Anyone else thinking that both Carter and Ford's coalitions were pretty bizarre even at the time?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Carter mostly won non-whites, urban liberals, and people in really ancestrally D areas, which included both a lot of rural southerners and and working class northern areas with a strong D tradition. Ford meanwhile won affluent suburbanites, less liberal urban areas, lots of industrial areas that demographically would seem to be part of the still kind of in place New Deal Coalition but didn't have a very strong Democratic tradition and plenty of rural working class areas that were kind of the same.

The result is effectively that Carter won bourgeois areas in Manhattan but also rural white majority Mississippi towns, while Ford was winning Westchester County and a bunch of working class industrial towns along the Mississippi River valley. It's true that neither Carter nor Ford was a typical Democrat or Republican respectively even in 1976, those are some weird demos to vote together and yet also against other demos.

Also what really confuses me is the county maps for Iowa and Ohio. Both were super close of course but looking at them it seems really hard to fathom that Ford won Iowa and Carter won Ohio. Ohio isn't even a "land doesn't vote" thing, Ford carried Hamilton and Franklin counties.

[Sumner 1868]

I don't think anyone thought much of Ford's bizarre coalition, but people did note at the time that Carter was weaker than Humphrey in Catholic ethnic and secular regions:

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1976/11/3/many-factors-figured-in-carters-win/

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

Carter mostly won non-whites, urban liberals, and people in really ancestrally D areas, which included both a lot of rural southerners and and working class northern areas with a strong D tradition. Ford meanwhile won affluent suburbanites, less liberal urban areas, lots of industrial areas that demographically would seem to be part of the still kind of in place New Deal Coalition but didn't have a very strong Democratic tradition and plenty of rural working class areas that were kind of the same.

The result is effectively that Carter won bourgeois areas in Manhattan but also rural white majority Mississippi towns, while Ford was winning Westchester County and a bunch of working class industrial towns along the Mississippi River valley. It's true that neither Carter nor Ford was a typical Democrat or Republican respectively even in 1976, those are some weird demos to vote together and yet also against other demos.

Also what really confuses me is the county maps for Iowa and Ohio. Both were super close of course but looking at them it seems really hard to fathom that Ford won Iowa and Carter won Ohio. Ohio isn't even a "land doesn't vote" thing, Ford carried Hamilton and Franklin counties.

I don’t think it’s that unusual actually. It may seem that way for the time but in the context of the new deal coalition it made perfect sense. More upscale bourgeois progressives had always been a part of the new deal coalition and for them to vote alongside dirt poor whites didn’t seem that unusual at the time. It’s also worth noting that Carter may have overperformed among that particular demographic in New York (and with all New York demographics) due to the infamous “Ford to City: Drop Dead” moment.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Carter mostly won non-whites, urban liberals, and people in really ancestrally D areas, which included both a lot of rural southerners and and working class northern areas with a strong D tradition. Ford meanwhile won affluent suburbanites, less liberal urban areas, lots of industrial areas that demographically would seem to be part of the still kind of in place New Deal Coalition but didn't have a very strong Democratic tradition and plenty of rural working class areas that were kind of the same.

The result is effectively that Carter won bourgeois areas in Manhattan but also rural white majority Mississippi towns, while Ford was winning Westchester County and a bunch of working class industrial towns along the Mississippi River valley. It's true that neither Carter nor Ford was a typical Democrat or Republican respectively even in 1976, those are some weird demos to vote together and yet also against other demos.

Also what really confuses me is the county maps for Iowa and Ohio. Both were super close of course but looking at them it seems really hard to fathom that Ford won Iowa and Carter won Ohio. Ohio isn't even a "land doesn't vote" thing, Ford carried Hamilton and Franklin counties.

I don’t think it’s that unusual actually. It may seem that way for the time but in the context of the new deal coalition it made perfect sense. More update bourgeois progressives had always been a part of the new deal coalition and for them to vote alongside dirt poor whites didn’t seem that unusual at the time. It’s also worth noting that Carter may have overperformed among that particular demographic in New York (and with all New York demographics) due to the infamous “Ford to City: Drop Dead” moment.

Why did so many Rust Belt industrial areas go for Ford then?

[The Economy is Getting Worse]

The county swing in Georgia from 1972 to 1976 is astonishing.

[Sumner 1868]

Why did so many Rust Belt industrial areas go for Ford then?

Being from Michigan must have helped Ford in the Midwest at least a little.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

Carter mostly won non-whites, urban liberals, and people in really ancestrally D areas, which included both a lot of rural southerners and and working class northern areas with a strong D tradition. Ford meanwhile won affluent suburbanites, less liberal urban areas, lots of industrial areas that demographically would seem to be part of the still kind of in place New Deal Coalition but didn't have a very strong Democratic tradition and plenty of rural working class areas that were kind of the same.

