Counties with "strange" electoral histories carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016

[SingingAnalyst]

Most of the counties with "strange" histories (Elliott, KY; Cottle, TX; Franklin, GA; etc.) went for Trump in 2016, usually by crushing margins.

The only "strange" results I can think of in counties carried by Hillary Clinton are DuPage, IL; Orange, CA; and San Francisco, CA: DuPage and Orange because of their essentially solid Republican histories since 1936; San Francisco because it either swung or trended D in every election since 1976. In addition the Black Belt counties of AL and MS are strange in that they all voted for Goldwater and then, once Black voters got the franchise, for Humphrey. Perhaps an honorable mention could go to Oakland County, MI, since it came in 1968 within 1000 votes or so of joining neighboring Macomb, MI as the only Humphrey '68 - Bush '92 - Gore '00 county. But nothing else about that county's voting is remarkable.

Any others? We already know there are no Kerry - McCain - Romney - Clinton counties.

[SingingAnalyst]

Whitman County, WA has only voted for six Democrats for President - William Jennings Bryan (1896, 1900), Woodrow Wilson (1912, 1916), Franklin Roosevelt (1932, 1936), Bill Clinton (1992, 1996), Barack Obama (2008) and Hillary Clinton (2016). This makes her the first losing Democrat since Bryan to win Whitman.

Fascinating! So it joins Orange, CA; Orange, FL; and DuPage, IL and a host of deep South counties as being a Goldwater-Hillary Clinton county.

[SingingAnalyst]

What even counts as 'strange'

Wild or countercyclical swings, frequent support for losers from both parties.

[SingingAnalyst]

Lucas County, Ohio, where Toledo is located, is an urban industrial county that voted McGovern in 1972 and Reagan in 1980.
Precisely: Humphrey by 12% - McGovern by 1% - Carter by 15% - Reagan by 0.7% - Reagan by 1.5% (then Dukakis by 8% and then only D slam dunks)

The 1972 results in Ohio are interesting. In addition to Lucas County, Athens County also voted for McGovern by an extremely narrow margin-he won it by 1.22%. To my knowledge, McGovern was the first losing Democrat ever to carry Athens County, which was once a Republican stronghold. Athens County, prior to 1972, had only voted Democratic three times since the formation of the Republican Party in 1854-in 1936 and 1940 for Franklin D. Roosevelt, and in 1964 for Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson had the best performance of any Democrat there before John Kerry in 2004. McGovern did very well in college towns that year, and I've seen articles stating that he tied Nixon among voters aged 18-21. Athens County was one of the few counties (along with Jackson County, Illinois and Pitkin County, Colorado) to shift from Nixon in 1968 to McGovern in 1972.

Conversely, 1972 remains the last time Mahoning and Cuyahoga Counties have voted Republican-Nixon won both with pluralities, and it was the last time Trumbull County voted Republican before 2016, as well as the last time before 2012 that Belmont, Jefferson, and Monroe Counties did so. Ohio as a whole was slightly more Democratic than the national average in 1972-one of only a few occasions where this has happened in the past century (with 1916, 1964, and 2004 being the others).

This part is no longer true, as Trump won Mahoning County this year, becoming the first Republican since Nixon to carry it.

Mahoning County is interesting. Yes, it voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but barely, after voting nearly 2-1 for Gore, Kerry, and Obama twice. Trump in 2020 won a majority for the first time since Eisenhower in 1956; the previous time a Republican won a majority was Hoover in his landslide 1932 loss, strangely enough.