Weirdest Presidental Election Result by state since 1960

[Calthrina950]

I'm guessing upstate NY because of WWC. It's almost like the same environment as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Only reason NY didn't go to Trump though is NYC.

Eh we don't really know what would have happened if you remove all of NYC and long island Clinton actually still wins New York albeit narrowly. If you remove NYC alone Trump wins NY by 17k votes, but that would likely lead to a much more contested election by Clinton in the Empire state.

This has to be incorrect. I know that if New York City alone were removed, Clinton would have still won the state by 10,000 votes. If the suburbs had been removed also, I'm pretty certain New York would have gone to Trump.

[Calthrina950]

For 1964, I think Florida's result is certainly interesting, although I understand the reasons for why it occurred. The state swung 5.32% compared to 1960, one of the weakest swings in the 1964 election. However, the change at the county level was much more dramatic. Here is the county map for 1960:

Kennedy, as you can see, dominated in the arch-segregationist (and heavily black) Florida Panhandle; 1960, in fact, was the last time that the now solidly Republican counties of Escambia, Clay, Okaloosa, and Santa Rosa voted Democratic. Kennedy also won Miami-Dade County, Monroe County (which never voted Republican before Nixon's 1972 landslide), Hillsborough County, Leon County, and Duval County.

Nixon, however, won the state thanks to his dominant performance in Central Florida (he received more than 60% of the vote in Brevard, Osceola, and Seminole Counties, and broke 70% in Orange and Lake Counties), the remainder of SE Florida (he won both Palm Beach and Broward, the former with more than 60%), Pinellas County (also >60% Nixon), and SW Florida (where he swept Lee, Charlotte, Collier, and Manatee Counties with more than 60% and exceeded 70% in Sarasota County). Nixon also won Alachua County. Overall, Nixon won Florida by 3%; it's surprising, given his strength in these three disparate regions, that he didn't carry it by more.

And here is the county map for 1964:

As one can see, the Florida Panhandle, obviously because of civil rights, swung heavily to Goldwater, who swept most of the region. Several counties where Kennedy had gotten more than 60% or 70% gave Goldwater similar percentages. Goldwater also flipped Duval and Leon Counties, both of which had backed Kennedy four years previously. In the remainder of the state, however, there were dramatic swings towards Johnson. Goldwater held Orange, Lake, Osceola, and Seminole Counties in Central Florida, but did significantly worse than Nixon in all of them. Johnson flipped Volusia, Brevard, and St. Lucie Counties.

Johnson won Alachua County and improved over Kennedy in Hillsborough County, while flipping Pasco and Pinellas Counties (Hernando County shifted to Goldwater). Goldwater held most of the counties in SW Florida, but did significantly worse than Nixon (as in Central Florida), and Charlotte County flipped to Johnson (the last Democrat to win it). In SE Florida, Goldwater held Palm Beach and Broward Counties, but did worse than Nixon, while Johnson significantly improved upon Kennedy's performance in Miami-Dade County and held his ground in Monroe County. Johnson also did manage to hold several of the rural counties in Central Florida which Kennedy had carried, although doing significantly worse than him in most of them.

Overall, Johnson won Florida because of two different voter constituencies, which outweighed the segregationist whites who moved to Goldwater. Northern transplants and retirees, scared by Goldwater's Social Security plans, shifted to him, and he was helped by black voters (I recall reading a Time article from shortly after the election, which states that one black precinct in Jacksonville gave Johnson 97% of the vote). Black turnout and registration increased significantly from 1960 to 1964, and Johnson would not have won the state without them (Florida and Virginia are the two Johnson states where Goldwater almost certainly won white voters).

