There are a handful of counties that may tell us everything we need to know about the presidential election by Tuesday evening.
While not outright bellwethers at the national level (there are increasingly less of these since Trump’s shock win in 2020), they might be a good barometer for how much Kamala Harris and Donald Trump were able to appeal to key voting blocks.
Below is a list of some of the most interesting areas to watch early on election night.
Peach County, Georgia
With a population of just 28,562, little Peach County in central Georgia—known for its peaches, fittingly—likely won’t have enough votes to swing the state one way or another.
However, the county’s results—and overall turnout—this election will give insight into whether Harris was successful in her pitch to rural Black voters throughout North Carolina and Georgia, where she campaigned regularly.
Peach County is 44 percent Black and was twice carried by Obama. In the last two elections, however, it saw its turnout sink and was flipped to Trump in 2016 and 2020. If Harris can see a sharp rise in turnout and win here, she’ll likely feel better about ultimately carrying both southern toss-up states.
Cobb County, Georgia
Cobb County and its 781,646 residents in the northwestern suburbs of Atlanta are among the biggest drivers that have turned Georgia into a swing state in the last five years.
The county, which Mitt Romney carried by 12 points in 2012, was narrowly won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 and was won by Joe Biden with a 14-point margin four years ago, helping deliver him a surprise win in the Peach State by just 11,997 votes.
Cobb County has become much more diverse in the last decade and is now 30 percent Black, 15 percent Latino, and about six percent Asian. It’s also particularly affluent, with the Weather Channel, Home Depot, and the Atlanta Braves based there, with many who work in Atlanta’s tech and media industries also calling it home.
If Harris is able to best Biden’s performance in the county, it will likely mean her messaging got through to key demographic targets like minority men and the suburban highly-educated.
Hernando County, Florida
Like its neighbor to the north, Florida has recently been among the quickest to report its election results after polls close.
The Sunshine State is no longer a toss-up like it once was, but it has a number of counties that are packed with senior communities that will show if Trump, 78, is still dominating amongst white baby boomers—a massive voting bloc that could swing the results in some battleground states.
Among the elderly-filled counties is Hernando. It’s on the northern fringe of the Tampa Bay region and is just down the street from The Villages, a community that’s known as a MAGA haven with a median age of 72.
Trump has dominated Hernando, winning it by 29 points in 2016 and by 30 points four years ago. Should that number lessen on Tuesday, however, it could be an early sign of trouble for Trump in a trio of swing states—Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada—that are also retirement destinations. With abortion and recreational weed on the ballot, voter turnout shouldn’t be an issue despite Florida not being a swing state.
Cabarrus County, North Carolina
North Carolina is unique among this year’s seven swing states in that it’s the only one yet to be won by a Democratic presidential candidate since Barack Obama narrowly won the state 2008. Before that, the last Democrat to carry the state was Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Still, North Carolina has had razor thin margins in recent elections and polls suggest its a winnable state for Harris this week. Similar to the state as a whole, Cabarrus has been perennially Republican for decades and voted for the GOP candidate in every election since 1948. In 2020, however, Biden finished within single digits of Trump and significantly outperformed Obama, who lost there in 2012 by nearly 20 points.
Should Harris flip North Carolina, she‘ll do so by cutting into Trump’s margin in places like Cabarrus—a suburban area northeast of Charlotte that’s growing more diverse by the year. Possibly helping Harris is an expected increase in voter turnout to vote against the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate, Mark Robinson, whose porn-forum-posting and “I’m a Black Nazi” scandal has him tanking in statewide polls.
Erie County, Pennsylvania
Where Erie County goes, Pennsylvania goes. At least, that’s been the case in every presidential election since 1992.
Located in the state’s far northwest, sandwiched between the state lines of New York and Ohio with coastline on Lake Erie, the county is a microcosm of Pennsylvania as a whole. It has a progressive-leaning city in Erie—with a population of 92,000—and more conservative-leaning suburbs and rural areas.
Erie will be a key area to watch as votes slowly roll in from Pennsylvania, which was infamously slow at tabulating votes in 2020—largely because state law doesn’t allow mail-in votes to be counted until Election Day. Still, any results trickling in from Erie County—which has been a popular campaign destination for both parties—could be telling for Pennsylvania as a whole.
Macomb County, Michigan
Macomb County is an area packed with blue-collar suburbanites that experts say Trump needs to win big in this election.
Trump carried the county by 12 points and won Michigan in 2016. Against Biden, however, he won Macomb by only eight points and lost the state. The county gave Trump more votes than any other in Michigan in both elections and its importance to the former president was evidenced by him holding a rally there this past weekend.
Macomb may also give an early glimpse into how union workers will vote this election after many unions and their leaders were split this election when it came to endorsing. Its vote will be particularly insightful when it comes to analyzing the blue-collar areas of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which won’t have their election results published as quickly on Tuesday.
