Nixon-McGovern counties

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

Do any such outliers exist? Or are they the county equivalent of the Goldwater-Humphrey voter?

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

South Dakota would probably be the best place to look...

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

South Dakota would probably be the best place to look...

good point, true

[E-Dawg]

Several in South Dakota,
Pitkin County, Colorado
Jackson County, Illinois
Athens County, Ohio
Washtenaw County, Michigan
Stevens County, Minnesota

Pitkin CO, Washtenaw MI, and Clay SD even voted for Ford in 1976!

[Richard Slapper]

Several in South Dakota,
Pitkin County, Colorado
Jackson County, Illinois
Athens County, Ohio
Washtenaw County, Michigan
Stevens County, Minnesota

Pitkin CO, Washtenaw MI, and Clay SD even voted for Ford in 1976!

Jackson, Athens, and Washtenaw are all college towns. I think that has something to do with it.

[neostassenite31]

Several in South Dakota,
Pitkin County, Colorado
Jackson County, Illinois
Athens County, Ohio
Washtenaw County, Michigan
Stevens County, Minnesota

Pitkin CO, Washtenaw MI, and Clay SD even voted for Ford in 1976!

Jackson, Athens, and Washtenaw are all college towns. I think that has something to do with it.

Stevens County is also technically a college-town (UMN-Morris), though the "university" population is very small in size

[Alcibiades]

Aside from the favourite son effect in SD, essentially the type of places which are now quintessential “liberal elite”.

[SingingAnalyst]

Aside from the favourite son effect in SD, essentially the type of places which are now quintessential “liberal elite”.

This is particularly true if one expands the list to include cities and towns as well as counties, as well as places in which McGovern won a larger percentage of the two-party vote then Humphrey. These would include the towns of Lincoln, MA and Amherst, MA, as well as Ingham County, MI and Johnson County, IA. All were and are highly educated and/or university towns, and all are heavily Democratic today.

[Calthrina950]

Aside from the favourite son effect in SD, essentially the type of places which are now quintessential “liberal elite”.

As I've noted before, Ford was the last Republican President whose coalition was decidedly of a Northern orientation. Had Ford won by a landslide, his county and state map would have strongly resembled those of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952/56 or those of 1920s Republicans like Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. In 1980, Reagan performed worse than Ford throughout much of the North, particularly in states like Vermont and Maine, that were hotbeds of ancestral Northern Republicanism. Washtenaw County actually flipped to Carter that year, and Reagan won Pitkin County with less than 40% of the vote, with John Anderson garnering a high share. 1980 was also the last time that Marin County voted Republican; as in Pitkin County, Reagan failed to garner a majority and performed worse there than Ford, losing votes to Anderson. Those Anderson voters subsequently backed Walter Mondale in 1984, enabling him to flip Marin County.

[Alben Barkley]

Several in South Dakota,
Pitkin County, Colorado
Jackson County, Illinois
Athens County, Ohio
Washtenaw County, Michigan
Stevens County, Minnesota

Pitkin CO, Washtenaw MI, and Clay SD even voted for Ford in 1976!

Jackson, Athens, and Washtenaw are all college towns. I think that has something to do with it.

That’s true, and furthermore, it’s likely specifically because 1972 was the first election in which 18-20 year olds were able to vote. It’s difficult to see the effect of that nationwide because Nixon trounced McGovern so badly, but if you focus specifically on college towns, you can see it.

[Calthrina950]

Several in South Dakota,
Pitkin County, Colorado
Jackson County, Illinois
Athens County, Ohio
Washtenaw County, Michigan
Stevens County, Minnesota

Pitkin CO, Washtenaw MI, and Clay SD even voted for Ford in 1976!

Jackson, Athens, and Washtenaw are all college towns. I think that has something to do with it.

That’s true, and furthermore, it’s likely specifically because 1972 was the first election in which 18-20 year olds were able to vote. It’s difficult to see the effect of that nationwide because Nixon trounced McGovern so badly, but if you focus specifically on college towns, you can see it.

I read somewhere that McGovern won a plurality of the 18-20 vote, but I've also seen other sources stating that a majority of younger voters went to Nixon. They were certainly more Democratic than the national average that year, although not to the extent that the McGovern campaign had hoped for.

[SingingAnalyst]

Several in South Dakota,
Pitkin County, Colorado
Jackson County, Illinois
Athens County, Ohio
Washtenaw County, Michigan
Stevens County, Minnesota

Pitkin CO, Washtenaw MI, and Clay SD even voted for Ford in 1976!

Jackson, Athens, and Washtenaw are all college towns. I think that has something to do with it.

That’s true, and furthermore, it’s likely specifically because 1972 was the first election in which 18-20 year olds were able to vote. It’s difficult to see the effect of that nationwide because Nixon trounced McGovern so badly, but if you focus specifically on college towns, you can see it.

I read somewhere that McGovern won a plurality of the 18-20 vote, but I've also seen other sources stating that a majority of younger voters went to Nixon. They were certainly more Democratic than the national average that year, although not to the extent that the McGovern campaign had hoped for.

Per Gallup, voters "under 30" voted Nixon, 52-48. (Third parties were not included in the Gallup poll). Per University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, voters 18-24 voted for McGovern 49.4-48.8.

According to one source (OK, it was The Objectivist Newsletter by Ayn Rand), Nixon won the working young, while McGovern won college students. Add to this a Gallup poll that showed Nixon winning college freshmen 56-40 (just left home and parental influence, little fear of being drafted into a war that was winding down) and sophomores 52-45 (same as freshmen, only less so) while McGovern was winning juniors and (to a lesser extent) seniors (who would be graduating and getting jobs soon). Meanwhile, McGovern was trouncing Nixon 68-31 (!) among graduate students. Thus, we can probably draw the following conclusions.

Nixon probably won 18-year-olds quite handily, and to a lesser extent, 19-year-olds. Assuming Rand was correct about noncollege young voters, McGovern and Nixon split the 20-24 year old vote about evenly, with slightly more going to McGovern to give him an 0.6 point edge among 18-24 year olds.

Nixon probably won 25-29 year olds about 54-44. Per Gallup, voters 30-49 voted a whopping 67-33 for Nixon.

[SingingAnalyst]

By comparison to Goldwater-Humphrey voters, which were undoubtedly quite rare (maybe 2-3% of the electorate), Nixon 1968 - McGovern 1972 voters were less so: maybe 4-5%.

Much of the left in 1968 was cool toward Humphrey, much preferring Eugene McCarthy. While the left (obviously) disliked Nixon, many regarded him as a shoo-in in 1968, not to mention that the candidate  the left really loathed was George C. Wallace. Many discussed the possibility of voting for Nixon to prevent Wallace's electors from throwing the election into the House: author James Michener, an avid Humphrey campaigner, stated that, given the opportunity to do to in an Electoral College setting, he would vote for Nixon rather than see Wallace's electors have that much power; economist Walter Lippmann endorsed Nixon ("anyone but Wallace") and a Black-oriented publication, The Liberator (which was on display at MIT's Hayden Library in the 1980s) recommended a vote for Nixon. Even The Nation considered the possibility of endorsing Nixon, but ultimately made no endorsement, considering the prospect of VP Agnew just too awful.