what are some areas that vote for the same party as they did decades ago

[freepcrusher]

but for different reasons? Somewhere like Shelby County, TN is somewhere that comes to mind for the democrats. Not sure for the republicans.

[Sol]

Most majority-black deep south counties work, obvs.

Seattle and some parts of rural New England have gone from industrial to hipsterish.

I think Yadkin County NC works--it's gone from a sort of unionist GOP tradition to a more exurban type culture.

[DC Al Fine]

Most of the plains have been voting GOP for a very long time.

[TDAS04]

East Tennessee. 

[Frodo]

Maryland still remains true to its Democratic heritage -for the most part. 

[TDAS04]

NYC has voted Democratic in almost every Presidential election going back to Andrew Jackson, I believe.

[Sumner 1868]

NYC has voted Democratic in almost every Presidential election going back to Andrew Jackson, I believe.

No. McKinley, Harding and Coolidge each won the city.

[TDAS04]

NYC has voted Democratic in almost every Presidential election going back to Andrew Jackson, I believe.

No. McKinley, Harding and Coolidge each won the city.

That's why I said almost.

[Sumner 1868]

NYC has voted Democratic in almost every Presidential election going back to Andrew Jackson, I believe.

No. McKinley, Harding and Coolidge each won the city.

That's why I said almost.

Ah, didn't see that. Well, at least everyone knows now.

[TDAS04]

Zachary Taylor was the other non-Democrat to carry NYC.  

[Indy Texas]

[smoltchanov]

Guys, at least in some cases you forget about clause "for different reasons".... There are lots of areas that vote for the same party as they did for decades and even centuries, but in many cases the reasons are, essentially, unchanged.. It's not them that we talk about here. Black-majority districts in the South belong here - in the past they (their whites) voted Democratic because they (whites) hated blacks and party that freed them, and now - because it's blacks vote overwhelmingly for party of civil rights...

[Thunderbird is the word]

Yeah the rural Great Plains states and Kansas is pretty much for the same reasons. I wonder if the unionist pockets of the south (Winston County Al, East Tennessee) would be considered different reasons? In the past it's because they had a tradition of voting Republican since the reconstruction era but now as that heritage has died off it's just because they're culturally and politically identical to the rest of the white south.

[mianfei]

Yeah the rural Great Plains states and Kansas is pretty much for the same reasons. I wonder if the unionist pockets of the south (Winston County AL, East Tennessee) would be considered different reasons? In the past it's because they had a tradition of voting Republican since the reconstruction era but now as that heritage has died off it's just because they're culturally and politically identical to the rest of the white south.

I would agree with that very much. Here’s a map of never-Democratic and once-Democratic counties (since the Civil War):

Most of these originally voted Republican because they could not forgive the Democratic Party for the Civil War (which they were not prepared to fight as they had no tolerance for fighting a rich planter’s war), whereas now they cannot accept the social liberalism – homosexual rights, birth control, land zoning, welfarism, high taxes to support urban populations at greater employment risk – which the Democratic Party has had to embrace to gain voters who otherwise would not vote.

[RINO Tom]

The list changes significantly if you MUST include "for different reasons."  A good example the OP gave was Shelby County, TN, which went from Solid South White Democratic (for the most part) to urban enclave with a strong minority vote for the Democrats.  However, the reasons for Kansas' Republicanism aren't that different from back during the Civil War, once you obviously account for certain issues (Unionism, slavery, etc.) not existing anymore.

[TDAS04]

Maryland maybe?  Its votes for Breckinridge and Obama were for different reasons, obviously.

[SingingAnalyst]

West Michigan--Allegan, Kent, Ottawa Counties. Also Sanilac County, MI in the "thumb". (GOP)

Boston, MA has been Democratic since (and including) 1928.

[Kingpoleon]

The Non-Pacific West(ND, SD, KS, NE, WY, ID, MT, UT, and AZ) comes to mind, as does Virginia.

[Bismarck]

Hendricks and Hamilton counties in Indiana. Wealthy educated GOP voters, the base for Mitch Daniels back in the day.

[MarkD]

For the last 100 years, in Missouri, Joplin/Jasper County.
In Congressional Quarterly's Politics In America, it has often been said that when Woodrow Wilson lowered tariffs on the importation of zinc (an important commodity mined in the Joplin area), the voters in the area gravitated to the GOP and have stayed there ever since.

Dozens of counties in Eastern Tennessee have been rock-ribbed Republican since the Civil War. Two congressional districts in that area have never elected a Democrat to the U.S. House in all these years and consistently vote Republican for President. They only stray to a Democrat like Al Gore when he was winning a landslide re-election to the Senate in 1990. (This is plain in mianfei's map above.)

[Del Tachi]

NYC has voted Democratic in almost every Presidential election going back to Andrew Jackson, I believe.

No. McKinley, Harding and Coolidge each won the city.

I think the Borough of Manhattan has been reliably Democratic though.

[heatcharger]

I've always wondered why Eastern Tennessee has been so heavily Republican even during the Solid South days. Carpetbaggers perhaps?

[Del Tachi]

I've always wondered why Eastern Tennessee has been so heavily Republican even during the Solid South days. Carpetbaggers perhaps?

Hillbillies are not plantation slaveholders.

[RINO Tom]

I've always wondered why Eastern Tennessee has been so heavily Republican even during the Solid South days. Carpetbaggers perhaps?

Hillbillies are not plantation slaveholders.

I think it goes beyond this, as plenty of hillbillies in the Deeper South were convinced that their economic well-being depended on a thriving South (and therefore thriving slave power).  That argument didn't work in places like Northern Alabama, Eastern Tennessee, etc., as their economies weren't tied to slavery, and they (rightfully) felt totally betrayed by their states choosing to go to war with their country for the slave power's interests.

[Del Tachi]

I've always wondered why Eastern Tennessee has been so heavily Republican even during the Solid South days. Carpetbaggers perhaps?

Hillbillies are not plantation slaveholders.

I think it goes beyond this, as plenty of hillbillies in the Deeper South were convinced that their economic well-being depended on a thriving South (and therefore thriving slave power).  That argument didn't work in places like Northern Alabama, Eastern Tennessee, etc., as their economies weren't tied to slavery, and they (rightfully) felt totally betrayed by their states choosing to go to war with their country for the slave power's interests.

Hillbillies =/= poor Southern Whites.  There's a unique set of cultural, linguistic, religious and ethnic factors that differentiate Hillbillies from Deep South Whites.  These differences are the basis of the Upper South/Deep South division widely accepted by American geographers.  For example, most true Hillbillies are probably of Scots-Irish or northern English descent whereas most of your Deep South planters were from southern England or France.