Unusual state election results and vote patterns

[Calthrina950]

LA-GOV 2003 seems otherworldly today, but I don't think it was particularly unusual at the time?

I would assume not, since downballot, Democrats still had considerable strength in the rural South throughout the 2000s, until the Tea Party wave of 2010. They were still winning statewide office in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, West Virginia, etc. throughout that entire decade, and some Democratic Southern Governors of the era (i.e. Phil Bredesen, Brad Henry, Steve Beshear, Joe Manchin) won crushing landslides in 2006, 2007, and 2008, right after George W. Bush had won their states handily against John Kerry. And of course, Louisiana still had two Democratic Senators through 2005 and a Democratic-controlled state legislature through the end of the decade.

What is interesting (but not surprising) about the race is how Blanco won notoriously racist and staunchly Republican LaSalle Parish against Jindal with over 60% of the vote. Jindal was clearly hurt by his race and his name throughout much of rural Louisiana, particularly since he was running against a Southern white woman. Even in 2007 and 2011, he underperformed in LaSalle Parish compared to the Republican baseline, getting 55% and 78% there in those two years-every Republican presidential candidate since 2004 has broken 80% there.

[Calthrina950]

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

This 1926 Senatorial election (which I've looked at on Atlas before) is very bizarre, and seems to be a reverse of what modern elections look like in the state. Back then, Republican machines dominated Philadelphia and Pittsburgh-Philadelphia, in fact, did not vote Democratic at the presidential level at all between 1860 and 1932. Conversely, Pennsylvania's rural areas-which are overpoweringly Republican today-were not so in those days, and many rural counties (i.e. Columbia, Monroe, Greene, Fulton, Fayette) were ancestrally Democratic, supporting the Party from the days of Jefferson and Jackson until the 1920s or later.

There are numerous other elections from the early 20th century in Pennsylvania in which the Democrats did exceptionally well in the rural areas and Republicans won by running up the margins in the metropolitan centers. And going farther back, Rutherford B. Hayes was saved from defeat in the state in 1876 by Philadelphia, as Samuel Tilden won the majority of the state's counties.

[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: