Fact check: Claim that Harris underperformed Biden in 'every single county in America' is false
Republicans across the country woke up feeling good last week as former President Donald Trump recaptured the White House, defeating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. (And for the third presidential contest in a row, Wisconsin played a crucial role.)
As analysts unpack these results in the coming days and weeks, expect to see them mull over why President Joe Biden was able to beat Trump in 2020, but Harris couldn’t match his numbers.
In Wisconsin, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester — who easily won reelection himself — suggested during a Nov. 6, 2024 news conference that it’s because Democrats nationally have taken key voting blocs for granted, and many of those voters this time chose Trump.
Exit polls and numbers show he may be right on that, but then he went too far, claiming, based on what he’d seen on television, that “every single county in America, every single county, Kamala Harris did worse than Joe Biden did.”
That might have been accurate at some point as results trickled in on election night, but it sure didn’t stay that way.
Let’s break it down.
Harris outperformed Biden in six Wisconsin counties
Vos’s office didn’t respond to a request for the evidence he used to make his claim.
It might have been a little tedious to identify where Harris outperformed or matched Biden across all of America’s 3,000-plus counties. For time’s sake, we’ll look just at Wisconsin.
There were six counties across the Badger State where Harris’s share of the vote this year was greater than Biden’s share of the vote in 2020, and two more where their share of the vote was the same. Those include:
Door County, where Harris received 50.6% of the vote to Biden’s 49.9%
Eau Claire County, where Harris received 54.5% of the vote to Biden’s 54.3%
Manitowoc County, where Harris received 37.6% of the vote to Biden’s 37.5%
Ozaukee County, where Harris received 43.9% of the vote to Biden’s 43.2%
Washington County, where Harris received 31.2% of the vote to Biden’s 30.2%
Waukesha County, where Harris received 39.3% of the vote to Biden’s 38.8%
There were some counties where Harris received more raw votes than Biden did in 2020, but a lower share of the vote total. That may have happened because of votes for third party candidates, or because the county population grew in the last four years — such as in Dane County, where Harris received almost 14,000 more votes than Biden, but captured 75.1% of the vote to Biden’s 75.7%.
As such, we’ll keep this analysis to counties where Harris’s vote share outperformed or matched Biden’s.
And while she only did so in eight out of Wisconsin’s 72 counties, that proves wrong Vos’s assertion that she did worse than Biden in “every single county in America.”
There are also other examples across the country — according to a Nov. 6, 2024 New York Times analysis, nationally, about 10% of counties had shifted more Democratic since 2020. (Some western states were still counting votes at that point, too.)
Our ruling
Vos claimed that “every single county in America, every single county, Kamala Harris did worse than Joe Biden did.”
An analysis of the 2020 and 2024 election results in Wisconsin alone shows he’s wrong — Harris received a greater share of the vote than Biden did in six of 72 counties, and matched his share of the vote in two others.
We rate this claim False.
Sources
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Donald Trump wins Wisconsin, propelling his return to the White House,” Nov. 6, 2024
New York Times, “Biden wins presidency, ending four tumultuous years under Trump,” Nov. 7, 2020
TMJ4, “Robin Vos defeats Alan Kupsik in race for Wisconsin's 33rd Assembly district,” Nov. 6, 2024
Brown County Nov. 5, 2024 election results
Brown County Nov. 3, 2020 election results
Door County Nov. 5, 2024 election results
Door County Nov. 3, 2020 election results
Eau Claire County Nov. 5, 2024 election results
Eau Claire County Nov. 3, 2020 election results
Manitowoc County Nov. 5, 2024 election results
Manitowoc County Nov. 3, 2020 election results
Ozaukee County Nov. 5, 2024 election results
Ozaukee County Nov. 3, 2020 election results
Taylor County Nov. 5, 2024 election results
New York Times, 2020 Wisconsin election results by county, accessed Nov. 11, 2024
Washington County Nov. 5, 2024 election results
Washington County Nov. 3, 2020 election results
Waukesha County Nov. 5, 2024 election results
Waukesha County Nov. 3, 2020 election results
New York Times, “Early results show a red shift across the U.S.,” Nov. 6, 2024
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Claim that Biden outperformed Harris in every county in America false
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