Biggest unexplained WTF results you've seen?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Susan Collins, 2020 — the result just did NOT line up with the polling and the consensus

Joseph Cao, 2008 — a Vietnamese Republican defeating an incumbent in a heavily Black, urban Dem district in a blue wave year. I know the dem incumbent had serious legal problems, but this win is still pretty remarkable in an era of hyper partisanship.

Cao later made an Atlas account too. One of us!

Is the currently active poster named Joseph Cao the actual fmr rep Joseph Cao? He named me one of his favourite posters in one of those threads once, I'm doubly flattered now.

Oh. I'm afraid to announce this was a deadpan joke and not a serious statement. I only wish they were the same people.

[MarkD]

This might not be the kind of thing you're looking for, but, ......

On the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth's website, under the Election Results section, if you search for the Presidential election results of 2012 and then focus on the city of Easton (Bristol County), you'll see something that is obviously a mistake. In precinct 1 of that city, it shows that Jill Stein won, getting 633 votes to Romney getting 487 votes, Obama getting only 15, and Gary Johnson getting 4 votes. The other five precincts of Easton have "normal" vote results. It makes no sense at all, and it is obviously a mistake of transposing the results for 3 of the 4 candidates on the ballot -- the truth is undoubtedly that Stein only got 4, Johnson got 15, and Obama got 633. The numbers for those three candidates got mixed up with one another and were put in the wrong columns. I once sent an email to the Secretary's office pointing out that mistake, but it has never gotten corrected.

[mileslunn]

Another one not mentioned was Bush's showing in Hawaii in 2004.  Sure he didn't win it, but was one of the best showings since gaining statehood and even did better than his father in 1988.  Since then GOP has been unable to get beyond 36% except when Linda Lingle was governor as she was last successful GOP one.

[TDAS04]

Another one not mentioned was Bush's showing in Hawaii in 2004.  Sure he didn't win it, but was one of the best showings since gaining statehood and even did better than his father in 1988.  Since then GOP has been unable to get beyond 36% except when Linda Lingle was governor as she was last successful GOP one.

Hawaii seems to be an exceptionally pro-incumbent state.

[wnwnwn]

Maybe, how Acción Popular git decent results in the 2021 peruvian congressional elections. The party was very unpopular after what happened in 2020, and Lescano (the only well-know member of the party with actual appeal and therefore the presidential candidate of the party) appealed more to center left voters in Puno and near regions than anything else. The party ended up having good congressional results across the country. Maybe the party was lucky for the pandemic, which favored an old know party like it.

On american politics, maybe the 1922 democrat senate victory on Michigan. Is there a reason hidden for it?

[Mopsus]

Another one not mentioned was Bush's showing in Hawaii in 2004.  Sure he didn't win it, but was one of the best showings since gaining statehood and even did better than his father in 1988.  Since then GOP has been unable to get beyond 36% except when Linda Lingle was governor as she was last successful GOP one.

Bush ‘04 excelled at holding the margin down in Democratic states. He lost California by fewer than ten points, something that none of us will ever see a Republican presidential nominee do again.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Al Gore losing his home state, only McGovern managed to do that.

Trump had single digits in his home county of Manhattan when he won in 2016, but double digits once he no longer lived there and lost in 2020.

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

Tyler County, West Virginia 1996.
Manistee County, Michigan 1920.

There have been threads on these two before, but nobody has been able to figure them out exactly.

[Mr. Matt]

Susan Collins, 2020 — the result just did NOT line up with the polling and the consensus

Joseph Cao, 2008 — a Vietnamese Republican defeating an incumbent in a heavily Black, urban Dem district in a blue wave year. I know the dem incumbent had serious legal problems, but this win is still pretty remarkable in an era of hyper partisanship.

Cao later made an Atlas account too. One of us!

Is the currently active poster named Joseph Cao the actual fmr rep Joseph Cao? He named me one of his favourite posters in one of those threads once, I'm doubly flattered now.

Oh. I'm afraid to announce this was a deadpan joke and not a serious statement. I only wish they were the same people.

Well at least we always have the former Attorney General of South Dakota...

[Sumner 1868]

Hawaii in 1960 - Kennedy carrying the state with Honolulu County while Nixon's best county was Kauai. Very different from later patterns.

[Old Man Willow]

Not really a result but I'm still baffled as to why Dems ran no candidate for AZ-Sen in 2000. While Kyl was certainly favored he was nowhere near as popular as McCain who always got an opponent and it just made no sense to skip the race.

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

Clinton winning Louisiana by more than he did the nation in '96 is still #1 for me. And I'm not saying that just because of how the state voted in subsequent elections, but also because of how other southern states voted in that election. Every other southern state except Florida was either a Dole win or swung towards him (in the cases of Clinton and Gore's home states).

[Bernie Derangement Syndrome Haver]

Trump's strength in New England in 2016. Seems more of a fluke than in other areas where he made gains in, but then continued with strong performances.

I think it was a combo of high Trump curiosity due to his perceived secularism, and also that working class areas realigned in New England a bit faster than suburbs did, so Trump still did ok in many suburbs in 2016.

But it's still a WTF result for sure. I was used to seeing hardly any red on New England (especially southern New England) maps, and without warning suddenly the entire western half of Rhode Island where I live is colored red, in addition to a lot more red in CT, ME, NH, VT, and non-Boston metro MA. Totally wasn't expecting that at the time.

