Biden or Trump: which candidate won in the 25 most populous cities?

Why does Biden win in the cities and Trump in the towns?

2:06

(CNN Spanish) –– The

United States is a polarized country in electoral matters, and this has been shown by the current narrow election.

But beyond the divide between Republicans and Democrats or between Trump and Biden in absolute terms, the vote in 2020 reveals a pattern in terms of partisan support: the Democratic electorate is concentrated in the big cities, while the Republican voters they predominate outside of them.

In the 24 most populous cities in the country, the Democratic candidate Joe Biden won, according to the results and projections reported by CNN.

Only at number 25 on the list, Oklahoma City –whose population is 655,000 inhabitants according to the census (2019 data) ––, President Donald Trump was able to obtain his greatest victory in a large city.

Who did the 25 most populous cities support

When taking into account the reports of the counties that contain or include the metropolitan areas, it is observed that in them the Democratic support is majority.

In some counties the count is not over, but based on CNN reports, the majority on the following list is the one projected at this time.

Even in traditionally Republican states where Trump won the electoral votes, such as Texas (which has six of the 25 most populous cities), North Carolina (Charlotte), Indiana (Indianapolis) and Tennessee (Nashville), Biden won the big cities.

This is also seen in the disputed states: In Georgia, the counties that make up the Atlanta metropolitan area are Democrats, along with cities like Savannah, Augusta and Columbia, while the majority of counties are Republican.

In Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are one of the few blue dots on a red map.

In Nevada it's even more evident: Only Clark (Las Vegas) and Washoe (Reno) counties are Democrats.

What is the reason for the division?

The United States is a federally and democratically decentralized country, so obtaining majorities in the cities does not guarantee winning the presidential election: the numerous rural and intermediate-city populations and the Electoral College system allow the balance to occasionally shift sideways. of the political group that support places outside the metropolis, in this case the Republican Party.

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According to the Census, there are about 60 million people living in rural areas of the United States, occupying more than 90% of the country's geographic space.

It tends to be an older population on average - according to the National Institutes of Health - and they are less diverse than large cities.

For Ernesto Calvo, professor of political science at the University of Maryland, the ideological polarization between urban and rural areas "comes more from the right than from the left, it is much more intense in those who vote for Trump," as he told CNN Radio Argentina .

Calvo explains that Trump activated social actors who "have been off the radar" and has given them "a purpose."

CNN political analyst Ronald Brownstein explained in 2018 that there is a “growing gap between a Democratic coalition focused on minorities,

and college-educated white voters, most of them clustered in urban areas, and a competing Republican coalition that revolves around around evangelicals, rural whites, and workers' who live outside urban areas.

Cities 2020 Elections United States Joe Bidenrural