Silver Bow & Deer Lodge counties MT
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  Silver Bow & Deer Lodge counties MT
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MagneticFree
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« on: October 27, 2021, 12:43:44 PM »

Why have these two counties in MT always voted D? When was the last time it voted R? Does it have a union worker demographics or is it a college town?
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TML
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« Reply #1 on: October 27, 2021, 12:48:02 PM »

This is the result of a strong union tradition in these (now mostly former) mining counties. Deer Lodge last voted R in 1924, while Silver Bow last voted R in 1956. However, both counties did trend R during the two elections with Trump on the ballot, so it may be possible for them to flip within a generation from now if current trends continue.
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Tintrlvr
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« Reply #2 on: October 27, 2021, 12:57:13 PM »

Covered above. Butte is also a college town for Montana Tech, but that alone wouldn't be enough on its own.

Worth remembering that despite relatively low population density county-wide, both counties are actually densely urban with dense urban centers surrounded by completely empty areas rather than having relatively even population density throughout.

Butte also has had major environmental disasters from mining over the years that make it much more environmentally conscious than your average extraction industry town. And the mining industry was mainly copper, i.e., not an industry that is particularly concerned about CO2 emission issues the way coal or oil/gas are.
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Wormless Gourd
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« Reply #3 on: October 27, 2021, 01:10:39 PM »

Deer Lodge last went Republican in the 1920s before Dem-aligned, organized labor voting really took off. Silver Bow voted for Eisenhower in 1956(like many other usually Democratic counties that year) but the last time before that was also in the 1920s. Eisenhower almost won Deer Lodge as well.
Historically both counties are something of a bubble of union-influenced Irish Catholic voters and that demographic is more resilient/slower to follow trends. 
Trump still hit above 40% in both counties in 2016/2020, which is a first for a Republican in decades.
Another round of losses by Democrats among non-college white voters would probably flip the counties, but Deer Lodge(+7.7 Biden, more rural) before Silver Bow(+14.2 Biden, contains the growing town of Butte)
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If my soul was made of stone
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« Reply #4 on: October 27, 2021, 06:22:46 PM »

The region's mineral wealth was such that Butte was known as the "Richest Hill on Earth" during its heyday, but it of course was concentrated in the hands of the extremely wealthy and unscrupulous higher-ups of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company (of which Anaconda, which they lobbied to make the state capital, was founded as a company town). This class resentment powered a very strong IWW and Socialist Party presence prior to the Wilson-era clampdown on that organization, although then-District Attorney (later progressive firebrand Senator and running mate of Robert La Follette, before he became an anti-Semitic America First gadfly) Burton Wheeler avoided pursuing prosecution for sedition, with which many Wobblies were charged during the war. The legacy of unionization continued through the twentieth century, outlasting the peak era of extraction, in part due to the environmental destruction that mining wrought as Tintrlvr mentions; the remnants of an open-pit mine, filled with carcinogenic water after the pumps were shut off, still rests right next to downtown Butte. The counties are of course trending right in the current alignment and with the general Democratic decline in state politics, but remain well to the left of most similar counties given the strong radical heritage and continued relevance of issues related to its mining legacy.
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Alcibiades
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« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2021, 10:30:20 AM »

I think this is what a lot of ex-mining counties would vote like if they weren’t put off by the Democrats’ support for greener energy (copper is obviously much more conducive than coal in this regard as already mentioned), and instead focused more on the environmental degradation caused by the mining companies. They are also two of the most Irish-American counties west of the Mississippi, for what it’s worth.

a) Mining has been unviable there for decades now, so, unlike in Appalachia, there is no prospect of bringing it back which compels them to vote Republican.
b) Mining led to severe environmental degradation there, so voters are actually support Democratic environmental policies.
c) More generally, the Anaconda Company was absolutely despised by the workers and residents, with a history of labour conflict; this class-based voting seems to persist to this day.
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