Geographies · Presidential election results
County equivalent
The county-level units results are reported in — with real quirks in Alaska, Connecticut, and Kansas City.
A county equivalent is whatever plays the role of a county in a state: Louisiana's parishes, Virginia's independent cities, and so on. Presidential results here cover roughly 3,110 counties and equivalents per election, from 2000 onward.
Three caveats matter. Alaska does not report presidential results by borough — it uses roughly 40 state election districts whose codes collide with real borough FIPS — so there is no county-level data for Alaska here; state-level results cover it. Connecticut results are reported for its eight legacy counties, while modern maps use the state's newer planning regions, so Connecticut appears unshaded on the national county map even though its county data exists in the tables. And Kansas City, Missouri reports its votes separately from the four counties it spans, so it appears as its own county equivalent (with no standard census boundary) — that's what keeps Missouri's county totals equal to its statewide total.
Also known as: parish, borough, independent city, election district.
Data: MIT Election Data & Science Lab, Harvard Dataverse.
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County equivalent — FAQ
What is county equivalent in election results data?+
The county-level units results are reported in — with real quirks in Alaska, Connecticut, and Kansas City. A county equivalent is whatever plays the role of a county in a state: Louisiana's parishes, Virginia's independent cities, and so on. Presidential results here cover roughly 3,110 counties and equivalents per election, from 2000 onward.
Why does county equivalent matter?+
Three caveats matter. Alaska does not report presidential results by borough — it uses roughly 40 state election districts whose codes collide with real borough FIPS — so there is no county-level data for Alaska here; state-level results cover it. Connecticut results are reported for its eight legacy counties, while modern maps use the state's newer planning regions, so Connecticut appears unshaded on the national county map even though its county data exists in the tables. And Kansas City, Missouri reports its votes separately from the four counties it spans, so it appears as its own county equivalent (with no standard census boundary) — that's what keeps Missouri's county totals equal to its statewide total.
Where does this election data come from?+
All figures come from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab (MEDSL), published on the Harvard Dataverse — state-level presidential returns 1976–2024 and county-level returns 2000–2024. pumsdata is an independent product that makes the data easy to map and compare, and is not affiliated with MEDSL or Harvard.