[Calthrina950]

^And adding to the above, I did a quick calculation of Florida's results in 1964 without Miami-Dade County:

Barry M. Goldwater (R-Arizona)/William E. Miller (R-New York): 788,461 (51.60%)
Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas)/Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minnesota): 739,599 (48.40%)

Goldwater would have won Florida by 3.20% if you subtracted Miami-Dade County from the state's results. So Johnson's improvement over Kennedy there (he got 64.01%, compared to Kennedy's 57.65%), seems to have been the most significant factor in allowing him to carry the state, despite the heavy losses in the Florida Panhandle. Interestingly enough, no Democrat since Johnson has managed to match or surpass his share of the vote in Miami-Dade (Hillary Clinton came the closest with 63.22% in 2016). Obama (whose performance in Miami-Dade, in 2012, was the best for a Democrat since Johnson, later surpassed by Clinton) also would have lost Florida without Miami-Dade.

[Calthrina950]

1960: NV
1964: FL
1968: TX
1972: MA
1976: VA
1980: MA
1984: MN
1988: MD
1992: VT
1996: CO
2000: NH
2004: NM
2008: IN
2012: FL
2016: MI

1960 NV: guessing Vegas workers and employees put JFK over the top.
1964 FL: lot of segregationists in the state. Goldwater dominated the Panhandle and won Orange and Osceola counties (which were GOP strongholds back then), and the Tampa suburbs. This resulted in LBJ winning it by just 2%.
1968 TX: LBJ's home state, so it helped his VP Humphrey. Also Wallace took some Nixon voters.
1972 MA: McGovern was tailor made for college kids and ultra liberal white progressives, who are overrepresented in Boston.
1976 VA: only Southern state that Carter failed to win. VA was one of the first southern states to start going for the GOP due to the influx of northern white Republicans (similar dynamic as now). They work in government and lobbying and wanted the status quo, distrustful of Carter's outsider status.
1980 MA: John Anderson
1984 MN: Reagan was super popular but came a few thousand votes short of winning it.
1988 MD: Crime. The infamous Willie Horton rape and murder occurred in MD.
1992 VT: the state started moving left during the 2nd term of the Reagan presidency, as it has always been a liberal Republican stronghold. HW Bush's emphasis on crime in 1988 did not resonate with the small rural dominated state.
1996 CO: Clinton only won it in 1992 due to Perot. The state was still a GOP state back then.
2000 NH: Bush only won it due to Nader.
2004 NM: Bush got around 40% of the latino vote nationwide, allowing him to barely win NM by 0.8%.
2008 IN: huge voter turnout from blacks in Gary, students in college towns, and Obama winning Marion County (Indianaopolis) due to suburban whites turning against the GOP in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
2012 FL: Obama did better with Latinos in 2012 than in 2008, and this helped him in southern Florida and Orlando, allowing him to win the state by 0.9%.
2016 MI: Trump won Macomb county by 11% and crushed Hillary in rural parts of the state. Also turnout drop in Detroit.

1960: Guess that makes sense.
1964: Actually I was surprised about it going Johnson with the results of it's neighbors.
1968: Yeah that makes sense.
1972: Yeah.
1976: Yeah still was kinda shocking to see it go red.
1980: Yeah.
1984: Pretty much.
1988: That's true.
1992: True. NH and ME were both shocking too.
1996: That's true. CO still went to Clinton by the largest margin of the 3 states Dole flipped.
2000: Pretty much this.
2004: True.
2008: Yeah.
2012: I remember polling had Romney as a favorite to win FL for a decent amount of the campaign and I was surprised when Obama was able to win it.
2016: Yeah.

What's even more interesting about the 1964 result in Florida, as I outlined above, is that it was a Nixon-Johnson state (like Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Kentucky). As I noted there, black turnout and registration increased significantly there between 1960 and 1964, and Northern retirees/transplants, who had helped push the state to the Republicans during the 1950s, turned to Johnson because of concerns about Goldwater's economic and safety net policies. Of course, in the Deep Southern States, civil rights overrode all else, and black voters were still largely disenfranchised. If they had full voting rights and turned out at normal levels in those states, Johnson probably would have come much closer to winning Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina then he did-and Georgia may have gone for him outright.

