Anne Arundel County: Clinton 47.5%, Trump 45.3%

Hillary Clinton’s 60-34% landslide win in Maryland included a 2-point victory in Anne Arundel County, which hadn’t been won by a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

For comparison, here is the map from 2012, where President Obama was barely edged out in the county by Mitt Romney.

A few trends jump out when comparing the two maps. The north county places like Linthicum, Brooklyn Park, Pasadena and Glen Burnie voted much stronger for Trump than Romney. Obama won Brooklyn Park in 2012, but Trump won this year. Pasadena and Linthicum averaged about 35% for Obama four years ago, but this year most precincts were in the 20’s for Hillary. Two precincts in Pasadena (southern Lake Shore and Upper Magothy Beach) had Hillary getting a hilarious 19%. South county was more Trump than Romney too. This isn’t particularly surprising, because these areas are either rural or are blue-collar suburbs, both of which strongly backed Trump across the country. These are also the types of places where lifelong registered Democrats voted for Trump.

The rest of the county went more for Hillary than they did for Obama in 2012. This includes traditionally Dem areas like west county and Annapolis city, and traditionally Republican areas like outer Annapolis, Arnold, and Crofton. Hillary even outperformed Obama’s 2008 wave numbers in the upper middle class suburbs, especially Crofton. In Odenton, Hillary won all five Piney Orchard precincts, something no Dem has ever done.

AA County has long been the GOP’s biggest stronghold on Maryland, but has been trending blue as a whole in the last decade. In 2008, McCain won the county by 1.8%. Four years later, Romney won by 0.1%. This year, Hillary won by 2.2%. Even with better candidates on both sides, Anne Arundel might have still gone blue this year. Demographic shifts favor this trend: the county is becoming home to more federal employees attracted to the great schools and safe communities. The upper middle class is becoming more blue, and the county is becoming less white. The blue-collar suburbs in the north are getting redder, but they are quickly becoming less of a percentage of the total county population.