Tidewater · the strongest Democratic and Republican presidential performances recorded here, measured three ways.
1892–2024 · 34 presidential cycles · 31 with a vote-share denominator · 34 with a national benchmark
Highest vote share
Largest share of the presidential candidate vote cast here.
Democratic
Woodrow Wilson1912
76.3%
165,860 votes · D+56.5
Runner-up · Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936 · 74.0%
Republican
Richard Nixon1972
66.3%
1,335,814 votes · R+34.1
Runner-up · Ronald Reagan, 1984 · 59.6%
Most votes
Largest number of votes cast for the party’s presidential nominee here.
Democratic
Joe Biden2020
4,024,883votes
58.8% of the vote · D+19.5
Runner-up · Kamala Harris, 2024 · 3,945,913 votes
Republican
Donald Trump2024
2,845,912votes
41.0% of the vote · D+15.9
Runner-up · Donald Trump, 2020 · 2,692,393 votes
Best relative to the U.S.
This Place’s margin against the national margin in the same election — positive when it leaned toward the party more than the country did.
Democratic
Alton B. Parker1904
+83.3pts D vs U.S.
Place D+63.6 · U.S. R+19.7
Runner-up · John W. Davis, 1924 · +51.6 pts
Republican
Richard Nixon1972
+11.0pts R vs U.S.
Place R+34.1 · U.S. R+23.2
Runner-up · George H. W. Bush, 1988 · +7.4 pts
presidential primaries
Nominating contests
Tidewater · how this place’s counties split between candidates in each party’s presidential nominating contest, cycle by cycle. A primary is a contest inside one party, so it has no Democratic–Republican margin and is not part of the general-election record above.
Akashic reports votes cast, not delegates awarded. The two can disagree: Clinton led the 2008 national primary popular vote by less than half a point and did not win the nomination.
Primary returns are published at county grain and there is no roll-up above it. Each cell counts how many of this place’s counties a candidate led — a count of records, not a vote total. Who led the place as a whole is not knowable from these returns, because county rows carry a leader and a lead but no per-candidate votes.
Presidential nominating contests in Tidewater, by party and cycle.
Party
2008
2012
2016
2020
2024
Democratic
Obama113Clinton181,865,631 votes · 131 of 131 countiesprimary
○no contest record
Clinton125Sanders61,529,912 votes · 131 of 131 countiesprimary
Biden130Sanders12,139,033 votes · 131 of 131 countiesprimary
○no contest record
Republicannot ingested
○no contest record
○no contest record
○no contest record
○no contest record
○no contest record
○no contest record — Akashic holds no result for that party and cycle here. It is not a claim that no contest was held. Telling apart a contest that was cancelled, one that went uncontested, and one simply not yet ingested needs a nominating-contest calendar, which is a separate ingest from results and does not exist yet.
Republican presidential primaries are not yet ingested — the Republican series runs from 1856 and is in scope. The row is kept so its absence is visible: a Democratic-only panel would otherwise read as though no one else held a contest.
Akashic carries 10 states for 2012 and 3 states for 2024. Cycles in which an incumbent president seeks renomination are thin by nature — few states run a contested primary — so a sparse column is politics, not a hole in the record.
County returns carry a leader and a lead over the runner-up, and nothing more. The full candidate field with vote shares is published at state grain — follow a cycle above to the state contest for it.
voter registration
Registered voters
By party of registration, over time
Party registration · 2026D+24.5
vs
Presidential vote · 2024D+15.9
Registration leans Democratic; the presidential vote runs 8.6 points more Republican than the rolls.
DemocraticRepublicanUnaffiliatedOther parties
† Some years predate full county coverage; a flagged year sums only the counties reporting it.
Voter registration in Tidewater
Year
Total registered
Democratic
Republican
Unaffiliated
Other
2008 (partial)
2,431,135
1,217,267
690,868
521,241
1,759
2012 (partial)
2,699,696
1,273,346
738,931
679,301
8,118
2026 (partial)
1,958,850
965,055
485,372
465,695
42,728
Tidewater sits in United States. In 2024 it voted Democratic.
Across the recorded series it reached a Democratic high of 63.6 points in 1904 and a Republican high of 34.1 points in 1972. Between 2020 and 2024 the region moved 3.6 points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was 15.9 points.
A population of 13,420,321, a 54% non-Hispanic-white share, and a median household income of $97,410 describe the region. The region's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of Deep South and Greater Appalachia.
Akashic
Political twins — American Nations
The American Nations whose fingerprint — 2000–2024 trajectory, demographics, ancestry, religion — sits closest to this one, and why.
Twin score (0–100) = weighted cosine between tier-standardized fingerprints: presidential margins 2000–2024 with 12-yr trend and elasticity, ACS income, age, education, population and race, top reported ancestries, and religious adherence — chips name the closest-shared dimensions and the widest gap.
Compare two places, side by side
Twelve curated comparisons line up election history, demographics, and the divergence story for two places at a glance. Browse all comparisons →
Cite this page
All citations released under CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Akashic Intelligence.
Tidewater, United States. Akashic. https://akashic.app/nations/tidewater/. Accessed May 20, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0.
In 2024, Tidewater, United States voted Democratic by 15.9 points (D+15.9), carried by the Democratic candidate. Out of 6,938,559 votes cast, 3,945,913 went Democratic and 2,845,912 went Republican.
When did Tidewater, United States last vote Republican?
The most recent presidential election in which Tidewater, United States voted Republican was 2004.
How many people live in Tidewater, United States?
Tidewater, United States has a population of 13,420,321 according to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the US Census Bureau.
What is the median household income in Tidewater, United States?
Median household income in Tidewater, United States is $97,410 — above the national median of $80,734. The United States state median is $84,954.
What is the political history of Tidewater, United States?
Akashic tracks 34 presidential elections in Tidewater, United States from 1892 to 2024. Of those, 25 went Democratic and 9 went Republican.
