Is there a Polish American vote?

[King of Kensington]

The 3 "blue wall" states that fell in 2016 - Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin - have sizeable Polish American populations.  So one could argue Polish Americans helped put Trump in the White House.

There's a few "very ethnic" suburbs like Cheektowaga and Parma.  Chicago has a lot of Polish Americans, but the Polish enclaves are filled with more recent immigrants.

Is there a detectable Polish American vote to speak of?

[Gass3268]

Polish Americans used to THE core component of the Wisconsin Democratic Party electorate going all the way back to their arrival in the state in the second half of the 1800's. This has dramatically changed in the Obama/Trump era. Obama won the Polish vote in 2008 by almost 25 points, yet by 2012 this already dropped to just a bit below 5 points. Trump then won it big by ~18.5 points in 2016 and ~24.5 points in 2020.*

*Wisconsin Votes, a great electoral history book by Robert Booth Fowler from 2008, had lists of towns/municipalities that he used to construct samples that could show how different ethnicities have voted throughout Wisconsin's history (Protestant Germans, Catholic Germans, Polish, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians, and Swedish). I used his lists to construct the samples moving forward. I should note that the sample is almost exclusively rural/small town in nature. It's unfortunate that there is no longer any wards that he could use in Milwaukee.

[King of Kensington]

Heavily Polish American Cheektowaga NY went 54-44 D.

Norwood Park Township IL, which has many Polish immigrants, went 52-46 R.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

Polish Americans used to THE core component of the Wisconsin Democratic Party electorate going all the way back to their arrival in the state in the second half of the 1800's. This has dramatically changed in the Obama/Trump era. Obama won the Polish vote in 2008 by almost 25 points, yet by 2012 this already dropped to just a bit below 5 points. Trump then won it big by ~18.5 points in 2016 and ~24.5 points in 2020.*

*Wisconsin Votes, a great electoral history book by Robert Booth Fowler from 2008, had lists of towns/municipalities that he used to construct samples that could show how different ethnicities have voted throughout Wisconsin's history (Protestant Germans, Catholic Germans, Polish, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians, and Swedish). I used his lists to construct the samples moving forward. I should note that the sample is almost exclusively rural/small town in nature. It's unfortunate that there is no longer any wards that he could use in Milwaukee.

Sounds like a really fascinating book that I want to read as a junkie for this sort of stuff.

[Oryxslayer]

Checking out the ACS ancestry map, the following areas stand out:

- The "Ethnic" areas on Cook County IL in NW Chicago, and the SW suburbs like Palos and New Lenox. These are GOP or moving towards the GOP.

- The Wisconsin areas mentioned above by others. There is still some urban Poles though in the south Milwaukee County suburbs. GOP areas but not overwhelmingly.

- Non-Arab and Non-African American Macomb. Seems to have fallen a similar path to the Wisconsin ones.

- Buffalo suburbs. Favor GOP.

- Wyoming Valley in PA, which could be called a swing region, but the polish community seems to have a strong presence in the heavy D, Heavy R, swing, and all other parts of the region except maybe Hazelton.

[Tintrlvr]

Checking out the ACS ancestry map, the following areas stand out:

- The "Ethnic" areas on Cook County IL in NW Chicago, and the SW suburbs like Palos and New Lenox. These are GOP or moving towards the GOP.

- The Wisconsin areas mentioned above by others. There is still some urban Poles though in the south Milwaukee County suburbs. GOP areas but not overwhelmingly.

- Non-Arab and Non-African American Macomb. Seems to have fallen a similar path to the Wisconsin ones.

- Buffalo suburbs. Favor GOP.

- Wyoming Valley in PA, which could be called a swing region, but the polish community seems to have a strong presence in the heavy D, Heavy R, swing, and all other parts of the region except maybe Hazelton.

There's one more that I'm aware of: Wallington, New Jersey. At the 2000 Census, over 40% of the population spoke Polish at home. It has also had a very sharp Republican turn in recent years though it was historically a moderately Democratic town.

I do wonder if in some of these areas that are a bit closer to Poland generally the Ukraine war might reverse the trends back towards the Democrats.

[King of Kensington]

Polish immigrants (in the 80s/90s) mostly went to Chicago and NY/NJ. 

[sting in the rafters]

As others have mentioned the Wyoming Valley, in particular the boroughs closer to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton core, to this day contain distinct Polish-American enclaves. While NEPA's renowned status as the national poster child for Appalachian Conservadems dominates discourse today, its Polish vote showed most prominently in 1984. Luzerne and Lackawanna both flipped for Reagan in light of his sanctions on the PPR, breaking with other ancestral labor strongholds (e.g. SWPA, the Minnesota Iron Range) which backed Mondale.

[King of Kensington]

Luzerne I believe is the only plurality-Polish county in the US.

[VPH]

Port Richmond Philadelphia is a good metric as it's about 40% Polish by ancestry. Trump won the precincts lining up with the most Polish areas by about a 9% margin.

[Hope For A New Era]

There's a few "very ethnic" suburbs like Cheektowaga and Parma.

As someone who briefly lived in a suburb next to Parma (North Royalton) years ago, yes. Yes, it is.

Substitute teachers in school were fun. I heard some remarkably creative butcherings of last names.

Parma, unfortunately, is full of Obama-Trump voters, and it even swung slightly right from 2016 to 2020 - Trump+4 to Trump+5. It was Brown+17 in 2018 though!

