Suprising County Flips of 2022 ?

[Hope For A New Era]

Washington County, Arkansas is the real shocker for me. It was clearly already inevitable, but I didn't expect it until at least 2024 if not 2028, and I expected major downballot lag there (flipping first in a presidential election, and not in a state election until potentially several cycles later).

[Hope For A New Era]

What's the matter with Geary, KS? It voted for Kelly 51-45 (to the left of the state in the gubernatorial election) despite not voting for her in 2018, yet it gave Moran and LaTurner significant majorities on the congressional side.

I have no explanation. It is one of only four counties to swing left from four years ago. The other three are a random southwest county that swung left by 0.1, independent candidate Dennis Pyle's home county, and Johnson (which is pretty much a given these days).

The best theories I can come up with:
- Big swing to Kelly among military voters (but why?)
- Swung left because it has a city (but then why didn't any others? Like nearby Saline, which Kelly lost by the exact same margin as Geary in 2018, and which voted against the anti-abortion amendment by 10 points?)
- Somehow they got the vote totals for the two major candidates switched and no one has noticed

Geary has a large military population and has historically been pretty strong for the GOP. Chris Biggs somehow won it in the 2010 SoS race while losing by a 22% margin statewide--I think he was from nearby. Other than that, Kelly is the first to carry it since 2010.

I have no idea but my theory is some spillover of Manhattan suburbs?

Biggs was formerly the county prosecutor in Geary.
There's some serious local vote happening in the Plains in 2010 for some reason.

I can tell you for sure that it's not "suburban spillover" from Manhattan. Manhattan doesn't even come close to reaching the county line. Junction City and Manhattan are definitely not a MSP/Northwest Arkansas/etc situation. They're just two cities that happen to be close to each other and far from everything else.


EDIT: Wanted to add something I just noticed. Lyon County, Kansas voted Kelly+10 and Moran+26. That's a 36-point difference. And they said ticket-splitting was dead.

[Hope For A New Era]

What's the matter with Geary, KS? It voted for Kelly 51-45 (to the left of the state in the gubernatorial election) despite not voting for her in 2018, yet it gave Moran and LaTurner significant majorities on the congressional side.

Geary has a large military population and has historically been pretty strong for the GOP. Chris Biggs somehow won it in the 2010 SoS race while losing by a 22% margin statewide--I think he was from nearby. Other than that, Kelly is the first to carry it since 2010.

I have no idea but my theory is some spillover of Manhattan suburbs?

I can tell you for sure that it's not "suburban spillover" from Manhattan. Manhattan doesn't even come close to reaching the county line. Junction City and Manhattan are definitely not a MSP/Northwest Arkansas/etc situation. They're just two cities that happen to be close to each other and far from everything else.

Glad I started my comment with "I have no idea". Was the only theory that came to mind but you're right--Geary doesn't even have particularly high post-secondary degree attainment now that I look at it. It's less White than most counties but that doesn't help a ton considering historic and other-office results are so strongly GOP. And it's not like we can even chalk it up to a local effect ala 2010 or a super strong local organizing effort--nobody on the statewide ticket from Geary and Democrats left the Trump + 12 Junction City seat uncontested. Truly one of the most surprising county flips!

It really is a mystery. Geary even voted Kobach+6 for AG (he won by 2 statewide). A whole lot of people in Geary very specifically voted Kelly for governor and R for everything else. I have to think it must be some local economic thing? Maybe some big job-creator landed there and the locals credited Kelly for it or something?

That or the vote totals really are switched - a Schmidt+5 result would be very much in line with results in other races and other counties this year, results in 2018, and the county's voting history.