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The streak is over. For the first time in its 148 years of existence, Elliott County, Kentucky, failed to vote for the Democratic candidate in a presidential election. Based on current vote counts, Trump will finish with 70 percent of the vote, a huge swing from the 47 percent that Romney received in a narrow 2012 loss.
Elliott County is more than 95 percent white, and there were no obvious reasons for Democratic strength among its 8,000 or so residents in recent years. So it makes sense that when the streak finally broke, it broke hard. Not only did Elliott vote for Trump, but it did so by a greater share than the state of Kentucky did overall. Its 23-point swing from 2012 is among the largest of any county in the nation.
