most ancestrally democratic area in the country?

[freepcrusher]

what do you think it is?

In Texas, Atascosa, Frio, LaSalle, McMullen, Jim Hogg, Zapata, Starr, Hidalgo, Brooks, Duval, Jim Wells, Live Oak counties as well as part of Cameron, Harris, and Travis counties have never been represented by a republican in congress since at least the 1870s, if at all.

[freepcrusher]

Parts of lower Manhattan, NYC have been strongly Democratic since the time of Martin Van Buren's Presidency.

you are surprisingly right. I always thought that New York (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx) were all strongly republican until the Great Depression. Take a look at this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/70th_Congress. I'm not sure how the numbering system worked back then but i thought low numbers = new york city and high numbers = buffalo. Notice how numbers 2 through 18 were democratic. I'm assuming most of those districts had high jewish and ethnic catholic populations.

However, in the state of New York, if one was to get outside of the city of New York, it was strongly republican. Even FDR lost almost all the counties in his home state all four times. The only reason he won his home state is because of the city of New York.

[freepcrusher]

what about Tucson, AZ? Tucson is the epicenter of what I call old western populist democrats. Since statehood the majority of the city (except for the wealthy northern and eastern parts) has always been represented by a democrat in congress. Arizona used an at large system from 1912-1949 where they only elected democrats and when Tucson was put in the 2nd district, it was represented by Patten from 1949-1955, the Udall Brothers from 1955-1991, Ed Pastor from 91-03, and now Raul Grijalva.