politics

Won the Map, Lost the Vote

Raila Odinga carried 13 of Kenya's 20 most populous counties in 2022, and out-polled Ruto in those 20 counties combined by nearly a million votes. He still lost the presidency — because Kenya has 47 counties, not 20.

Visual Data Insights · 2026-09-01

Won the Map, Lost the Vote

Conventional wisdom would assume the election is already decided before a single vote was counted: if one wins the 20 "vote-rich" counties — those with 450,000 or more registered voters — and the presidency follows. Raila Odinga won 13 of them. William Ruto won just seven. And yet, when the tally closed, Ruto had 7.1 million votes to Odinga's 6.9 million — a margin of about 233K votes, but a margin all the same.

So how does the candidate with fewer big counties end up with more votes? Look at who actually showed up.

Vote-Rich, Turnout-Poor

On paper, Raila's numbers in the vote-rich counties were commanding, especially his home ground: Kisumu, Homa Bay and Migori, and he carried Nairobi with over 760k votes. But turnout wasn't uniform even among his own strongholds. Nairobi, with 2.4 million registered voters, saw only 55.96% turnout — leaving 1.08 million registered voters who never cast a ballot in the country's single largest county. Mombasa fared worse still, at 43.76% turnout, and Kilifi managed 49%.

In a county the size of Nairobi, a ten-point turnout gap is worth hundreds of thousands of votes that never entered the count at all.

Ruto's Tactical Sweep

Within the vote-rich map itself, Ruto's wins were narrower in number but sharper in impact. In Meru, he beat Raila 398k votes to 103k — a margin of over 290k from a single county. Add Nyeri (220k), Murang'a (269k) and Kiambu (395k), and the four Mount Kenya counties together handed him a combined margin of 1.18 million votes — over five times the size of his eventual national winning margin. Bungoma flipped to him outright, 255k to 110k. And in Kajiado, Raila's grip nearly slipped entirely: he held on by just over 9k votes, his narrowest win of the 13 counties he carried.

Why Raila Lost

  1. Low turnout in his own biggest county. Nairobi alone left 1.08 million registered voters uncounted; Mombasa and Kilifi underperformed too.

  2. Mount Kenya concentration. Four counties gave Ruto a combined margin over five times the size of his final national lead.

  3. The other 27 counties. Raila's lead across the 20 vote-rich counties was more than erased by Ruto's stronger margin across the remaining 27.

  4. A near-miss and a flip. Kajiado held for Raila by just over 9k votes; Bungoma didn't hold at all, switching to Ruto by well over 100k.

The Takeaway

Winning 13 of Kenya’s 20 most vote-rich counties gave Raila a substantial lead — but it still wasn’t enough. Kenya has 47 counties, not 20. The other 27, individually too small to dominate the map, collectively cancelled out that lead.