(THREAD)
Part of the quadrennial post-mortem of elections that I find fascinating is to see how the vote broke down within a specific area — in this case, #BerksCounty. Here are some observations:
1/

You should know — and probably do, if you follow Berks politics at all — that the county is red, with a couple of blue pockets and a reliably blue center: The city of #ReadingPA.
2/

This pattern was evident in the 2016 electoral map when Republican Donald Trump won 67 of Berks' 72 municipalities.
(Side note: Why on earth does a county with 400K people have SEVENTY-TWO municipalities???)
3/

Berks County has more Democrats than Republicans, but most of those are in Reading and the surrounding suburbs. The farther you get from the city, the redder the townships.
4/

Not surprisingly, perhaps, Trump got more votes this time around, too, in his re-election bid against Joe Biden. But Trump's electoral advantage here was not enough to win him Pennsylvania or its crucial 20 electoral votes.
5/

But Biden made gains from Clinton's 2016 performance. While she lost the affluent suburb of Wyomissing in 2016 — by a few dozen votes — Biden won a majority there. He also won in Shillington, Sinking Spring and Muhlenberg Township, all places that voted for Trump 4 years ago.
6/

Biden also made gains in places like Spring Township, one of the most populous municipalities in Berks County. Fewer than 30 votes made the difference there this year; in 2016, Clinton lost it by nearly 1,300.
7/

In the city of #ReadingPA, Clinton performed better than Biden, capturing a little over 80% of the vote. Biden won with 71% but he received fewer votes than Clinton, even though more people voted in the city than four years ago.
8/

I wrote about this (and even made pretty maps!) on http://readingeagle.com . You can read the story here. If you can, please consider subscribing to support local journalism.
https://www.readingeagle.com/news/elections/donald-trump-won-berks-county-but-joe-biden-made-gains-among-voters-here-maps/article_2bf5a7ec-206f-11eb-ad4a-278b9fe30fb6.html

Thanks,
9/FIN