Democrats tend to win in densely populated counties, while Republicans win more sparse, rural counties. In 2020, the counties won by President Joe Biden had 67 million more residents than counties won by former President Donald Trump. Yet a social media post falsely asserts that because Biden won with fewer counties than Trump, “something isn’t adding up.”
For decades, Democratic presidential candidates have gotten more votes in densely populated, urban areas than Republicans, who have been favored in more sparsely populated, rural areas.
The same trend held in the 2020 election, when President Joe Biden won 81 million votes, defeating former President Donald Trump, who received 74 million votes. Since Biden’s votes were more concentrated in population centers, he won far fewer counties overall than Trump, whose votes were more spread out.
In fact, the counties that Biden won had 67 million more residents than the counties Trump won, according to an analysis from the Brookings Institute, which counted 551 counties for Biden and 2,588 counties for Trump.
But in the weeks following that election — as Trump and his allies were spreading the false claim that Trump had won the election — conservative commentator Charlie Kirk suggested that there was something suspicious in the outcome because Biden had won fewer counties.
The claim was recently revived by conservative activist Brigitte Gabriel in the days following Trump’s Georgia indictment, which accused...
You are reading the second issue of the Disinformation Monitor. It is published on a monthly basis and provides an overview of developments on the disinformation scenes on NATO’s eastern frontier....