Coronavirus in rural America (Part XXXXV): the virus comes to Trump country

Here's an excerpt from Greg Sargent's report in the Washington Post about how the spread of the coronavirus, in recent weeks into counties Trump carried, many in the suburbs and rural areas, could sway the 2020 election:

In the last three weeks, [William] Frey [a Brookings Institute demographer] finds, some 548 counties across the country carried by Trump have newly become what Frey calls “high-covid,” which means they have reported 100 or more cases per 100,000 residents. By contrast, only 102 counties carried by Hillary Clinton have become high-covid in that same period.

The totals as of now, Frey finds, are that, since he started tracking the data back in late March, 1,014 counties carried by Trump have entered the high-covid category. By contrast, a total of 350 Clinton counties have done so.

That seems more lopsided than it is, because Trump carried far more counties than Clinton did. (She ran up huge totals in much more populous counties.)

* * * 

In the last three weeks, of those 548 Trump counties that have newly entered the high-covid category, here’s how some are distributed in those key states:

• Florida: 15 new Trump counties
• Michigan: 17 new Trump counties
• Pennsylvania: 11 new Trump counties
• Wisconsin: 8 new Trump counties
• North Carolina: 26 new Trump counties
• Arizona: 3 new Trump counties
• Georgia: 40 new Trump counties

Sargent quotes Frey:   

This is moving into parts of the swing states that really haven’t seen the pandemic as much.  And this is likely to continue.