Unusual state election results and vote patterns

[Alcibiades]

The Arkansas 1966 gubernatorial election is interesting, with Winthrop Rockefeller sweeping the majority black counties and indeed many of the whiter (though still with a substantial black majority) counties in southern Arkansas such as Clark which were voting Dem at all levels well into the 2000s. In some ways it is not surprising that a (literal) Rockefeller Republican would win black support against a segregationist Democrat, but on the other hand Southern blacks have largely been voting Democratic since their enfranchisement, not to mention how rare a breed liberal Republicans were in the South.

[ChrisMcDanielWasRobbed]

The Arkansas 1966 gubernatorial election is interesting, with Winthrop Rockefeller sweeping the majority black counties and indeed many of the whiter (though still with a substantial black majority) counties in southern Arkansas such as Clark which were voting Dem at all levels well into the 2000s. In some ways it is not surprising that a (literal) Rockefeller Republican would win black support against a segregationist Democrat, but on the other hand Southern blacks have largely been voting Democratic since their enfranchisement, not to mention how rare a breed liberal Republicans were in the South.

This is also the same situation as the Maryland governor election that same year. Spiro Agnew was the republican against George P Mahoney, a segregation democrat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Maryland_gubernatorial_election

[ChrisMcDanielWasRobbed]

Also, these were pretty much unthinkable today and probably weren't common back then either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Georgia_gubernatorial_election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Georgia_gubernatorial_election

Fulton county going republican while all the rural areas go democratic

[Crumpets]

I know this is old, but I think I found the epitome of this description, at least by modern standards. The 1926 Pennsylvania US senate election. All of the rural areas go democratic while Philadelphia and Pittsburgh go Republican. It may have been common at the time, but looking back it definitely isn't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1926_United_States_Senate_election_in_Pennsylvania

What's even weirder about that is that the Republican won by 11 points with that map. We like to think of there being increased urbanization in recent decades, but even sweeping the entire countryside and suburbs wasn't enough to make the Democrat competitive against a Republican winning Erie, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and the Wyoming Valley.

[Calthrina950]

Also, these were pretty much unthinkable today and probably weren't common back then either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Georgia_gubernatorial_election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Georgia_gubernatorial_election

Fulton county going republican while all the rural areas go democratic

There was one other election from that period which conformed to this pattern: the 1980 Senatorial election between Herman Talmadge and Mack Mattingly. This is the county map for that election:

Mattingly defeated Talmadge, who was one of the most infamous segregationists in the Senate during the Civil Rights Era, by 1.74%. As you can see, he did it with a very unique coalition. Mattingly won the ancestrally Republican counties in North Georgia like Gilmer, Fannin, and Union. He swept the Atlanta Metropolitan Area, carrying, in addition to Fulton County, most of the major suburban and exurban counties such as Cobb, Gwinnett, Forsyth, Cherokee, Clayton, DeKalb, Coweta, Fayette, Douglas, and Rockdale.

Elsewhere in the state, Mattingly won Augusta (Richmond County), the Augusta suburbs (Columbia County), Columbus (Muscogee County), Athens (Clarke County), Savannah (Chatham County), and Warner Robins (Houston County), along with a few other rural counties such as Harris and Glynn which already leaned Republican by that time. Talmadge, on his part, dominated the state's rural areas, including the Black Belt. So Mattingly's victory was produced by his defeating Talmadge decisively in Georgia's major metropolitan and suburban regions, full of educated, wealthier suburbanites, Northern transplants, and of course, black voters.

He was the only Republican Senator that year to pickup a seat in a state carried by Jimmy Carter (and one of two Republican Senators to win in a state carried by Carter, the other being Charles Mathias in Maryland). If you look at Carter's map, you'll see that he performed almost the same as Talmadge in rural Georgia, but easily carried his home state due to winning Fulton, Chatham, Muscogee, Richmond, Clarke, Houston, and DeKalb Counties, and keeping Reagan's margins down in the remaining suburban strongholds:

[ChrisMcDanielWasRobbed]

Also there is the 1972 Georgia senate election. I have no idea how Fletcher Thompson won Hancock County.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_United_States_Senate_election_in_Georgia

[ChrisMcDanielWasRobbed]

Similar to Hancock Georgia is basically any election in Virginia where Charles City county votes republican.