[Calthrina950]

What’ll be the weirdest 2020 result?

- I think Kansas and Alaska could surprise us (Trump +12 maybe).
- If New Hampshire votes closely to Colorado and Virginia.
- How narrow Biden’s wins in Nevada and New Mexico are.
- If Biden wins Florida or Arizona by 3+ pts.

I'd say that a 55 Trump-35 Biden-10 Third Party result in Utah would qualify as well, as that would make Trump the first Republican to win the state twice to fail to reach 60% there since William H. Taft in 1908/1912 (Eisenhower in 1956, Nixon in 1972, Reagan in 1980 and 1984, H.W. Bush in 1988, and W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 all reached that benchmark there). If Biden manages to hit 40% there (which is possible if he picks up the lionshare of McMullin's vote), that would be an even stranger result. As for Alaska, Trump won it by 14% last time, beating Hillary Clinton there 51-37%, with third parties garnering 12% of the vote.

So I could easily see the state being a high single-digit win for him this time, if the third-party vote consolidates towards Biden. And we almost forget that New Hampshire went for Obama by nearly 10% in 2008, so a similar result this year wouldn't be too shocking, given how unpopular Trump is with women and college-educated voters there.

[Calthrina950]

1980, as has been alluded to on here before when discussing the result in Arkansas, certainly did have many strange state-by-state results. Reagan did exceptionally well in his native region (the West), winning almost every state of that region (except for Hawaii) by double digits, and exceeding 60% or even 70% of the vote in many of those states. Most of the South, conversely, was extremely close, with Reagan garnering a majority in a select few states (Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia). But one result that's particularly interesting, and which I've taken note of just recently, is Maryland.

This is the county map for the state that year:

A glance at the map would make it seem that Reagan won the state, given that he carried the majority of the counties, including Baltimore, Howard, and Montgomery Counties. I've watched old NBC News Election Night coverage on YouTube, and Reagan was actually leading in the state for much of the night until late returns gave Carter the advantage. However, a closer look reveals how Carter managed to win Maryland. Baltimore, Howard, and Montgomery Counties only went to Reagan with pluralities, with John Anderson drawing away a significant number of votes from Reagan. But most importantly of all, Carter won Baltimore City over Reagan by more than 50%, garnering over 70% of the vote there. His margin of 134,009 there more than accounted for his 45,555 margin in the state as a whole.

Reagan's weakness with black voters probably helps to explain why he lost Maryland, and in particular, why he lost Baltimore by so much. In the corresponding Senatorial race, Charles Mathias won Baltimore by 13% and swept every county in the state, while getting 66%. There was much ticket-splitting in Maryland that year, with Mathias winning over substantial numbers of Carter voters, including many black Democrats (although a majority stayed Democratic).

[Calthrina950]

1980, as has been alluded to on here before when discussing the result in Arkansas, certainly did have many strange state-by-state results. Reagan did exceptionally well in his native region (the West), winning almost every state of that region (except for California) by double digits, and exceeding 60% or even 70% of the vote in many of those states. Most of the South, conversely, was extremely close, with Reagan garnering a majority in a select few states (Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia). But one result that's particularly interesting, and which I've taken note of just recently, is Maryland.

Reagan won California by 17 points in 1980, the largest margin for any Republican in California since 1928

That was a mistake on my part (I was tired when typing up this post). I meant to say Hawaii.

[Calthrina950]

1980, as has been alluded to on here before when discussing the result in Arkansas, certainly did have many strange state-by-state results. Reagan did exceptionally well in his native region (the West), winning almost every state of that region (except for Hawaii) by double digits, and exceeding 60% or even 70% of the vote in many of those states. Most of the South, conversely, was extremely close, with Reagan garnering a majority in a select few states (Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia). But one result that's particularly interesting, and which I've taken note of just recently, is Maryland.

