What were the key counties in Massachusetts that supported Trump in 2020?
Executive summary
Joe Biden carried Massachusetts overwhelmingly in 2020, winning every county in the state, but Donald Trump found his strongest pockets of support in SouthCoast and Central/Southern regions — notably Bristol and Plymouth counties — and showed relatively higher vote shares in parts of Worcester and Hampden counties [1] [2] [3].
1. Biden won every county; there were no Trump counties in 2020
The most important baseline: the 2020 presidential result in Massachusetts was a clean sweep for Joe Biden at the county level — Biden carried all Massachusetts counties — which means no county formally “supported” Trump by delivering a plurality to him in 2020 [1]. Statewide totals underscore how lopsided the result was: Biden received roughly 65.6% of the popular vote to Trump’s roughly 33% in Massachusetts, a margin that left the state firmly in the Democratic column [4] [5].
2. Where Trump performed best: Bristol and Plymouth led the pack
Although he lost every county, Trump’s relative strength clustered in a handful of counties; Bristol County delivered his highest county-level share — reported around 43.1% — driven in part by stronger Republican returns in cities such as Fall River and New Bedford where his vote percentages were unusually high for the region (Fall River 42.8%, New Bedford 37.4%) [2]. Plymouth County was the next strongest county for Trump with about 40.4% of the vote, marking the South Shore as a comparative Republican pocket inside an otherwise blue state [2].
3. Other counties with pockets of relative Republican strength: Worcester and Hampden
Reporting from 2024 retrospectives and local outlets highlights that Trump’s better relative performances in 2020 were not limited to the SouthCoast: parts of Worcester and Hampden counties also showed above-state-average Republican support in 2020, and those counties were repeatedly mentioned as places where Trump’s percentages were stronger than in Greater Boston suburbs and the eastern core [3] [6]. Local-town maps and media lists from 2020 and later election analyses show Central and Western Massachusetts towns where Trump either won or ran closer than he did statewide, which explains why Worcester and Hampden are often named as counties with notable Trump strength despite statewide Democratic dominance [6] [3].
4. What “key counties” means in a blue state — caution on interpretation
Calling a county “key” usually implies it swung the state or decided the outcome; that framing is misleading in Massachusetts in 2020 because Biden’s margins were so large and he took every county [1]. A more accurate description is that Bristol and Plymouth were the counties in which Trump’s coalition performed best, followed by areas in Worcester and Hampden where local economies and demographics produced relatively higher Republican shares — but none were decisive enough to flip the state [2] [3]. Available sources provide county-level vote shares and town-by-town maps but do not show any county-level Trump victories in 2020; precise tabulations beyond cited percentages are not included in all the provided articles and maps [7] [5] [4].