Example of grouping counties by state

<!DOCTYPE html>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<style>

path {
  fill: none;
  stroke-linejoin: round;
  stroke-linecap: round;
}

path.state {
    fill: none;
    stroke: black;
    stroke-width: .5px;
}

</style>
<body>
<script src="https://d3js.org/d3.v3.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://d3js.org/topojson.v1.min.js"></script>
<script>

var width = 960,
    height = 600;

var path = d3.geo.path()
    .projection(d3.geo.albersUsa());

var svg = d3.select("body").append("svg")
    .attr("width", width)
    .attr("height", height);

d3.json("counties_pa.json", function(error, us) {
  if (error) return console.error(error);

var color = d3.scale.threshold()
    .domain([1, 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000, 2000, 5000])
    .range(["#fff7ec", "#fee8c8", "#fdd49e", "#fdbb84", "#fc8d59", "#ef6548", "#d7301f", "#b30000", "#7f0000"]);

svg.append('g')
        .attr('class','counties')
        .selectAll("path")
      .data(topojson.feature(us, us.objects.cb_2014_us_county_20m).features).enter()
        .append('path')
        .attr('d', path)
        .attr("id", function(d) { return "county-" + d.id; })
        .attr("data-state", function(d) { return d.properties.state; })
        .attr('style',function(d) { 
            return 'fill:'+color(d.properties.population / d.properties.area * 2.58999e6);
        })
        .on("mouseover", hoverCounty)
        .on("mouseout", outCounty);

svg.append('g')
        .attr('class', 'states')
        .selectAll("path")
      .data(topojson.feature(us, us.objects.cb_2014_us_state_20m).features).enter()
        .append("path")
        .attr("class", "state")
        .attr("id", function(d) { return "state-" + d.id; })
        .attr("d", path);
    });

function hoverCounty(county) {
    d3.selectAll("path[data-state='" + county.properties.state + "']").style("opacity", .5);
}

function outCounty(county) {
    d3.select(".counties").selectAll("path").style("opacity", null);
}

</script>

Modified http://d3js.org/d3.v3.min.js to a secure url

Modified http://d3js.org/topojson.v1.min.js to a secure url

https://d3js.org/d3.v3.min.js

https://d3js.org/topojson.v1.min.js