This is the county map for the state that year:

A glance at the map would make it seem that Reagan won the state, given that he carried the majority of the counties, including Baltimore, Howard, and Montgomery Counties. I've watched old NBC News Election Night coverage on YouTube, and Reagan was actually leading in the state for much of the night until late returns gave Carter the advantage. However, a closer look reveals how Carter managed to win Maryland. Baltimore, Howard, and Montgomery Counties only went to Reagan with pluralities, with John Anderson drawing away a significant number of votes from Reagan. But most importantly of all, Carter won Baltimore City over Reagan by more than 50%, garnering over 70% of the vote there. His margin of 134,009 there more than accounted for his 45,555 margin in the state as a whole.

Reagan's weakness with black voters probably helps to explain why he lost Maryland, and in particular, why he lost Baltimore by so much. In the corresponding Senatorial race, Charles Mathias won Baltimore by 13% and swept every county in the state, while getting 66%. There was much ticket-splitting in Maryland that year, with Mathias winning over substantial numbers of Carter voters, including many black Democrats (although a majority stayed Republican).

Another weird Maryland result was 1988. It was the only time the state has voted Republican outside of a 49-state blowout since 1956. It can probably be explained by the fact that Dukakis got absolutely crushed among white suburbanites, and Bush’s dog-whistles about African-American criminals may have played particularly well in white Maryland considering the state’s high black population.

Dukakis actually did better than Carter in Montgomery and PG Counties, however he did much worse in Anne Arundel, Howard and Baltimore Counties and pretty much the rest of the entire state, including its rural areas. The two did about the same in Baltimore City, but its population declined between 1980 and 1988.

1988 is certainly perplexing in many ways. In addition to Maryland, Bush held Pennsylvania-another single-digit win for Reagan in 1984-largely thanks to the "Willie Horton issue", as I would phrase it, and it also enabled him to win Illinois (which had been a 13% win for Reagan), but he lost New York and Iowa-two other single-digit Reagan wins. Iowa was relatively unaffected by the Willie Horton issue and reacted strongly to the Farm Crisis of that decade-which is also why it was more Democratic than the national average in 1984.

In New England, Bush narrowly held Vermont-which was a 16% win for Reagan in 1984, but was more Democratic than the national average at that point and was trending leftwards because of increasing Republican conservatism on social issues-and did almost as well as Reagan in Maine and New Hampshire (the latter state was powerfully Republican then). But he lost Rhode Island by low double digits and only won Connecticut-the state his father had represented in the Senate-by about 5%.

But on the other hand, Dukakis only won Massachusetts by 8%, doing worse there than George McGovern (the only state where he did worse than McGovern), despite the facts that it was his home state, that it was a Democratic bastion except in landslide years, and that he was the incumbent Governor. And Dukakis came within single digits in New Mexico and Colorado-the latter state's result is particularly intriguing, given that Reagan won it by nearly 30% in 1984-but did worse than Mondale in Tennessee and about the same as him throughout most of the South, particularly in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina. So 1988 is a demonstration, more then almost any other election, of how there is no such thing as a universal swing.

[Calthrina950]

1980, as has been alluded to on here before when discussing the result in Arkansas, certainly did have many strange state-by-state results. Reagan did exceptionally well in his native region (the West), winning almost every state of that region (except for Hawaii) by double digits, and exceeding 60% or even 70% of the vote in many of those states. Most of the South, conversely, was extremely close, with Reagan garnering a majority in a select few states (Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia). But one result that's particularly interesting, and which I've taken note of just recently, is Maryland.

This is the county map for the state that year:

A glance at the map would make it seem that Reagan won the state, given that he carried the majority of the counties, including Baltimore, Howard, and Montgomery Counties. I've watched old NBC News Election Night coverage on YouTube, and Reagan was actually leading in the state for much of the night until late returns gave Carter the advantage. However, a closer look reveals how Carter managed to win Maryland. Baltimore, Howard, and Montgomery Counties only went to Reagan with pluralities, with John Anderson drawing away a significant number of votes from Reagan. But most importantly of all, Carter won Baltimore City over Reagan by more than 50%, garnering over 70% of the vote there. His margin of 134,009 there more than accounted for his 45,555 margin in the state as a whole.