[Republican Party Stalwart]

Obama winning Indiana was one as unlike Colorado and Virginia which were trending Democrat or North Carolina which was and has still stayed close, they seemed like a one off fluke as wasn't close prior to 2008 and hasn't been since.  Montana was also close to that as Obama came fairly close to winning it in 2008 but in all other elections this century, GOP has won it by double digits.

Indiana 2008 has actually been discussed to death. That was a one time phenomenon caused largely by the financial crisis. People say that Obama being in the Chicago Market helped him too, but I always thought that was overstated.

Another part of the reason was Obama actually spent in the state while McCain bailed, which is why it swung harder left than states where both sides spent heavily like OH and PA.

This makes it even more ironic and embarrassing for Hillary in 2016 that she never visited Wisconsin after the convention.

[President Johnson]

Still stunning is that Lyndon Johnson got 66% of the vote in Alaska in 1964. It voted to the left of the nation that year, but never Democrat at the presidential level since.

[Fancyarcher]

Still stunning is that Lyndon Johnson got 66% of the vote in Alaska in 1964. It voted to the left of the nation that year, but never Democrat at the presidential level since.

It's a great result but not that surprising if you consider that Alaska was still a new state at the time, and close in 1960, and 1968.

Another similar one in that category was Hawaii being close in 1976.

[It’s so Joever]

Tyler County, West Virginia 1996.
Manistee County, Michigan 1920.

There have been threads on these two before, but nobody has been able to figure them out exactly.

My immediate guess for Tyler County is that it’s a similar case to Winston AL in 1976, in that the unionist identity it held had faded so it reverted to voting similar to its surroundings and then ofc swung rapidly right once again in 2000 onwards. As for Manistee, I’m not entirely sure but I don’t buy that it was a tabulation error, random events do happen plus Manistee was relatively less heavily Republican in several prior elections compared to its adjacent counties.

[Farmlands]

Dan Maffei in 2014, losing his Obama +16 house seat by the same margin as Pryor in Arkansas, despite the lack of any scandal or redistricting. The polarization we're familiar with now was practically already in full swing then, which makes the lopsided margin even more stunning.

[Republican Party Stalwart]

Hawaii in 1960 - Kennedy carrying the state with Honolulu County while Nixon's best county was Kauai. Very different from later patterns.

One hypothesis of mine (purely speculative, and unsubstantiated by any data one way or the other) has always been that Honolulu county had (or has) proportionally more voters descended from post-1898 migrants from the Contiguous US and their descendants - specifically including more White Catholics, White ancestral southerners, and White middle-class and working-class swing voters - and that the other counties had (or have) proportionately more pre-1898 Hawaiians (Native Hawaiians plus Missionaries/Sugar-Plantation-owners and their descendants), and/or (possibly) proportionately more (non-Japanese) Asians. If true, these demographic differences would be able to explain both the 1960 result and later voting patterns; Honolulu county having proportionately more demographic groups associated with the "Reagan Democrats," and the other counties having proportionately more demographic groups (Native Hawaiians as well as pre-1898-stock White Hawaiians, the latter of whom do fall into the category of "Yankee Silk Stocking"/"Brahmin"/WASP elites) which you would expect to be more Republican-leaning before 1964 than after 1964.

Anyway, something that makes this even stranger - and complicates things even further - is that in the 1959 Hawaii gubernatorial election (held one month after Hawaiians voted in a referendum on statehood in accordance with the act of Congress approving Hawaiian statehood, but held one month before Hawaii's formal admission to the Union, but nonetheless a vote on who the governor of the state of Hawaii would be from admission to the Union until the next scheduled state gubernatorial election in 1962), Honolulu voted for the Republican candidate, incumbent territorial governor William F. Quinn, while all other counties (including or excluding Kalawao) voted for the Democratic candidate, John A. Burns (at least according to Wikipedia and this Atlas-esque election data archive website, neither of which actually provide the specific vote totals from each county as far as I can see).

[Samof94]

Indiana voting for Obama in 2008.

[BigVic]

Indiana voting for Obama in 2008
Montana voting for Bill Clinton in 1996
Doug Jones winning AL-Sen (S) in 2017
Scott Brown winning MA-Sen (S) in 2010

[South Dakota Democrat]

Indiana voting for Obama in 2008
Montana voting for Bill Clinton in 2016
Doug Jones winning AL-Sen (S) in 2017
Scott Brown winning MA-Sen (S) in 2010

Didn't know Bill Clinton ran in 2016.

[South Dakota Democrat]

Indiana voting for Obama in 2008
Montana voting for Bill Clinton in 1996
Doug Jones winning AL-Sen (S) in 2017
Scott Brown winning MA-Sen (S) in 2010

Didn't know Bill Clinton won Montana in 1996.

*Spoiler alert:  He didn't.  It was 1992.

[Arbitrage1980]

Indiana voting for Obama in 2008
Montana voting for Bill Clinton in 1996
Doug Jones winning AL-Sen (S) in 2017
Scott Brown winning MA-Sen (S) in 2010

IN 2008: RV industry is huge in IN and got hit super hard after the financial crisis, high black turnout, high youth turnout

MT 1992: Clinton won it due to Perot

[kwabbit]

Indiana voting for Obama in 2008
Montana voting for Bill Clinton in 1996
Doug Jones winning AL-Sen (S) in 2017
Scott Brown winning MA-Sen (S) in 2010

Doug Jones winning has a pretty obvious explanation lol.