As in previous years, the 2020 presidential election showed the City of Oxford as the only blue dot in the bright red map of Butler County. 

Out of the 4,943 people who voted in Oxford, about 71% voted for Joe Biden. 

Although Americans appear to have voted in the 2020 presidential election at their highest rate in 120 years, 30% fewer people voted in Oxford in comparison to the 2016 general election.

Every precinct in Butler County, except Oxford, experienced an increase in voter turnout. There were 6,854 more ballots cast in Butler County this election than in 2016, and the areas with the largest voter turnout increases were Liberty Township (+17.7%), Monroe (+15%), and Milford Township (+14.1%).

In 2016, 959 more Oxford residents voted for Trump and 1,202 more Oxford residents voted for Hillary Clinton than voted for Joe Biden this year.

Mark Morris, the assistant chair and chief departmental advisor of the Department of Political Science at Miami University, said he speculates the decrease in voter turnout may be attributed to the lower number of students in Oxford because of the pandemic and an increase in mail-in ballots that were sent in by students registered elsewhere.

Miami has estimated the number of students living on campus is down 40% this year and that there are 6,717 Miami students who list an off-campus address in Oxford. In the fall of 2019, Miami enrolled 17,327 undergraduate and 2,607 graduate students at the Oxford campus.

Earlier this year, Jessica Greene, Oxford’s assistant city manager, said Oxford expected about a 20% decrease in the total student population this year compared to a normal year. 

Timothy D’Agostino, president of Miami’s Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) organization, said he believes the decrease is attributable to the decrease in Miami students in Oxford, but that voters’ sentiments toward the Biden campaign might also have played a role.

“People don’t vote because they recognize that the choices available to them aren’t going to offer them any meaningful difference in their lives,” D’Agostino said. “Besides lip service and symbolic gestures, that’s really all (Biden) had to offer. The (Democratic Party) talked for years about this big wave, but it was all predicated on the idea that Republicans would come out (and switch to Biden from Trump). The Republicans are who they always were. They voted for Trump in higher numbers than they did last time.”

President Donald Trump won Butler County this year with 111,601 votes, just over 61% of the votes cast, compared to 67,697 votes cast for Biden.

The numbers showed 71.3% of registered voters in the county cast ballots, which was comparable to previous election years, according to the Butler County Board of Elections.