[King of Kensington]

Lots of Eastern European ancestry in Parma:

German  24.1%
Polish  15.9%
Irish  15.2%
Italian  13.1%
Slovak  6.3%
Hungarian  5.3%
English  4.9%
Ukrainian  4.6%
American 3.3%
Czech  2.5%
Arab  1.8%
Slovene  1.8%
Romanian  1.4%
Serbian  1.4%
French  1.3%
Russian  1.3%
Scottish  1.3%
Greek  1%

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Lots of Eastern European ancestry in Parma:

German  24.1%
Polish  15.9%
Irish  15.2%
Italian  13.1%
Slovak  6.3%
Hungarian  5.3%
English  4.9%
Ukrainian  4.6%
American 3.3%
Czech  2.5%
Arab  1.8%
Slovene  1.8%
Romanian  1.4%
Serbian  1.4%
French  1.3%
Russian  1.3%
Scottish  1.3%
Greek  1%

That's a full 1/3 from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, right there.

[King of Kensington]

Polish is usually dominant among the Slavic/Eastern European ancestries (i.e. in Chicago, Detroit and Buffalo).  But in Cleveland while Polish is the largest group they're less dominant (same is true in Pittsburgh). 

[King of Kensington]

A tale of two suburbs (Parma and Shaker Heights):

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-tale-of-two-suburbs/

There was a 10 point swing to Trump in Parma in 2016 (not sure what the result was in 2020).

[Xeuma]

A tale of two suburbs (Parma and Shaker Heights):

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-tale-of-two-suburbs/

There was a 10 point swing to Trump in Parma in 2016 (not sure what the result was in 2020).

Biden got 18,138 votes in Parma versus Trump's 20,253 -- approximately 52% Trump. Which I think is a decline from 2016 but I'm not sure off-hand.

[King of Kensington]

If accurate, the Polish American vote went R in 2016, D in 2020:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish-American_vote

[lfromnj]

A tale of two suburbs (Parma and Shaker Heights):

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-tale-of-two-suburbs/

There was a 10 point swing to Trump in Parma in 2016 (not sure what the result was in 2020).

Biden got 18,138 votes in Parma versus Trump's 20,253 -- approximately 52% Trump. Which I think is a decline from 2016 but I'm not sure off-hand.

It was Trump +5.3 in 2020 and only +3.9 in 2016. Weirdly enough Parma heights was Clinton +3.5 but swung to Biden by a marginal amount to Biden +5

[Progressive Pessimist]

Wallington, NJ has a very high Polish population and seems to be pretty safe GOP as of the past few election cycles.

[Builder Refused]

Lots of Eastern European ancestry in Parma:

German  24.1%
Polish  15.9%
Irish  15.2%
Italian  13.1%
Slovak  6.3%
Hungarian  5.3%
English  4.9%
Ukrainian  4.6%
American 3.3%
Czech  2.5%
Arab  1.8%
Slovene  1.8%
Romanian  1.4%
Serbian  1.4%
French  1.3%
Russian  1.3%
Scottish  1.3%
Greek  1%

That's a full 1/3 from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, right there.

I say this as a Polish and Croatian American, but it really was easier when Eastern Europe was just Russia Germany the Ottomans and AH. Too many countries, too much sovereignty, let's just go back.

[King of Kensington]

Chicago's Poles seem R as well.  The four Cook County townships that went R are also the most Polish. Norwood Park is about 30% Polish.

Perhaps there's a Polish immigrant/Polish American difference?  The Cook County Polish areas are quite immigrant (or 2nd generation), I'm sure they outnumber the Bill Swerski superfan types.  It seems like third and fourth generation Polish Americans have dispersed to the collar counties or have even left the region entirely.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Chicago's Poles seem R as well.  The four Cook County townships that went R are also the most Polish. Norwood Park is about 30% Polish.

Perhaps there's a Polish immigrant/Polish American difference?  The Cook County Polish areas are quite immigrant (or 2nd generation), I'm sure they outnumber the Bill Swerski superfan types.  It seems like third and fourth generation Polish Americans have dispersed to the collar counties or have even left the region entirely.

A good chunk of my family is Italians and other white ethnics from a Catholic background (no Poles, though). Chicago was where quite a bit of them lived for a long time. Now practically all of them have moved south. It's not too strange to imagine many Polish-Americans making the same choice.

[Mr. Illini]

Portage Park is the most Polish neighborhood or town in the Chicago area. Looking at the map, it was ~70% for Biden. The neighborhood does have a substantial Latino population as well, however, so that could be impacting the data.

Like most white ethnic groups in Chicago (Italians, Irish included), this is a group that used to be exclusively Democratic but has trended the other way over the last 10 or so years.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Chicago's Poles seem R as well.  The four Cook County townships that went R are also the most Polish. Norwood Park is about 30% Polish.

Perhaps there's a Polish immigrant/Polish American difference?  The Cook County Polish areas are quite immigrant (or 2nd generation), I'm sure they outnumber the Bill Swerski superfan types.  It seems like third and fourth generation Polish Americans have dispersed to the collar counties or have even left the region entirely.

Yes, more recent (80s-90s) immigrants are still distinct in their political behaviour. For obvious reasons (anti-communism and the associated Neolithic ancestral cult of Reagan, strong religiosity), the Polish right is traditionally very sympathetic to the GOP, and the Polish immigrant community in Chicago happens to also be a well-known bastion of the Polish right. The community in NYC (usually associated with Greenpoint) has historically also had this reputation, but for whatever reason (presumably generational in some way), unlike Chicago that seems to be getting washed out in recent Polish election results - I can't speak for stateside.

Obviously, even if they often vote GOP too, third or fourth-generation Polish-Americans aren't carrying around the exact same idiosyncratic mythological baggage. Tho amusingly, this didn't stop PiS apparatchiks speculating in 2020 that Polish-American voters would save Trump in the Midwest specifically because PiS was rooting for him, or just because of the somehow innate right-wing character of Poles.