Salem, OR · 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 Salem, OR, 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 · 2024R+1.1
vs
Presidential vote · 2024R+2.4
Registration and the presidential vote track closely here — within 1.3 points.
292,579 registered voters · 2024 · up from 284,143 in 2022
Domestic migration in Salem, OR in Salem, OR: net domestic migration by year
Year
Net domestic migration
2011
−391
2012
+35
2013
+165
2014
+1,916
2015
+4,165
2016
+6,364
2017
+5,073
2018
+4,350
2019
+1,767
2021
+1,951
2022
+340
2023
−738
2024
−317
2025
+511
The Salem metro blends state-government employment with a substantial Latino population in surrounding Marion County, producing margins that consistently run closer than the Portland media market and make it a bellwether for statewide ballot measures.
Across the recorded series it reached a Democratic high of 25.8 points in 1936 and a Republican high of 48.3 points in 1904. Between 2020 and 2024 the metro moved 2.9 points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was 2.4 points.
A population of 438,906, a 63% non-Hispanic-white share, and a median household income of $78,938 describe the metro. The metro's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA and San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, CA.
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 →
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All citations released under CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Akashic Intelligence.
Salem, OR, Oregon. Akashic. https://akashic.app/cbsa/41420/. Accessed May 20, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0.
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In 2024, Salem, OR, Oregon voted Republican by 2.4 points (R+2.4), carried by the Republican candidate. Out of 204,284 votes cast, 96,004 went Democratic and 100,857 went Republican.
When did Salem, OR, Oregon last vote Democratic?
The most recent presidential election in which Salem, OR, Oregon voted Democratic was 2020.
How many people live in Salem, OR, Oregon?
Salem, OR, Oregon has a population of 438,906 according to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the US Census Bureau.
What is the median household income in Salem, OR, Oregon?
Median household income in Salem, OR, Oregon is $78,938 — below the national median of $80,734. The Oregon state median is $83,011.
What is the political history of Salem, OR, Oregon?
Akashic tracks 34 presidential elections in Salem, OR, Oregon from 1892 to 2024. Of those, 6 went Democratic and 27 went Republican.
