which is coterminous with the city of Philadelphia, Trump averaged 17.5 percent of the vote in his two victories. In 2020, when he lost Pennsylvania, he got 18 percent.

In Wayne County, Michigan, home to Detroit, Trump’s share of the vote has gone up the three times he’s been on the ballot: 29 percent in 2016, 30 percent in 2020 (when he lost Michigan), and 34 percent in 2024.

We can look at other numbers, too. It’s just that nothing seems funky. For example, in two of the three venues–Philadelphia and Wayne Counties–Trump has actually done better than Republican standard-bearers of the recent past. In Philadelphia County, Trump has averaged about 18 percent of the vote; Romney, McCain, and W Bush averaged only about 16 percent. In Wayne County, Trump has averaged 31 percent of the vote, while the three previous Republican nominees averaged 27 percent. I guess the “massive election fraud” perpetrated by Democrats has been going on for years! It’s a wonder that they sometimes let Republicans win!

Georgia, a growing state that has been trending toward the Democrats, presents a different picture. Over the last six presidential elections, the Republican share of the vote in Fulton County, in percentages, farthest back to most recent, has been: 40, 32, 35, 27, 26, 27. This shrinking share of the Republican presidential vote has been somewhat more dramatic in the Atlanta suburbs. For example, the figures for Cobb County, which abuts Fulton on the northwest, look like this: 62, 54, 55, 46, 42, 42. In 20 years, Republicans have gone from winning Cobb County by more than 20 points to losing it by 15. But Trump says Fulton is corrupt because . . . everyone knows the real reason: so many African Americans, of course they’re cheating! Doesn’t matter that there’s no evidence. It’s like the children’s joke about pink elephants hiding in cherry trees. Have you ever seen a pink elephant in a cherry tree? See how well they hide?

In Michigan, there are cases roughly parallel to what’s happened in the Atlanta suburbs. Trump narrowly won Michigan in 2016, when he lost Wayne County by 37 points. Four years later, he narrowly lost the state, and he again lost Wayne County–this time, by 38 points. He and his band of absurd lapdogs howled about “irregularities,” etc., in Wayne County. But consider, for example, Kent County, in western Michigan, the state’s most populous county outside of the Detroit metro. Trump carried the county by 48 to 45 percent in his 2016 victory. Then, in 2020, he lost Kent County by 52 to 46 percent. Going from a 3-point win to a 6-point loss is a dramatic shift, especially compared to Wayne County–the result in Wayne County doesn’t even qualify as a shift–but for Trump and his supporters “Grand Rapids” doesn’t have the sinister verve of “Detroit.”

Well, one could go on. Is the voter turnout in these big Democratic counties variable and suspicious, even if the percentage splits are not? No. Are the presidential splits much different than in statewide races for US Senate? No. There was supposedly “massive fraud” that is undetectable in any data. Of course, there is too the fact that many of Trump’s specific claims are laughable. He’s said he would have carried New Hampshire but for the “bus loads” of people invading from Massachusetts to cast illegal ballots. Ridiculous. He’s said he won Minnesota all three times. Also ridiculous. Et cetera.

I began by confessing that part of my purpose here is just to give myself an excuse to look up stuff that interests me. If you’re skeptical about any of it, you should consider that there are a lot of people who dedicate their professional lives to the study of American electoral politics, and they agree: Trump is full of it. Also, we have a mechanism for handling election challenges and disputes: the courts. Whenever Trump has pursued this avenue of relief, he loses and loses and keeps on losing.

Yet he keeps running his mouth on the topic. He’s now using his worthless claims as a pretext to “federalize” the upcoming midterms in certain unnamed states. That the Constitution gives states the power to oversee elections is, it seems, a detail to be swept away. It doesn’t require x-ray vision to see what the game is. Trump wants to cheat. The endless flow of accusations–they’re always confessions.