Trump in the Dakotas

[Hydera]

In addition to all mentioned above Dakotas (especially North) were hotbeds of conservatively-tinged populism and isolationism most of their history. An ideal combination for Trump, who is not even so conservative (look Cruz for comparison).

I’ve always gathered that these states are extremely volatile in their electoral behaviour especially compared to cities, the South or the Pacific Northwest:

• Obama gained nineteen percentage points in ND vis-à-vis Kerry in 2004
• Bush gained 21 percentage points in ND vis-à-vis Dole in 1996
• Dukakis gained eighteen percentage points in ND vis-à-vis Mondale in 1984
• Reagan gained 32 percentage points in ND vis-à-vis Ford in 1976
• Eisenhower gained 34 percentage points in ND vis-à-vis Dewey in 1948
• FDR gained 60 percent in vote in ND in 1932 vis-à-vis Davis in 1924
• Harding gained 60 percentage points in ND vis-à-vis Hughes in 1916

• Bush gained nineteen percentage points in SD vis-à-vis Dole in 1996
• Dukakis gained twenty percentage points in SD vis-à-vis Mondale in 1984
• Reagan gained 27 percentage points in SD vis-à-vis Ford in 1976
• Eisenhower gained 34 percentage points in SD vis-à-vis Dewey in 1948
• FDR gained 50 percent in vote in SD in 1932 vis-à-vis Davis in 1924
• Harding gained 38 percentage points in SD vis-à-vis Hughes in 1916
• Theodore Roosevelt gained 50 percentage points in SD in 1904 vis-à-vis McKinley in 1896

Thus, with Trump’s appeal to a rural, white electorate it’s not surprising that these states – which Obama, Clinton and Carter came fairly close to carrying – turned sharply Republican, especially as part of the core Democratic vote among Native Americans did not remain loyal.

A lot of the volatility in the Eastern SD region is probably because of the high number of (combined) Scandinavian ancestry. This group swung heavily to Obama in 2012 with the exception of Oil producing Western ND(obviously due to dislike of environmentalism there). and then swung back to the GOP. the ECLA isnt liberal but definitely one of the more moderate branches of Christianity as well. And considering Social Democracy being a thing in scandinavia you could sort of assume that these voters are conflicted about their economic left-wing-ish views but also being populist. Which made Hillary unable to turnout those voters especially if they had preferred Bernie Sanders.

[Hydera]

Has it been discussed already, but why did Hillary did so poorly among the Natives? Even in 2008, the Native counties were mostly won by Obama. Do the Natives, kind of like the Mormons, not think that women should hold positions of authority?

While the vast majority of native americans are socially liberal your going to have a lot of socially conservative 'hardhats' aka: social conservative but economically left-leaning.

Plus Native americans are a group that mostly scales in lower incomes because many live on reservations where there is lack of job opportunity. A lot of them supported Bernie Sanders and a portion of them either refused to vote for Hillary or stayed home.

I kinda realized it during the election campaign but i was in denial at the time but what happened is that there is a huge populace in which Hillary was unpopular and its usually those on lower incomes who feel either Hillary wasnt going to do much to change their life or that she's corrupt and so there was no point in voting for her in the first place. And working class people's opinion on her was a lot into those either two camps which explains a big reason for three things that happened. Minorities who stayed home, minorities who switched to voting for trump, WWC that voted for Obama either in 2008 or 2012 swinging heavily to Trump.

Had Bernie Sanders been the nominee then given his progressive economic platform they would had turned out the way they did for Obama. Especially without the negativity that was placed on Hillary.