Why did Hamilton County Ohio used to be so Republican?

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

I was just looking up it's history and prior to 2008 I can't find an instance in which it voted Democrat (pre-1960 i'm going off wikipedia maps) why is this? I'm guessing that because there was a large German population there was a huge backlash against the party after WWI which they never recovered from but I was surprised that it even appears to have voted against FDR all four times.

[RINO Tom]

I was just looking up it's history and prior to 2008 I can't find an instance in which it voted Democrat (pre-1960 i'm going off wikipedia maps) why is this? I'm guessing that because there was a large German population there was a huge backlash against the party after WWI which they never recovered from but I was surprised that it even appears to have voted against FDR all four times.

Weren't there lots of suburban counties (like Orange, CA and DuPage, IL) that voted against FDR all four times that have different histories and demographic profiles?  I think your answer might be as simple as Northern, upper-middle class suburbanites were just a very, very Republican demographic pre-2008.

I do not have historical numbers, but in 2020, Cincinnati only made up about 37% of the county's population.  Additionally, Cincinnati has always struck me as a more "corporate" city in character than many other cities in the Midwest, which would have historically leant to more Republican voting.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

I was just looking up it's history and prior to 2008 I can't find an instance in which it voted Democrat (pre-1960 i'm going off wikipedia maps) why is this? I'm guessing that because there was a large German population there was a huge backlash against the party after WWI which they never recovered from but I was surprised that it even appears to have voted against FDR all four times.

Weren't there lots of suburban counties (like Orange, CA and DuPage, IL) that voted against FDR all four times that have different histories and demographic profiles?  I think your answer might be as simple as Northern, upper-middle class suburbanites were just a very, very Republican demographic pre-2008.

I do not have historical numbers, but in 2020, Cincinnati only made up about 37% of the county's population.  Additionally, Cincinnati has always struck me as a more "corporate" city in character than many other cities in the Midwest, which would have historically leant to more Republican voting.

That makes a lot of sense, I wasn't actually looking at the county as a whole and think I was mistakenly assuming that the city was contiguous with it.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

Also touche, it went for LBJ in 64 and FDR in 32 and 36. I was looking at the old maps wrong. I think so many Republican counties went for LBJ in 64 that I almost wasn't even counting it lol.

[Blow by blow, the passion dies]

Heavily suburban and inhabitants were concerned about crime and property taxes.

[sting in the rafters]

My spidey sense is tingling!

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Cincinnati used to have a reputation as one of the most conservative major cities in the country. IIRC it was one of the last major cities to fluoridate its water because there was massive opposition from people who believed that fluoridation was a communist plot.

[Sol]

Hamilton even now is much more conservative than you'd expect from the core county of a major metro area. The Cincinnati metro area is one of the most conservative big cities in the country.

[Bernie Derangement Syndrome Haver]

The Cincy suburbs have always been a hotbed for Evangelicalism and the Christian right, so that probably played some of a role too.

[sting in the rafters]

The Cincy suburbs have always been a hotbed for Evangelicalism and the Christian right, so that probably played some of a role too.

Hamilton even now is much more conservative than you'd expect from the core county of a major metro area. The Cincinnati metro area is one of the most conservative big cities in the country.

Getting warmer, 1968 Warren/Clermont/Brown/Butler County OH election results (DO NOT RESEARCH)

[electionsguy259]

I was just looking up it's history and prior to 2008 I can't find an instance in which it voted Democrat (pre-1960 i'm going off wikipedia maps) why is this? I'm guessing that because there was a large German population there was a huge backlash against the party after WWI which they never recovered from but I was surprised that it even appears to have voted against FDR all four times.

Weren't there lots of suburban counties (like Orange, CA and DuPage, IL) that voted against FDR all four times that have different histories and demographic profiles?  I think your answer might be as simple as Northern, upper-middle class suburbanites were just a very, very Republican demographic pre-2008.

I do not have historical numbers, but in 2020, Cincinnati only made up about 37% of the county's population.  Additionally, Cincinnati has always struck me as a more "corporate" city in character than many other cities in the Midwest, which would have historically leant to more Republican voting.

Orange County, California voted for FDR in 1932 and 1936.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

Cincinnati used to have a reputation as one of the most conservative major cities in the country. IIRC it was one of the last major cities to fluoridate its water because there was massive opposition from people who believed that fluoridation was a communist plot.

So in some ways it (and Dallas at one time) are what Miami is today in terms of being a rare oasis of urban conservatism.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Cincinnati used to have a reputation as one of the most conservative major cities in the country. IIRC it was one of the last major cities to fluoridate its water because there was massive opposition from people who believed that fluoridation was a communist plot.

So in some ways it (and Dallas at one time) are what Miami is today in terms of being a rare oasis of urban conservatism.

Not really rare at the time. Hell even Minneapolis used to have some really conservative areas and precincts that voted for Goldwater.

Miami isn't really a good example by the way. Hialeah would be though.

[Alben Barkley]

Hamilton even now is much more conservative than you'd expect from the core county of a major metro area. The Cincinnati metro area is one of the most conservative big cities in the country.

This spills over even into Northern Kentucky (which can barely be called "Kentucky" frankly) and makes it possible for Masshole carpetbagger Thomas Massie to keep winning, when in many demographically similar districts across the country, a candidate like him would be very vulnerable at least.

[nclib]

It used to be relatively culturally Southern for a Northern city.

[Alben Barkley]

It used to be relatively culturally Southern for a Northern city.

And it still is. That has little to nothing to do with it. The whole Cincy area has long been Republican and, again, this even spilled over into Northern KY at a time when KY was a Democratic state, rather than the other way around. Doesn't make much sense frankly to say that Cincy being a "culturally Southern" city caused it to be the only major city in the country to not vote for FDR while the South was voting for him by landslide margins!

There was a strong Republican political machine in Cincinatti/Hamilton County back in the day, and my guess is that is where much of the answer lies.

[Tartarus Sauce]

Cincinnati had long been a Republican stronghold dating back to the Civil War and was one of the most conservative urban counties throughout its history before the Obama era, with the metro area as a whole still one of the most conservative by far. It's insane how much the northern and eastern suburbs have swung left since 2004, Republicans only keep the Democrats to a sub-20 point margin because of the blood-red suburbs and exurbs on the western end of the county.

Republicans constructed a hyper-dominant political machine starting in the 1880s under Boss Cox that became so notoriously iron-fisted in its control of the city that it was singled out by Lincoln Steffens classic muckraking exposé "The Shame of the Cities" in 1904 as one of the single most corruptly governed localities in the country. This dominance was buttressed by a slew of influential bigwig businessmen and party donors embedded within the GOP's national operations and working in tandem with a line of powerful Republican politicians. The area had produced two Republican presidents and two Republican Speakers of the House by the 1930s.