The result is effectively that Carter won bourgeois areas in Manhattan but also rural white majority Mississippi towns, while Ford was winning Westchester County and a bunch of working class industrial towns along the Mississippi River valley. It's true that neither Carter nor Ford was a typical Democrat or Republican respectively even in 1976, those are some weird demos to vote together and yet also against other demos.

Also what really confuses me is the county maps for Iowa and Ohio. Both were super close of course but looking at them it seems really hard to fathom that Ford won Iowa and Carter won Ohio. Ohio isn't even a "land doesn't vote" thing, Ford carried Hamilton and Franklin counties.

I don’t think it’s that unusual actually. It may seem that way for the time but in the context of the new deal coalition it made perfect sense. More update bourgeois progressives had always been a part of the new deal coalition and for them to vote alongside dirt poor whites didn’t seem that unusual at the time. It’s also worth noting that Carter may have overperformed among that particular demographic in New York (and with all New York demographics) due to the infamous “Ford to City: Drop Dead” moment.

Why did so many Rust Belt industrial areas go for Ford then?

I think that some of the swings towards Nixon in 72 had a lasting effect as those areas didn’t return to being really competitive for Democrats at the presidential level until 92. It could be tribalism to some extent, Carter was a southern governor and the south was the earliest region for export of unionized jobs. Combine that with the favorite son effect and it makes sense that Ford had an advantage in that region.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Carter mostly won non-whites, urban liberals, and people in really ancestrally D areas, which included both a lot of rural southerners and and working class northern areas with a strong D tradition. Ford meanwhile won affluent suburbanites, less liberal urban areas, lots of industrial areas that demographically would seem to be part of the still kind of in place New Deal Coalition but didn't have a very strong Democratic tradition and plenty of rural working class areas that were kind of the same.

The result is effectively that Carter won bourgeois areas in Manhattan but also rural white majority Mississippi towns, while Ford was winning Westchester County and a bunch of working class industrial towns along the Mississippi River valley. It's true that neither Carter nor Ford was a typical Democrat or Republican respectively even in 1976, those are some weird demos to vote together and yet also against other demos.

Also what really confuses me is the county maps for Iowa and Ohio. Both were super close of course but looking at them it seems really hard to fathom that Ford won Iowa and Carter won Ohio. Ohio isn't even a "land doesn't vote" thing, Ford carried Hamilton and Franklin counties.

I don’t think it’s that unusual actually. It may seem that way for the time but in the context of the new deal coalition it made perfect sense. More update bourgeois progressives had always been a part of the new deal coalition and for them to vote alongside dirt poor whites didn’t seem that unusual at the time. It’s also worth noting that Carter may have overperformed among that particular demographic in New York (and with all New York demographics) due to the infamous “Ford to City: Drop Dead” moment.

Why did so many Rust Belt industrial areas go for Ford then?

I think that some of the swings towards Nixon in 72 had a lasting effect as those areas didn’t return to being really competitive for Democrats at the presidential level until 92. It could be tribalism to some extent, Carter was a southern governor and the south was the earliest region for export of unionized jobs. Combine that with the favorite son effect and it makes sense that Ford had an advantage in that region.

Yeah I was pondering and thought that Carter might've just have been a really bad fit for those areas. Those areas after all were pretty culturally conservative (in how they viewed Vietnam War protesters a couple years back, etc.) but not in a southern evangelical way, culturally they were quite different. So here we had this hick evangelical peanut farmer from the South who was regardless still pretty socially liberal (Carter was regarded as a moderate Democrat and he governed as one, but on issues like pardoning draft dodgers, marijuana decriminalization, the nascent gay rights movement, etc. he was still pretty liberal for the time), so his overall persona had no real appeal. And even on the issues where they supported the Democrats he didn't come across as appealing, Georgia after all was a right-to-work state which Carter probably couldn't have repealed anyway but he didn't make much effort to so despite that Carter did sign some pretty union-friendly legislation in office he didn't have much to offer in 1976.

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

Ohio isn't even a "land doesn't vote" thing, Ford carried Hamilton and Franklin counties.

The whole election wasn't a "land doesn't vote" thing as Carter was the last Democrat to win a majority of counties despite his narrow win.

[TDAS04]

Yeah. 1976 was an election where commanding majorities of both African Americans and rural Southern whites combined to deliver and narrow electoral victory for a candidate. Now that's unusual.

Just a couple of fun facts:
-The only state where Ford swept every county? Vermont.
-Ford came closer to winning San Francisco than any other GOP nominee since Eisenhower carried the city in 1956.