Reagan's weakness with black voters probably helps to explain why he lost Maryland, and in particular, why he lost Baltimore by so much. In the corresponding Senatorial race, Charles Mathias won Baltimore by 13% and swept every county in the state, while getting 66%. There was much ticket-splitting in Maryland that year, with Mathias winning over substantial numbers of Carter voters, including many black Democrats (although a majority stayed Republican).

Another weird Maryland result was 1988. It was the only time the state has voted Republican outside of a 49-state blowout since 1956. It can probably be explained by the fact that Dukakis got absolutely crushed among white suburbanites, and Bush’s dog-whistles about African-American criminals may have played particularly well in white Maryland considering the state’s high black population.

Dukakis actually did better than Carter in Montgomery and PG Counties, however he did much worse in Anne Arundel, Howard and Baltimore Counties and pretty much the rest of the entire state, including its rural areas. The two did about the same in Baltimore City, but its population declined between 1980 and 1988.

1988 is certainly perplexing in many ways. In addition to Maryland, Bush held Pennsylvania-another single-digit win for Reagan in 1984-largely thanks to the "Willie Horton issue", as I would phrase it, and it also enabled him to win Illinois (which had been a 13% win for Reagan), but he lost New York and Iowa-two other single-digit Reagan wins. Iowa was relatively unaffected by the Willie Horton issue and reacted strongly to the Farm Crisis of that decade-which is also why it was more Democratic than the national average in 1984.

In New England, Bush narrowly held Vermont-which was a 16% win for Reagan in 1984, but was more Democratic than the national average at that point and was trending leftwards because of increasing Republican conservatism on social issues-and did almost as well as Reagan in Maine and New Hampshire (the latter state was powerfully Republican then). But he lost Rhode Island by low double digits and only won Connecticut-the state his father had represented in the Senate-by about 5%.

But on the other hand, Dukakis only won Massachusetts by 8%, doing worse there than George McGovern (the only state where he did worse than McGovern), despite the facts that it was his home state, that it was a Democratic bastion except in landslide years, and that he was the incumbent Governor. And Dukakis came within single digits in New Mexico and Colorado-the latter state's result is particularly intriguing, given that Reagan won it by nearly 30% in 1984-but did worse than Mondale in Tennessee and about the same as him throughout most of the South, particularly in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina. So 1988 is a demonstration, more then almost any other election, of how there is no such thing as a universal swing.

Yes - 1988 was a strange election, caught between alignments - residual New Deal voting, suburban Reaganist and law-and-order Republicanism, and hints of the alignment to come, particularly with Democratic strength in the Upper Midwest and Upper New England. Another strange result was Louisiana - Dukakis’ best Southern states, but one of Carter’s worst in 1980.

The two strangest for me were Colorado and Maine. With Colorado, I have no idea why it showed a brief Democratic revival in 1988 and 1992 after 40 years of GOP presidential dominance, not to reappear again until 2008. As for Maine, it seemed a good fit for Dukakis - like Iowa and Vermont, a very white, rural, liberal-leaning state (which was to become reliably Democratic in the following decades), where the Willie Horton issue had little impact. Did the fact that the Bush family had their summer residence there alone really give HW his surprisingly decisive victory? I feel there must be another facet of the state I am overlooking.

