Top 100 “McGovern dropoff” counties (1968 to 1972 by percent)

[mianfei]

100 counties losing the highest percent of their 1968 Humphrey vote in 1972:

1. Coryell, Texas
2. Lampasas, Texas
3. Callahan, Texas
4. Uintah, Utah
5. Bell, Texas
6. Loving, Texas
7. Hansford, Texas
8. Jones, Texas
9. Mitchell, Texas
10. Archer, Texas
11. Comanche, Oklahoma
12. Erath, Texas
13. Daggett, Utah
14. Utah, Utah
15. Borden, Texas
16. Montague, Texas
17. Bosque, Texas
18. Morgan, Utah
19. Burnet, Texas
20. Runnels, Texas
21. Medina, Texas
22. Stephens, Texas
23. Brown, Texas
24. Screven, Georgia
25. Nolan, Texas
26. Llano, Texas
27. Harmon, Oklahoma
28. La Salle, Texas
29. Scurry, Texas
30. Mineral, Colorado
31. Collin, Texas
32. Armstrong, Texas
33. Jackson, Oklahoma
34. McCulloch, Texas
35. Taylor, Texas
36. Raleigh, West Virginia
37. Real, Texas
38. McMullen, Texas
39. Val Verde, Texas
40. Shackelford, Texas
41. Tooele, Utah
42. Upton, Texas
43. Haskell, Texas
44. Hemphill, Texas
45. Mills, Texas
46. Leflore, Mississippi
47. Hill, Texas
48. Comal, Texas
49. Sterling, Texas
50. Irion, Texas
51. Lynn, Texas
52. Dawson, Texas
53. Wise, Texas
54. Sagadahoc, Maine
55. Rockwall, Texas
56. Cooke, Texas
57. Mineral, Nevada
58. Knox, Texas
59. Lipscomb, Texas
60. Honolulu, Hawaii
61. Washington, Maine
62. Davis, Utah
63. Mercer, West Virginia
64. Eastland, Texas
65. Franklin, Vermont
66. Terrell, Texas
67. Oxford, Maine
68. Bailey, Texas
69. Wyoming, West Virginia
70. Palo Pinto, Texas
71. Box Elder, Utah
72. Kimble, Texas
73. Macomb, Michigan
74. San Saba, Texas
75. Canadian, Oklahoma
76. Barton, Missouri
77. Lamar, Texas
78. Madison, Texas
79. McDowell, West Virginia
80. Kinney, Texas
81. Blanco, Texas
82. Coffee, Georgia
83. Jim Hogg, Texas
84. Maui, Hawaii
85. Ouray, Colorado
86. Stonewall, Texas
87. Williamson, Texas
88. Comanche, Texas
89. Rich, Utah
90. Pecos, Texas
91. Bandera, Texas
92. Piute, Utah
93. Hutchinson, Texas
94. Caldwell Parish, Louisiana
95. Wichita, Texas
96. Aransas, Texas
97. Craven, North Carolina
98. Grayson, Texas
99. Coke, Texas
100. Throckmorton, Texas

[mianfei]

The Maine, Hawaii, and Colorado counties seem out of place, though I suppose Maine was partially due to Muskie being on the ticket in '68.

They may seem out of place because those states are very liberal, but I have been reading Kevin Phillips’ The Emerging Republican Majority and it seems clear that McGovern was just too anti-establishment for upper New England or Hawaii. This would be especially true of Hawaii given that state’s dependence on the military. Reading Phillips, I gain the impression that McGovern had many parallels to Robert La Follette forty-eight years beforehand, and La Follette did very poorly in what Phillips called the “Yankee Northeast” covering all of Maine except perhaps Aroostook County.

[mianfei]

Here’s a map showing these counties’ location. It’s a pity I could not do those in Hawaii:

One can see the concentration in the arch-conservative Southern Plains of Texas and Oklahoma, and the comparably socially conservative and traditionally Democratic southern West Virginia. It is odd, though, that no county adjacent to this West Virginian bloc compares with the losses McGovern suffered.

Is this because Humphrey campaigned less and Wallace more intensively in Kentucky and Virginia vis-à-vis West Virginia? In Wallace’s case this makes logical sense since he could have had pretensions of winning Virginia and even Kentucky but not West Virginia. However, Wallace actually did no worse in these four counties (ranging from 8.7 percent in Wyoming to 12.9 percent in Mercer County) than in comparable coal counties of Kentucky (e.g. 7.7 percent in Breathitt County, 16.1 percent in Harlan County).

Is Macomb, MI (no. 73 on the list) the largest of the 100? Its 1970 census population was 625k and it went, rather famously, from 55.2% Humphrey to 34.9% McGovern. In fact, no Democrat since has reached Humphrey's share of the vote (though Obama in 2008 came close).

Humphrey's performance in the county is especially remarkable given Wallace’s appeal (Wallace won 14.1% in Macomb).

Macomb would definitely be the most populous county on this list. I had though at first that Utah County, Utah (#14) – which went from giving 33.57 percent for Humphrey to 18.21 percent for McGovern or a loss of 45.76 percent – would have been more populous, but at all events in 1972 it certainly was not. Like the Texas and Oklahoma counties, the Utah counties represent loss of traditional Democratic support in an arch-conservative region, though they represent smaller absolute losses from an already decimated base, especially when one realizes four of these eight Utah counties (Uintah, Piute, Box Elder and Rich) actually voted for Goldwater in 1964.