On the surface, Ohio looks like an island of calm after the turbulent 2020 election: Donald Trump won the state by 8.07 points in 2016 and won it back by 8.02 points in 2020.
But below those stable results, the state saw significant changes at the county level that suggest the forces are working to redo the electorate.
Delaware County, north of Columbus, the state capital, moved away from Mr. Trump by 9 percentage points. Pike County, 90 minutes south, moved toward it at 12 points.
Both have voted the Republican presidential candidate in every election since 2000, including 2020. But the strong demographic differences between them illustrate greater political changes in Ohio and beyond.
Delaware County grows and Pike shrinks. More than half of Delaware’s adult population has college degrees. In Pike, the figure is about 13%. The average income of Delaware families far exceeds twice that of Pike. The population of the two counties is mostly white, although Pike is more so. And in the last election, the two have changed places. Delaware, once a firm GOP, voted for Trump by less than 7 percentage points, and Pike, once a hotly contested battlefield that Republican Mitt Romney won by a single vote in 2012, gave Mr. Trump a margin of victory of 49 points in 2020.