Sorting America: How well do you know your county?

As Americans head to the polls to choose between the Democratic ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and the Republican pair of Donald Trump and JD Vance for the White House, the nation remains closely divided along political lines. Red states are redder, blue states are bluer, and our politics is more heated.
To help you better understand your county and community, USA TODAY compiled crucial data that provides insights into how your area has changed racially, ethnically, politically, and economically since 2020. This resource answers key questions, such as how your county voted in the last three elections and whether your precinct is a political outlier. It also offers important information on early and absentee voting, which are increasingly popular among voters — one-third of whom cast their ballots by mail in the 2022 election.  
Enter your county in the search bar, or if you’re unsure, use the map to search for the address. Click on the map to explore other areas in the country that are politically similar to yours. 
Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential race by razor-thin margins in key battleground states, edging out Trump by less than 1% in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin. (Though Biden won 51% of the votes nationwide, to Trump’s 47%.)
Current polls suggest this election will be just as tight, potentially hinging on a few thousand votes in key areas.  
Nearly 160 million people cast their ballots in the 2020 general election, accounting for two-thirds of the voting-eligible population. The 2022 congressional election, which took place in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, saw a 52.2% voter turnout, the second-highest participation rate in a midterm election since 2000. 
Of the 233.5 million Americans of voting age, 161.4 million were registered voters as of November 2022, with 23.2% below 35 years old and 26.6% aged 65 years or above, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. 
While they make up similarly sized slices of the electorate, only 35% of young voters turned out in 2022, compared to 67% of older voters.
Past voting patterns reveal a deepening partisan divide, with red areas getting redder and blue areas getting bluer. This divide has intensified along geographic lines, as Trump improved his margins in rural areas while Biden extended Hillary Clinton’s margins in urban areas. 
According to a USA TODAY analysis of voting patterns among 3,113 counties, three-fourths of the counties became either redder or bluer in the 2020 presidential election compared to the 2012 re-election of Barack Obama, while 40 states saw political leanings intensify in more than half of their counties. Only a handful of counties flipped to the opposite party. 
Read Red states are redder. Blue states are bluer. And our politics? Hotter.