Why did the Great Plains voting habits change so drastically, so quickly?

[diptheriadan]

In the late 1800s and early 1900s they were mostly a swing region, but became the Republican core during and after FDR. What happened?

NOTE: I'm not entirely sure whether or not this belongs on this board. If this is the case, where would these sorts of questions go?

[Terry the Fat Shark]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?board=8.0 probably Presidential History, I believe

[Kingpoleon]

McGovern and Mondale were the last Democrats to make a very serious bid there, particularly the Dakotas. North Dakota needs far more investment, and South Dakota needs a good deal of investment. Both could be potentially close.

As to the rest, it's a combination of Mormons becoming solidly Republican and rural areas switching over from Adlai Stevenson I, James Weaver, and William Jennings Bryan to Republicans like Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Dwight Eisenhower.

[Mr. Smith]

McGovern and Mondale were the last Democrats to make a very serious bid there, particularly the Dakotas. North Dakota needs far more investment, and South Dakota needs a good deal of investment. Both could be potentially close.

As to the rest, it's a combination of Mormons becoming solidly Republican and rural areas switching over from Adlai Stevenson I, James Weaver, and William Jennings Bryan to Republicans like Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Dwight Eisenhower.

Dukakis made a serious effort what with how Reagan treated farmers,...nearly won Montana and The Dakotas, Iowa was so strong a state that it actually tilted R in '92!

Also, one has to remember that besides McGovern and maybe LBJ, pretty much every Democrat nominated past WWII has come from a state either just west of the Mississsippi, or far more often, east of it.

While the GOP has had a trove of Westerners.

No doubt that if Gary Hart, Frank Church, Dick Gephardt, Jerry Brown, or Tom Harkin had been nominated instead of chasing Southerners or New Englanders things would've been different.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Woodrow Wilson and, later, FDR happened.

It's hard to underestimate just how big of an impact both World War I and World War II had on the voting patterns of German immigrants and their descendants.

[Blair]

According to a history paper I read about the Progressive era there as a massive drop in voter turnout in formerly progressive heartlands

[Terry the Fat Shark]

The World Wars, Industrialization, the Great Depression, and perhaps most importantly the Dust Bowl.

[Kingpoleon]

Woodrow Wilson and, later, FDR happened.

It's hard to underestimate just how big of an impact both World War I and World War II had on the voting patterns of German immigrants and their descendants.

Do you mean it's hard to overestimate?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

one factor is the depopulation of farming areas owing to mechanisation. Before, each large farm would have a small army of labourers, smallholders were widesepread and more socialist areas were forming co-ops and collectives.

[mianfei]

It should not be forgotten that Kansas and Nebraska had been states since 1861 and 1867 – and neither ever came close to voting Democratic before 1896 when Bryan’s “free silver” campaign (plus his favorite-son status in Nebraska) allowed him to win all the Plains and Mountain states except North Dakota. In most of these elections they were among the most Republican in the nation. In 1876 and 1880 Kansas was the second most-Republican state and Nebraska the third-most Republican, whilst Kansas was again the second most Republican state in 1884 and 1888.

I have for this reason assumed that the status of the Plains States between 1896 and 1936 as “swing” was something of an aberration in a generally solid Republican region.

The shift of counties from 1936 to 1940 (and 1932 to 1936 to some extent) reminds me a lot of the shift from 1996 to 2000. Albert J. Menendez in The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004 argues that World War II had a huge impact on the voting behaviour of German-descended settlers in the Great Plains because FDR was supporting Britain. Since then, much of the rural Plains (except strongly Democratic Native American counties) has been extremely solid Republican. However, it does seem to me Landon and Willkie did play some role in building a very solid support base for the GOP in elections to this day and beyond.