Here are a few I have found.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_United_States_Senate_special_election_in_Virginia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Virginia_gubernatorial_election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1957_Virginia_gubernatorial_election

There were a few other times with Harry Byrd Sr. where Charles City went for an independent.

The big question here is what was the black voter registration like at this time before the VRA? And why did it vote for segregationist Mills Godwin over Linwood Holton in 1965?

[ChrisMcDanielWasRobbed]

Here's another weird one. 1966 Mississippi.

Claiborne and Jefferson go republican while the rest of the state goes democratic. What is strange here is that they went for Prentiss Walker over Clifton Whitley. There was a bit of this in 1972 as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_United_States_Senate_election_in_Mississippi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_United_States_Senate_election_in_Mississippi

[ChrisMcDanielWasRobbed]

The Arkansas 1966 gubernatorial election is interesting, with Winthrop Rockefeller sweeping the majority black counties and indeed many of the whiter (though still with a substantial black majority) counties in southern Arkansas such as Clark which were voting Dem at all levels well into the 2000s. In some ways it is not surprising that a (literal) Rockefeller Republican would win black support against a segregationist Democrat, but on the other hand Southern blacks have largely been voting Democratic since their enfranchisement, not to mention how rare a breed liberal Republicans were in the South.

What I find odd about Arkansas during this time is that the black eastern part of the state still stuck with Rockefeller in 1968 and 1970 when his opponents were not segregationists. (And in the case of 1970, when he lost in a landslide.) I guess rural blacks simply didn't want to throw away Rockefeller republicans for standard new south democrats.

[Roll Roons]

Texas in 1970: Liberal Senator Ralph Yarborough was beaten by Lloyd Bentsen in the Democratic primary. In the general, Bentsen went on to face a Republican Congressman named George H. W. Bush. Bentsen won most of the rural counties, but HW kept the race relatively close by winning his home county of Harris, Dallas, and even Travis (!!!), though not Bexar. What's most interesting is that while HW won Dallas, Bentsen won Tarrant, Collin and Denton.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_United_States_Senate_election_in_Texas


Illinois in 1978: Senator Chuck Percy, a Rockefeller Republican (whose daughter is married Jay Rockefeller), won reelection by 8 points. His Democratic opponent carried a lot of downstate counties, but Percy swept Chicagoland, including Cook (!!!).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_United_States_Senate_election_in_Illinois

[DINGO Joe]

I know this is old, but I think I found the epitome of this description, at least by modern standards. The 1926 Pennsylvania US senate election. All of the rural areas go democratic while Philadelphia and Pittsburgh go Republican. It may have been common at the time, but looking back it definitely isn't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1926_United_States_Senate_election_in_Pennsylvania

What's even weirder about that is that the Republican won by 11 points with that map. We like to think of there being increased urbanization in recent decades, but even sweeping the entire countryside and suburbs wasn't enough to make the Democrat competitive against a Republican winning Erie, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and the Wyoming Valley.

PA was a very Republican state is this era (with Hoover even winning PA in 1932) but as with one party states there were two parties within the party,  the machine and the remnants of the Bull Moose party led by Gov Gifford Pinchot.  Pinchot lost the Sen primary in 1926 to the head of the Philly machine, William Vare.  Pinchot's base was rural PA and he hated Vare and in fact prevented Vare from ever being seated in the Senate due to accusation of electoral fraud.  The D candidate was from rural PA (Tioga Co) and was able to do as well with it as could be expected.




It should be noted that  Vare won the six most populous counties in the state, Philly and Alleghany of course, but the next four are quite different from today--Luzerne, Lackawanna, Schulkill, and Lancaster. 