I'm not exactly sure about this either, except to say that Maine did have a tradition of moderate to liberal Republicanism-and Bush, in 1988, was still viewed as a moderate Northeastern Republican, given that he was the son of Prescott Bush (who was a moderate Republican while in the Senate), that he was originally from the region (Massachusetts), and that he had the tone and demeanor of a Northeasterner (despite having lived in Texas for forty years by that point-it was his son, W. Bush, who had the tone and demeanor of a true, born and bred Southerner, as we all know). Bush's connections to Maine in the form of his family residence certainly played a role as well, as did the fact that prior to becoming Reagan's running mate, he had criticized his economic policies (calling them "voodoo economics"), and that during his presidential campaigns, he ran on a theme of "compassionate conservatism" (i.e., the "shining points of light" speech).

This may also explain why Bush managed to hold Vermont and Connecticut, although the former state was more Democratic than the national average, and Reagan had done worse there in 1980 than Gerald Ford-losing many liberal and moderate Republican votes to John Anderson. I'm not sure why Dukakis did much better in Colorado aside from electoral geography reasons-he improved significantly over Mondale and Carter in Denver County, and also flipped both Boulder and Pitkin Counties, turning them into Democratic strongholds-Pitkin, in particular, had strongly disliked Jimmy Carter, and was one of the few McGovern counties won by Ford in 1976 (and in 1980, Anderson had drawn away many liberal votes there, enabling Reagan to win it with less than 40% of the vote). The only explanation to me is that independents and college-educated suburbanites/urbanites were already trending Democratic by that point-and Colorado, then as now, is one of the most educated states in the country.

[Calthrina950]

• Colorado 1988: growing influence of resort-town counties and very loyal Hispanic vote was what made the state close (same true of New Mexico). Carter was a poor fit for almost every Democratic group in those states.

But why was Colorado, having voted in line with the national average, then significantly more Republican than it in 1996 and 2000? After all, it’s not as if the groups you mentioned above grew any less influential (although I guess in 2000, Bush did well with Hispanics).

Bob Dole seems to have had strong appeal in Eastern Colorado (which is similar to his home state of Kansas in many ways), while in 2000, Gore lost a considerable number of votes to Ralph Nader (who garnered 5.25% in Colorado). Nader did especially well in the liberal ski resorts and in Boulder County, breaking double digits in many counties (San Miguel County, where he got 17.2%, was his best county in the nation). This is the reason why Bush was able to win many typically Democratic counties such as San Juan, La Plata, Gunnison, Eagle, Routt, and Clear Creek, and why Gore's vote share (42.39%) was abnormally low. In 2004, John Kerry picked up Nader's vote, while Bush only marginally improved over his 2000 vote share, which is why the state swung Democratic that year and Bush's margin of victory fell from 8% to 4%.

[Calthrina950]

Bumping this thread up to see what the views are with regards to the weirdest state result of last year. I would have to say Georgia. The state flipping to the Democrats isn't surprising by itself, but that it did so while Florida and North Carolina stayed loyal to Trump (and with Trump improving in the former), is notable. Georgia is now to the left of both of those states, which it had not been since 1992.

[Calthrina950]

Bumping this thread up to see what the views are with regards to the weirdest state result of last year. I would have to say Georgia. The state flipping to the Democrats isn't surprising by itself, but that it did so while Florida and North Carolina stayed loyal to Trump (and with Trump improving in the former), is notable. Georgia is now to the left of both of those states, which it had not been since 1992.

I would say Florida itself might have been the weirdest actually. The Miami-Dade swings were so massive and unexpected people thought it was a reporting error at first. The state went from having absurdly close election results basically every single time to being a far more comfortable victory for Trump than polls or forecasters predicted, or 2016 for that matter even as Biden got the swings he needed in most of the rest of the country to win. It just went the complete opposite direction as the country, and by more than most expected it to. Before the election you might think something was particularly unusual about Georgia if you heard the result, but in fact it was the only one that did exactly what it was supposed to; polls were most accurate and trends most steady there.

I'll concede the point which you make here. I certainly was astounded by the magnitude of Trump's gains in Miami-Dade County, and I thought that he was on his way to winning reelection, until the rest of the night played itself out.