The college degree is still a major fault line in U.S. presidential politics. This election surfaced some wrinkles.

A lot has changed in a generation. Where are we headed now?

The education divide remains one of the most powerful forces in American politics. This understanding — mentioned on so many podcasts and cable news shows — has become so entrenched this fact may sound unfathomable: Back in 2000, Al Gore and George Bush split the 100 most educated counties in the country right down the middle.

Now, of course, the Democrats win four out of five of them. They dominate especially in the biggest and most highly educated spots. In the top 10 most educated counties (places like Boulder County, Colorado., and Howard County, Maryland) they consistently get two of every three votes.

Meanwhile, the nation's small, rural counties where far fewer residents have college degrees, have shifted dramatically to the Republicans.

But this week's election showed us new wrinkles to the story.

Here are three places that may help us understand where this divide is heading:

The Suburban Reversal: Collin County, Texas

Collin County says it welcomes almost 100 new residents every day, making it one of the fastest-growing counties not just in Texas but in the country. It’s part of the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area, but Collin County isn’t “just the Metroplex’s country cousin anymore,” its website says. “We are a unique blend of new leading edge urban mixed with traditional rural.”

About 54 percent of the county now has a bachelor’s degree. That makes it the kind of long-time Republican stronghold that had been steadily moving toward Democrats since 2000. Back then less than a quarter of county voters picked the Democratic candidate. By 2020, 47 percent did.

This year, though, the percentages moved back toward Republicans, with 43 percent voting for Kamala Harris and 54 percent for Donald Trump.

Across Texas, the same thing is happening. Among the 20 Texas counties with the highest percentage of college degrees, all but four had moved toward Democrats since 2000. This year all but one moved toward Trump.

This pattern repeats itself in counties across the country and suggests that we might be starting to see limits to how far the education-politics correlation extends to turning more suburbs blue.

The Flagship Bubble: Dane County, Wisconsin

Look across political maps and many of the bluest counties you’ll see are home to flagship universities. That was true again this year. But the winning margins for Democrats in many of these places, while still wide, plateaued.

Take Dane County, home to the University of Wisconsin at Madison. There, 54 percent of residents have a college degree, and 75 percent of people voted for Kamala Harris. But her margin of victory was slightly smaller than the Democrats’ four years ago after widening in most presidential elections since 2000.

A similar pattern showed up in other swing-state college towns. In the county that’s home to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, for example, Harris won by the same margin as Democrats did four years ago. In the county that’s home to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Democratic margin fell by three points this year.

These counties, of course, remain a core base for Democrats. But there might not be much more room for the party to use these bubbles to counteract Republican gains in other parts of the states.

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The Continued March: Jefferson County, Ohio

Four years ago we looked at the diverging trajectories of two Jefferson Counties. They helped us illustrate just how much, in a single generation, the college degree had become a dividing line.

In Ohio, Jefferson County is a former steel stronghold along the Ohio River. There, just under 20 percent of people have a bachelor’s degree. The area was once dominated by industries like steel mills, paper mills, glass factories, and potteries. But many are now gone.

The prevalence of unions helped drive the county’s past affiliation with Democrats, a volunteer historian and genealogist at the Jefferson County Historical Association told us four years ago. But now it’s become a Republican mainstay.

Between 2000 and 2020, this Jefferson County swung 45 points toward the Republican party in presidential elections. This year, it moved even further. A county that was voting for the Democratic candidate 20 years ago is now a county that Trump is winning by a more than 40-point margin.

Meanwhile, the other Jefferson County we wrote about is one of those suburbs that has been steadily moving toward Democrats. Touting itself as the “Gateway to the Rocky Mountains,” Colorado’s Jefferson County sits at the western edge of the Denver metro area. Close to half of its residents have a bachelor’s degree.

From 2000 to 2020, there had been a 26-point swing toward the Democratic party. But in this presidential election, the margins barely budged. For all of its college degrees, this Jefferson County moved just one more point the Democrats’ way.

— Sara Hebel and Scott Smallwood

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