Why were college towns so Republican before the 70's?

[soniquemd21921]

From a modern-day perspective, it is surprising to find many of the most stereotypically liberal college towns of today being Republican strongholds before the 26th Amendment (i.e. Amherst, Ithaca, Hanover, Middlebury, Ann Arbor, Oberlin, Orono, Bloomington, Lawrence, Durham, Storrs). Why were these towns so Republican back then? I know that most students were ineligible to vote, but what about all the professors that lived in and around those towns?

[soniquemd21921]

I remember reading once that FDR in 1936 was the first Democrat to carry the student vote in a presidential election (and even then it was much lower than the national average)... Of course being a student in 1936 was quite different to being a student now.

Also, I have to agree with what Torie said.

I wouldn't be surprised if Landon carried the student vote at Amherst, Dartmouth, Williams,  Cornell, Wesleyan, Middlebury, Oberlin, Mount Holyoke, Wellesley or even Smith College. Those colleges had much smaller attendence rates back then, and most of students attending them would have likely been from upper-crust Yankee hence Republican backgrounds.

[soniquemd21921]

Don't forget Douglas County, Kansas, home to the University of Kansas. In 1932 it was the most Republican county in Kansas, and it never voted Democratic until 1964. From what I understand, much of Douglas County's staunch Republicanism was largely due to the fact that Lawrence was settled by New Englanders before the Civil War, hence why it habitually voted Republican.

Evanston was heavily Republican before the 60's, as were Oberlin, Northfield (Carleton College) and Beloit in Wisconsin (home of Beloit College).

[soniquemd21921]

It's astonishing to see that 41 percent of voters in Berkeley were Republican as late as 1962.

I'm pretty sure Stanford was a Republican college then, as Palo Alto was a strongly Republican town. And Corvallis (Oregon State) definitely was, as Benton County was the most Republican county in the Pacific Northwest in that period, too.

[soniquemd21921]

Salem is in Marion County, not Lane County. Marion was a Republican county then, though not as Republican as Benton was. In that era the top five most Republican counties in Oregon were Benton, Jackson, Josephine, Marion and Malheur.

I find it somewhat interesting that although Oregon was regarded as a Republican state, FDR got 64 percent of the vote there in 1936.

[soniquemd21921]

You mean back when Americans of all ages voted along class lines (somewhat) and working class people couldn't attend universities unless they'd had a military career before?

Of course, there were plenty of elite Democrats back then ("before the 70s" is an awfully long time), and there have always been certain working-class areas that voted heavily Republican (some since the Civil War era)....

What are some working-class areas that were Republican in the 30's-40's era?

[soniquemd21921]

Or Tompkins, New York (home of Ithaca/Cornell). It used to be just as Republican as the counties it surrounded, now it sticks out like a sore thumb.

[soniquemd21921]

A tale of two college towns and two counties:

Amherst, MA:
1936 - 66% Landon
1948 - 69% Dewey
1960 - 60% Nixon
1972 - 67% McGovern
1984 - 74% Mondale
2004 - 85% Kerry

Hanover, NH:
1936 - 58% Landon
1948 - 75% Dewey
1960 - 62% Nixon
1972 - 57% McGovern
1984 - 54% Mondale
2004 - 76% Kerry

Tompkins County, NY (Ithaca):
1936 - 64% Landon
1948 - 68% Dewey
1960 - 66% Nixon
1972 - 59% Nixon
1984 - 51% Mondale
2004 - 64% Kerry

Washtenaw County, MI (Ann Arbor):
1936 - 51% Landon
1948 - 64% Dewey
1960 - 61% Nixon
1972 - 52% McGovern
1984 - 51% Nixon
2004 - 64% Kerry

[soniquemd21921]

There were also some manufacturing towns in New England that remained Republican during the New Deal and some time after; Orange, Massachusetts was 68% Republican in 1936 despite being a factory town. My guess is that this town was predominantly of Yankee ancestry and had little-to-no union activity. It's also one of the last remaining towns in northwest Massachusetts where GOP candidates still do well (Bush got 47% here in 2004 and I bet Scott Brown did even better in 2010).

[soniquemd21921]

Cambridge was heavily Democratic in that era too, but from what I gather that was due to the fact that outside of Harvard the city was a blue-collar, mostly Catholic city (much like neigboring Somerville and Everett).

[soniquemd21921]

Northampton voted for Al Smith, FDR and Truman - but not by wide margins.