Alachua County, Florida

[Rob]

This is easily the craziest county result I've ever seen. In 1928, Al Smith carried Alachua with only 35 percent. In second place was Socialist Norman Thomas with 32 percent; in third place was Communist William Foster with 30 percent; and Hoover was fourth with only 2 percent.

This is by far the strongest Communist showing anywhere, ever. It's one of the best Socialist showings as well. This begs the question: what the hell happened there?

[Rob]

If anti-Catholicism was the reason, the county would have gone for Hoover, as so many other solidly Democratic counties did that year. Making the results even stranger is that leftist third parties didn't do well at all before or after 1928.

Another strange thing: the Republican vote plunged from 19 percent in 1924 (when the GOP did poorly in Florida) to Hoover's meager 2 percent in 1928 (when the GOP was strong in Florida); then four years later, in the midst of the Depression, Hoover's vote skyrocketed to 22 percent. How bizarre.

[Rob]

I find the results for Alachua since 1960 interesting as well.  In 1960, the county went for Nixon, while surrounded by a sea of JFK counties on the panhandle!

Jump to 1968.  Alachua was one of only three counties in FL to go for Humphrey.  It was surrounded by a sea of Wallace counties on the panhandle.

Jump to 2000 and 2004.  Alachua voted Dem among a sea of Bush counties!

Any explanations for these trends in Alachua since 1960?

IIRC, Alachua has a large black population. Counties with large numbers of non-voting blacks were fairly likely to vote Republican in 1960 (BTW, Alachua voted for Thurmond in 1948 and Eisenhower in both 1952 and 1956) . After the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, blacks could vote in large numbers, making Alachua solidly Democratic.