Ellis county, KS

[Joe Republic]

Year	Ellis county	Kansas
1984	68-31	66-33
1988	50-49	56-43
1992	37-32-31	39-34-27
1996	57-35-8	54-36-9
2000	58-35	58-37
2004	65-33	62-37
2008	66-32	56-42
2012	72-26	60-38

It's a few points more Democratic than all of its west Kansas neighbors through all of these elections.  A handful of its neighbors were also close in 1988, but Ellis was the only one to actually switch.

And over the last decade it's now firmly more Republican than the state as a whole, just like the rest of west Kansas.

So what makes it noticeably more Democratic for its area?  And what happened in 1988?

[Cranberry]

The anomaly you talk of is even on Wikipedia, but there's too no explanation.
The only thing I could think of is the city of Hays, which is home to the Fort Hays State University. But the it should still be more liberal than the rest of Western Kansas?

[kcguy]

My impression is that Ellis County is much more Catholic than the rest of western Kansas.  That probably explains part of it.

[⛄]

Does this thread happen to be an homage to my magnum opus?

[Boris]

Farm crisis in 1988?

[they don't love you like i love you]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=88339.0

[DINGO Joe]

Farm crisis in 1988?

That and the fact that Bob Dole lost out to Bush in the race for the nomination that year.

[Linus Van Pelt]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=88339.25

See, in particular, the posts of White Cloud, though others have some good contributions too.