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

[heatcharger]

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. 

The thing is, Western NC, Southwestern VA, and West Virginia have never had any problem giving their votes to Democrats until relatively recently. Perhaps Appalachian demography isn't completely homogenous, but that's not something I would've expected. Now, it's certainly possible the rise of coal mining as a major industry created a political cleavage within the culture, but that doesn't really explain why Eastern Tennessee stayed so loyal to the GOP even as neighboring areas elected Democrats to most, if not all positions in government.

[Indy Texas]

One thing I'd be curious about:

Do white people in these ancestrally Republican areas of Eastern Tennessee do things like put Confederate flags on their trucks or otherwise express enthusiasm for Muh Southern Heritage?

[Sol]

One thing I'd be curious about:

Do white people in these ancestrally Republican areas of Eastern Tennessee do things like put Confederate flags on their trucks or otherwise express enthusiasm for Muh Southern Heritage?

I can't speak to Eastern TN but that's certainly true of comparable parts of NC.

[RINO Tom]

One thing I'd be curious about:

Do white people in these ancestrally Republican areas of Eastern Tennessee do things like put Confederate flags on their trucks or otherwise express enthusiasm for Muh Southern Heritage?

My guess?  As the Confederate flag has become more associated with being a proud cultural Southerner and less with the treason committed by some dead traitors who happened to be from the Southern states in a specific decade, there's probably been an uptick.

[Lachi]

North-eastern Indiana.

[Calthrina950]

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.

All three of the Republicans listed here won Manhattan as well, and the borough has been solidly Democratic since 1928. However, parts of Lower Manhattan have apparently been loyal to the Party ever since the days of Jackson.

[politicallefty]

What about some of the random counties in Kentucky that have always been extremely Republican? One that fits that bill I was looking at results on is Jackson County, Kentucky. I'd be curious to know more about it and I'm sure there are people qualified here for that. Since 1916, Republicans only fell below 80% four times (one of those was 79.8% in 1976 and the other three were 1964, 1992 and 1996). Taken another way, Democrats have never hit 30% and only twice hit 20%. It gave Landon 89% of the vote in 1936 and Trump 89% of the vote in 2016. It's easily one of the most Republican counties in the country and always has been (and several times was the most Republican in the nation).

[Alcibiades]

What about some of the random counties in Kentucky that have always been extremely Republican? One that fits that bill I was looking at results on is Jackson County, Kentucky. I'd be curious to know more about it and I'm sure there are people qualified here for that. Since 1916, Republicans only fell below 80% four times (one of those was 79.8% in 1976 and the other three were 1964, 1992 and 1996). Taken another way, Democrats have never hit 30% and only twice hit 20%. It gave Landon 89% of the vote in 1936 and Trump 89% of the vote in 2016. It's easily one of the most Republican counties in the country and always has been (and several times was the most Republican in the nation).

It’s pretty much the same phenomenon as Eastern Tennessee; historically pro-Union in opposition to the lowland elites, now vote as you would expect rural white Appalachian counties to vote (although at the state level in Kentucky, their ancestral Republicanism still shows as they are much more Republican than many of the coal/historically pro-Confederacy counties in NE Kentucky like Elliot.

[DINGO Joe]

Many coal counties in EKY and WV were loyal R until the depression and union wars.  Harlan was extremely R until it's Bloody Harlan days and McDowell even voted for Hoover in 1932. Of course, the coal counties had huge inflow of people and then outflow as they boom-bust.  Meanwhile, a Jackson Co Ky just has generations of the same people with no boom or bust.

[DINGO Joe]

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.

Even though Yadkin is part of the Winston-Salem MSA, it doesn't act like a suburb demographically.  It's rather poor, old and extremely low level of education. 

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

The first example that comes to mind is pre-1980 and post-2016 suburban Atlanta. After all, many of these counties were part of the rural Solid South, swung right as they developed into white suburbs, and have swung hard left with the new suburban majority. This probably applies to suburban areas in North Carolina and parts of Texas as well.

[SevenEleven]

Stanislaus County, CA.

Actually gave HHH the same hard vote margin it gave to Clinton in 2016.

[Alcibiades]

Boston and Manhattan have pretty much always been Democratic; initially because of Catholic and Jewish immigration, now because virtually all major cities do.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Gasconade County, Missouri has the longest ininterrupted streak of voting Republican, starting in 1860.
I am not sure how different the motivations of Missouri Rheinland voters in the late 19th century are from those of their descendants in the early 21st century, though.

[Calthrina950]

Boston and Manhattan have pretty much always been Democratic; initially because of Catholic and Jewish immigration, now because virtually all major cities do.

As far as I can tell, Manhattan has voted Democratic in all but four elections since 1828-1848 (Zachary Taylor), 1896 (William McKinley), 1920 (Warren G. Harding), and 1924 (Calvin Coolidge). I know that McKinley's 1896 victory in Boston was the first for a Republican there in decades, but looking at county maps, it's hard for me to tell what the result was in that city across many nineteenth century elections-Abraham Lincoln, for example, swept every county in Massachusetts in 1860 and 1864, and so did Ulysses S. Grant in 1868 and 1872, making it plausible that they might have won Boston. It'd be interesting to know if there's been any statistics collated to specifically indicate how Boston has voted since 1828.

[Gass3268]

Walworth County, Wisconsin has only gone Democratic once and that was in 1912 when the Republican Party vote was split between Roosevelt and Taft.

