Why have Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas been so loyal to the GOP?

[darklordoftech]

Have their reasons for voting Republican changed since the Civil War? If not, what are their unchanging reasons?

[TML]

These states are mostly rural, and we all know how such areas usually vote (unless they are dominated by minority groups)...

[TDAS04]

They're ancestrally Republican for not being Southern.  Kansas began as an antislavery hotbed, and the others were settled by mostly by Northerners (and plenty of German and Scandinavian immigrants, most of whom were also Protestant).

My region remains Republican because the agrarian character and central location foster a conservative culture ("small town values", religion, rugged individualism, skepticism of "coastal elites", etc.)

[Some of My Best Friends Are Gay]

These states are mostly rural, and we all know how such areas usually vote (unless they are dominated by minority groups)...

This is a terrible answer.

Democrats used to do extremely well with rural whites, but they still didn't usually do well in the states OP mentions here, so that can't be the reason.

[Brittain33]

The Dakotas had 4 Dem senators in recent memory and I think they flirted with voting D in 2008.

[Grassroots]

North Dakota was a swing state in 2008 due to Obama's #populism but since then the oil boom in the bakken region has massively benefited the state and is obviously attributed to republican policies of fracking and so on.

South Dakota is mostly rural and agrarian and both the east and west swung republican strongly.

Nebraska has a very similar situation to SD, however the urban and somewhat urban areas of Omaha and Lincoln respectively swung democrat.

Kansas is basically the same situation as Nebraska, but the D swings were so intense in the Kansas City, Topeka, and Wichita areas that it actually outweighed the massive R swings in rural areas and the state itself swung slightly democratic.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Their loyalty is a post-Depression result. Prior to that they flipped back and forth sometimes and Democrats had strong bases of support in Nebraska where Bryan was from for instance.

World Wars caused Democrats to lose support with some groups, especially Irish and Germans. This is a good part of the reason why the area went from being swingy to the most reliably R states starting in 1940.

The Dust bowl also caused the poorer elements to flee the region with obvious effects.

[politicallefty]

The Dakotas have a more mixed result up until very recently. Democrats were a lot more fortunate there not too long ago, holding all 4 Senate seats and both House seats in 2004. And as others have noted, they've somewhat flirted with Democrats on the presidential level.

Kansas is a virtual reverse New England state. They have no problem voting for a Democratic governor from time to time to try to restrain perceived excesses by the overwhelmingly partisan-dominated legislature. That doesn't extend to the federal level though, where Democrats have not won a Senate seat since 1932.

It's not so much that the Plains have been right-wing however. That point should be distinguished from being generally strongly Republican. The old populist movements had successes in that part of the country, including the establishment of the Bank of North Dakota and the Nebraska Unicameral.

[TDAS04]

These states have voted Democratic a small number of times, but they were still mainly Republican, including before the Depression (in spite of a tendency of interest in populist campaigns).  Take a look at ND’s legislature prior to the mid-1950s, when the NPL merged with the Democrats.  These states started off as Republican strongholds due a population composed primarily of Yankee/German/Scandinavian Protestant stock (unlike Texas and
Oklahoma).

[DINGO Joe]

These states are mostly rural, and we all know how such areas usually vote (unless they are dominated by minority groups)...

Actually at the point, about 57% of Nebraska live in three counties Douglas, Sarpy and Lincoln.  KS is working in that direction too.

[darklordoftech]

The surprising part is that they snapped back so quickly after going for FDR by landslide margins in 1932 and 36.  You would expect something more like the Upper South trend- staying Dem through Truman, then toss up states, then Safe R after 1980.  Instead, they went right back to Safe R in 1940. 

Furthermore, in one of the two elections in which they voted for FDR, the Republican nominee had been Governor of Kansas.