The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ
laddicus finch
Jr. Member
Posts: 1,931
|
 |
« Reply #25 on: June 03, 2024, 01:44:56 PM » |
|
George McGovern maybe? South Dakota was clearly one of the more right-wing states during the New Deal Coalition era (and indeed since then; with the exception of 1988 because of the farm crisis, and even then Bush won it). FDR won SD handily in 1932 but only got 54% in 1936 and lost it in 1940 and 44, Dewey carried it in 48, Ike won it both times, as did Nixon in 1960. McGovern being elected in 1962 as a very distinctly left-wing Democratic senator in 1962, in a state that had consistently backed the GOP, seems like a bit of an aberration.
Obviously there was a "prairie populist" streak in the Great Plains at the time too, chiefly in Minnesota but also in the Dakotas. But McGovern wasn't much of a prairie populist either, he was very much part of the "new left" which even then was associated with big coastal cities, basically the opposite of South Dakota. So it's interesting that McGovern was able to get elected statewide in South Dakota, even in a less polarized time.
|