In 1930, Pinchot ran again for Gov and narrowly won a 3pt victory with his map looking this



Philly went from 80-19 Vare in 1926 to 74-26 for Pinchot's D opponent in 1930

[Samof94]

Minnesota in 1998 was clearly a black swan in every way. The map doesn’t follow normal partisan lines at all.  The Dems did well with blue collar areas but Ventura won Minneapolis-St Paul. The fact he won at all is remarkable as well. He served one term and never ran again. He had been mayor before like Pete B, but many say it is insufficient experience for a major office.
For reference,  Cynthia Nixon ran against a Pre Covid Cuomo and got squashed in the primary.

[MarkD]

Minnesota in 1998 was clearly a black swan in every way. The map doesn’t follow normal partisan lines at all.  The Dems did well with blue collar areas but Ventura won Minneapolis-St Paul. The fact he won at all is remarkable as well. He served one term and never ran again. Like Trump, he was a celebrity who never held public office before.
For reference,  Cynthia Nixon ran against a Pre Covid Cuomo and got squashed in the primary.

Not correct. Ventura served a four-year term as Mayor of Brooklyn Park, MN in the early 1990s.

[ChrisMcDanielWasRobbed]

This Wisconsin one seems sort of odd.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Wisconsin_gubernatorial_election

A republican winning Dane but the democrat gets the central area.

[ChrisMcDanielWasRobbed]

I really have no idea how to explain this Oregon senate map.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_United_States_Senate_election_in_Oregon

[Not Me, Us]

I really have no idea how to explain this Oregon senate map.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_United_States_Senate_election_in_Oregon

This is the weirdest one. Especially since it's relatively recent compared to a lot of the other posts in this thread.

[ChrisMcDanielWasRobbed]

Or this map. The Philly/Pittsburgh divide is extremely strong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_United_States_Senate_election_in_Pennsylvania

Bonus: Sweep with an outlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_United_States_Senate_election_in_Pennsylvania

[Hope For A New Era]

MO-GOV 2008 is pretty odd.

Jay Nixon loses most of ancestrally Democratic northeastern Missouri and wins a lot of ancestrally Republican southwestern Missouri.



The losses in the northeast are probably because his opponent was from there, but I have no idea how the wins in the southwest came about.

I imagine if Nixon was running against Matt Blunt he would have swept most of the state. He had a Romney-level favorite son effect. Even now he'd probably win a Senate race, if the party could ever get him to run.

[Perlen vor den Schweinen]

I really have no idea how to explain this Oregon senate map.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_United_States_Senate_election_in_Oregon

This is the weirdest one. Especially since it's relatively recent compared to a lot of the other posts in this thread.

I think NOVA Green had an explanation for the counties that unusually voted for Rick Bauman in that 1986 Oregon Senate race. IIRC, he said that Bauman won those counties because of some local issue of the time.

[Continential]

Or this map. The Philly/Pittsburgh divide is extremely strong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_United_States_Senate_election_in_Pennsylvania

For the 1980 one, Arlen Specter was from Philly and was the District Attorney and was a former Democrat.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

I really have no idea how to explain this Oregon senate map.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_United_States_Senate_election_in_Oregon

Yeah I don't get it either. The D's district wasn't even in NE Oregon, it was over in Portland (Blumenauer was there before him) so I have no idea.

[ChrisMcDanielWasRobbed]

This Minnesota one is sort of weird

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_Minnesota_gubernatorial_election

[ChrisMcDanielWasRobbed]

This Alabama one takes the cake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_United_States_Senate_election_in_Alabama

Pretty much the only time i've ever seen the black belt going republican.

[DINGO Joe]

This Alabama one takes the cake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_United_States_Senate_election_in_Alabama

Pretty much the only time i've ever seen the black belt going republican.

Well. blacks weren't voting in 1962 in Alabama and i imagine that the whites in majority black counties were the most wound up about the civil rights movement.  Amusingly, more people voted in the D primary than in the General election, which I guess happened on occasion in the Deep South.

[Alcibiades]

This Minnesota one is sort of weird

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_Minnesota_gubernatorial_election

More than “sort of”.