Clinton himself did
not hail from a Unionist part of the South – only two of Arkansas’ counties (Newton and Searcy) were truly Unionist and anti-secession, and he was from the south of the state. Tennessee had larger areas – almost all of East Tennessee, Macon County which is part of Kentucky’s Unionist Pennyroyal Plateau, and the five West Tennessee Highland Rim counties of Carroll, Henderson, McNairy, Hardin and Wayne – that opposed secession, but Al Gore hailed from secessionist Middle Tennessee Smith County.
The reason Clinton did so relatively well in Unionist Eastern Kentucky in 1996 is probably that he did exceptionally well in the traditionally Republican Yankee rural Northeast and Midwest, and that Unionist parts of Appalachia have had a very strong political affinity with the rural Yankee counties throughout the period since the Civil War.
One can see the similarity in Clinton being alongside LBJ:
- the only Democrat to carry Appalachian Martin County, KY (why was this omitted?)
- the only Democrat to carry Gallia County, Ohio, which is Yankee-settled and in Appalachia
- the only Democrat to carry the following Yankee New York counties: Cattaraugus, Chenango, Delaware, Fulton, Jefferson, Ontario, Schuyler and Yates
- the only Democrat to carry the Yankee Lower Michigan counties of Lapeer and Osceola
