Voting Red Again: How Social Capital and Local Change Drove the Trump Swing

Local social capital shapes political preferences, yet its role in recent U.S. elections remains contested. Using county-level data, we examine how different forms of bonding and bridging social capital are associated in distinct ways with antisystem voting, proxied by Trump’s vote margin. These forms also appear to mediate differently the relationship between local economic and demographic change and electoral outcomes. Our findings reveal how the structure of social ties shapes the political geography of territorial transformation and helps explain spatial variation in antisystem electoral support.