County All-Stars: Counties with the Biggest Boosts in Sales Potential and Population

County-level market information offers a reasonably precise way of evaluating a local market’s growth prospects and key  demographic data.
There are many ways to slice-and-dice the sales potential and local market data that Electrical Marketing offers at the county level as part of an annual subscription. They include focusing specifically on electrical contractor or industrial sales; tracking population shifts; and looking at the largest overall counties on a total sales potential basis.
The chart below offers a different look at Electrical Marketing's county data. It ranks the 50 fastest-growing U.S. counties with less than 500,000 in population by taking into consideration several factors. They include growth in year-over-year electrical sales potential; 2020-2023 population growth; the average number of new residents moving into the county each day; and 2023 net migration, which is the difference between the number of people moving into and out of a county.  This data is available for more than 1,700 counties of all sizes by clicking on the link underneath the chart.
EM’s editors looked at  counties with less than 500,000 in population because these areas of the country are often on the periphery of a larger market area and may be attracting new population, residential construction and retail or commercial construction, while the urban core of that market may be built-out, or not attracting as many new residents or businesses because of higher housing or property costs. 
The three counties that ranked highest on our list of 2025 counties to watch — Collier and Sarasota Counties, FL; and Brazoria County, TX  — are part of some metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) that have been growing fast over the past few years. Collier County and Sarasota County are located along Florida’s southwestern coast in the Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island, FL MSA and North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, FL MSA, respectively, while Brazoria County is in Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX MSA. Spartanburg County, SC, in the Spartanburg County MSA and Placer County, CA, in the Sacramento-Roseville-Arden-Arcade, CA MSA round out the Top 5 counties.
The top counties ranked high when analyzed by how many new residents were moving in, and with the exception of Placer County, all were averaging more than 20 new residents per day.  Pinal County, AZ, in the Phoenix metro topped the list with 50.7 new residents each day.
Estimated sales growth is another key ranking factor, and with a YOY increase of more than $100 million in estimated sales potential, Collier County and Sarasota County were among the nation’s leaders in YOY sales increase through 4Q 2023.
Some of the new fast-growing counties that popped up on our radar this year included Canyon County, ID in the Boise City, ID MSA; Allen County, IN in the Fort Wayne, IN, MSA; Chesterfield County, VA in the Richmond, VA MSA; and Butler County, OH MSA, in the Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN MSA.
Published annually, Electrical Marketing's county sales potential estimates are powered by Electrical Wholesaling’s sales-per-employee estimates of $78,775 per electrical contractor employee and $2,650 per industrial employee. Our estimates are intended to help electrical distributors and independent manufacturers’ reps who need to develop sales potential for existing or future local market areas, as well as electrical manufacturers who want to analyze their market coverage or sales performance of distributors or their rep sales forces.