Settled heavily by New England and Upstate New York Yankees. It went for the Free Soil Party in both 1848 and 1852. This Yankee-Republican connection continued until it's political culture was driven more by its growing exurban nature to both Milwaukee and Chicago, which also has resulted in it being very Republican. Obama almost won it in 2008, but no one has been close since.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Boston and Manhattan have pretty much always been Democratic; initially because of Catholic and Jewish immigration, now because virtually all major cities do.

By the same token Atlanta: first because of White Southerners, then because of Black voters, and nowadays it's clear that people of every race in Atlanta are strongly Democratic.
Atlanta was incorporated in 1847 and as far as I was able to collect it seems to have had weird voting patterns in the first years, but has clearly voted consistently Democratic from 1876 to now (with the possible exception of 1972, I am not sure about that).

[Alcibiades]

Boston and Manhattan have pretty much always been Democratic; initially because of Catholic and Jewish immigration, now because virtually all major cities do.

By the same token Atlanta: first because of White Southerners, then because of Black voters, and nowadays it's clear that people of every race in Atlanta are strongly Democratic.
Atlanta was incorporated in 1847 and as far as I was able to collect it seems to have had weird voting patterns in the first years, but has clearly voted consistently Democratic from 1876 to now (with the possible exception of 1972, I am not sure about that).

Actually, I believe that according to the map of white vote by county that is somewhere on this forum, Fulton County whites narrowly preferred Trump in 2016, but you are nonethless right about Atlanta as a whole always having been Democratic.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Boston and Manhattan have pretty much always been Democratic; initially because of Catholic and Jewish immigration, now because virtually all major cities do.

By the same token Atlanta: first because of White Southerners, then because of Black voters, and nowadays it's clear that people of every race in Atlanta are strongly Democratic.
Atlanta was incorporated in 1847 and as far as I was able to collect it seems to have had weird voting patterns in the first years, but has clearly voted consistently Democratic from 1876 to now (with the possible exception of 1972, I am not sure about that).

Actually, I believe that according to the map of white vote by county that is somewhere on this forum, Fulton County whites narrowly preferred Trump in 2016, but you are nonethless right about Atlanta as a whole always having been Democratic.

Right, but that margin comes from the former-Milton-county part of Fulton County.
Atlanta Whites are sure as hell pretty Democratic.

[Calthrina950]

Kane County, Utah is an excellent example of this. Since Utah's admission in 1896, Kane County has only voted Democratic once in its entire history: for Woodrow Wilson in 1916. Wilson swept all of Utah's counties and carried the state by 21% against Charles Evan Hughes, in an extremely tight national election that hinged on California for the ultimate outcome. Not even Franklin Roosevelt in his 1932 and 1936 landslides was able to carry this county, which was one of Herbert Hoover's (and Alf Landon's) best west of the Continental Divide. Kane County of course, just like the other rural counties in Utah, remains heavily Republican in the modern era-Trump still got 64% there in 2016, beating Clinton by 44% (with Evan McMullin taking 10%).

[lfromnj]

Boston and Manhattan have pretty much always been Democratic; initially because of Catholic and Jewish immigration, now because virtually all major cities do.

By the same token Atlanta: first because of White Southerners, then because of Black voters, and nowadays it's clear that people of every race in Atlanta are strongly Democratic.
Atlanta was incorporated in 1847 and as far as I was able to collect it seems to have had weird voting patterns in the first years, but has clearly voted consistently Democratic from 1876 to now (with the possible exception of 1972, I am not sure about that).

Actually, I believe that according to the map of white vote by county that is somewhere on this forum, Fulton County whites narrowly preferred Trump in 2016, but you are nonethless right about Atlanta as a whole always having been Democratic.

Right, but that margin comes from the former-Milton-county part of Fulton County.
Atlanta Whites are sure as hell pretty Democratic.

Well there is buckhead which is the rich part and swing, I think Clinton and Kemp both won it .

[lfromnj]

Northampton NC is a majority black county which voted for Mcgovern . Used to be the whites in the county now its the black people.

Orange county NC with Chapel Hill.  Previously just part of the solid south, now due to the very liberal university of NC at Chapel Hill

[Calthrina950]

Northampton NC is a majority black county which voted for Mcgovern . Used to be the whites in the county now its the black people.

Orange county NC with Chapel Hill.  Previously just part of the solid south, now due to the very liberal university of NC at Chapel Hill

Northampton County, North Carolina, like many Black Belt counties, was a Republican stronghold during Reconstruction and immediately afterwards-William McKinley in 1896 is the last Republican to carry it. From the 1890s to the 1960s, it was staunchly Democratic for very similar reasons as the remainder of the Black Belt-i.e. black disenfranchisement and Jim Crowism. Since the Voting Rights Act, it has remained a Democratic stronghold because of black enfranchisement, as whites have moved into the Republican Party. Orange County, North Carolina, on its part, has only voted Republican once since 1900-for Herbert Hoover in 1928. Northampton and Orange were the only two counties in North Carolina that McGovern won in 1972.

[lfromnj]

Oh Alleghany county, although the base of pittsburgh has remained very Democratic as always, its changed from working class suburbs to UMC burbs. However the  percentage has remained very stable.

[Former President tack50]

I am surprised this has not come out yet, but the Rio Grande border counties in Texas are actually a pretty good response.

In particular, Starr County, TX is now the new recordholder for longest Democratic streak (not Republican since 1892). And unlike in the cases of say, majority black Southern counties, in this case the Dem base has not changed.

And same applies for most of the general area. Even in R landslides this area voted titanium D with the same kind of people voting D.