Kearney, NE · 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 Kearney, NE, by party and cycle.
○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 · 2026R+46.8
vs
Presidential vote · 2024R+46.4
Registration and the presidential vote track closely here — within 0.4 points.
Domestic migration in Kearney, NE in Kearney, NE: net domestic migration by year
Year
Net domestic migration
2011
+325
2012
+246
2013
−102
2014
−249
2015
−60
2016
+95
2017
−222
2018
−292
2019
−52
2021
−125
2022
+52
2023
−35
2024
+169
2025
−90
Kearney's metro sits at the crossroads of I-80 and the Union Pacific main line, drawing a workforce tied to meatpacking and regional logistics. Buffalo County has voted Republican in presidential races by consistent double-digit margins over the past two decades.
Across the recorded series it reached a Democratic high of 24.7 points in 1932 and a Republican high of 56.5 points in 1984. Between 2020 and 2024 the metro moved 1.0 points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was 46.4 points.
A population of 57,292, a 85% non-Hispanic-white share, and a median household income of $76,230 describe the metro. The metro's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of Hastings, NE and Norfolk, NE.
Akashic
Political twins — metros
The metros 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. Re-weight the groups in the twins explorer.
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.
Kearney, NE, Nebraska. Akashic. https://akashic.app/cbsa/28260/. Accessed May 20, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0.
License: CC BY 4.0
Embed this page
A live widget for your site — no API key, attribution built in, CC BY 4.0. All widgets & sizes →
In 2024, Kearney, NE, Nebraska voted Republican by 46.4 points (R+46.4), carried by the Republican candidate. Out of 27,492 votes cast, 7,122 went Democratic and 19,892 went Republican.
When did Kearney, NE, Nebraska last vote Democratic?
The most recent presidential election in which Kearney, NE, Nebraska voted Democratic was 1964.
How many people live in Kearney, NE, Nebraska?
Kearney, NE, Nebraska has a population of 57,292 according to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the US Census Bureau.
What is the median household income in Kearney, NE, Nebraska?
Median household income in Kearney, NE, Nebraska is $76,230 — below the national median of $80,734. The Nebraska state median is $76,475.
What is the political history of Kearney, NE, Nebraska?
Akashic tracks 34 presidential elections in Kearney, NE, Nebraska from 1892 to 2024. Of those, 8 went Democratic and 25 went Republican.
