1920 Manistee County, MI: A Hughes-Cox County? Or Clerical Error?

[E-Dawg]

The infographic for this county on Wikipedia claims that it voted 50.2%.2-46.3% for Hughes and 47.8%-47.7& for Cox. This would make it one of only two Hughes-Cox counties in the entire country (the other being Polk County, NC)! However, Wikipedia also claimed that the 1920 county numbers differed between sources, and the nationwide county graph shows Harding winning >60%. This leads to believe that the numbers that show Cox winning are inaccurate because every other Republican from 1896-1928 easily won the county (outside of the 1912 GOP split), with Coolidge winning 58.1% and Hoover 1928 winning 60.7%. Also, every county in 1920 surrounding it voted hard GOP. Do you guys think there is any chance Cox truly won the county, and if so why would that be the case? Was the county very pro World War I/League of Nations for some reason? Was there a strong anti-German sentiment? I can't think of any other possibilities.

[E-Dawg]

Can anyone find the source that puts Harding at >60% ?

[E-Dawg]

https://www.manisteenews.com/local-history/article/100-YEARS-AGO-15692605.php

“Senator Harding’s majority over Gov. Cox in Manistee county was 2,567 votes, or rather better than two to one.

Rather better than two to one implies approaching 70% R. I think this proves that our current data is in error.

Awesome find. Now we just need the source that was used to fill the county in as >60 Harding on the nationside map

[E-Dawg]

Robert J. Menendez's The Geography of Presidential Elections also claims that Manistee County was a Hughes-Cox county, and one of only two in the country. It identifies Polk County, North Carolina, as the other one. Hughes won Polk County 52.5-47.5% in 1916, while Cox carried it 50.7-49.4% four years later. Harding did not improve that much over Hughes in North Carolina, and Cox obtained almost the same percentage there as Wilson.

Weird, Wikipedia claimed that Manistee County was the only one. Did that book give any information or reasons why the county would have voted that way? Until we find any historical evidence I think we should still assume the numbers are simply wrong. The North Carolina county is weird, but it may be explained by the massive turnout increase, and North Carolina barely swung R anyways. I would assume that one is an actual Hughes-Cox county. Are there any other Hughes-Cox counties Wikipedia missed?

[E-Dawg]

I'm going to agree with the posters claiming it was a clerical error although Polk County NC actually flipped and I believe that it was the only actual Hughes-Cox county. It was extremely close so I'm guessing that it was due to higher turnout.

I didn't know about Polk County when I first made this thread. I just edited the thread title and the original post to mention that other county. I would agree that Polk's County's flip seems legitimate due to it having much higher turnout than in 1916, and because North Carolina as a whole barely shifted to Harding.