historic bases/constituencies of each party
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  historic bases/constituencies of each party
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freepcrusher
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« on: January 10, 2015, 11:39:01 PM »
« edited: January 10, 2015, 11:40:50 PM by freepcrusher »

Midwest/Border

Illinois
Republicans = anything north of the 40th parallel save for Chicago and Rock Island (non Cook County Chicago was pretty hardcore R back then). Will County was marginal as the county was dominated by the industrial city of Joliet.

Democrats = Chicago proper, Rock Island County, Madison and St Clair counties

Marginal = anything south of the 40th parallel not in Metro East, Will County as mentioned above.

Indiana
Republicans = WASP, non industrial areas of Central, Northern and NE Indiana (Halleck district and some of those counties like Steuben or Kosciusko (and the counties surrounding Indianapolis which were rural back then)

Democrats = Lake, St Joseph and the occasional county in southern Indiana.

Marginal = most of southern Indiana. Indianapolis usually voted a few points more republican than the state interestingly enough

Iowa
Republicans = anything not mentioned below usually went republican though it varied by hue. Even back then, the case was true that the closer one got to Nebraska, the more republican it was (though the correlation wasn't as strong)

Democrats = occasional catholic county like Carroll, Dubuque and sometimes even Audubon. Also Polk and Wapello counties

Kansas

Republicans = anywhere not mentioned below. Looking at old maps, it seemed that the rural WASP counties in northern Kansas were the most republican. Johnson County also hasn't voted D for president since 1916 (and was just starting to influence state politics by this point).

Democrats = Wyandotte, occasional catholic county (Hays) and the occasional "southern" influenced county in SE Kansas

Marginal = to some extent Wichita

Kentucky

Republicans = those clump of counties that used to make up the old Siler/Hall district and the counties close to Cincinnati

Democrats = the Jackson purchase area. Also there were a stretch of counties in old maps stretching between Louisville, Lexington and Cincinnati all the way to coal country (look at the 1956 map for instance).

Marginal = west central Kentucky (Natcher district) plus Jefferson County

Michigan

Republicans = Dutch areas of Western Michigan (Ottawa and Kent), the WASP areas on the Indiana border and areas with a little of both (Allegan). Also, northern LP (Cederberg district).

Democrats = Macomb, Wayne, western UP

Marginal = Monroe, Washtenaw, sometimes Oakland and some non-WASP/Dutch areas of Western Michigan, eastern UP, Gennessee (which went for Nixon in 1960)


Minnesota

Republicans = parts of southern and SW Minnesota and the occasional German lutheran area (like Carver) or those counties that went for Goldwater

Democrats = St Paul, Iron Range, Anoka

Marginal = NW Minnesota (the original 7th district), German catholic areas (historically volatile). Minneapolis was only marginally dem back then.

Missouri
Republicans = German and pro-Union areas that tended to follow west of St Louis on I-44 to the Oklahoma border

Democrats = the old Clarence Cannon district, the areas south of St Louis on the Mississippi (lead belt/bootheel), St Louis proper and KC proper

Marginal = some of Central Missouri (think Moulder, Randall, Ichord districts), rural northern Missouri (the Hull seat) and St Louis County

Nebraska
Republicans = anywhere not mentioned below

Democrats = occasional non-WASP county (there's that one czech county near Lincoln for instance)

Marginal = Omaha

North Dakota
North Dakota is interesting since it doesn't have a polarizing geography like other states do. The general rule of thumb is that the closer you get to Minnesota, the more dem it gets but there were plenty of exceptions

Ohio

Republicans = non-Cincinnati Hamilton, Columbus after WWI, and much of central and western Ohio. Also the non=industrial, WASP heavy county of Geauga

Democrats = occasional German county in western Ohio, Toledo, Cuyahoga, Akron, Youngstown/Warren, the old 18th, occasional southern influenced county in the scioto valley

Marginal = Cincinnati proper, Dayton, Lorain, the James Polk district (6th)

Oklahoma
Republicans = areas with a more Great Plains/Kansas feel to them, also Tulsa
Democrats = (anything east of hwy 75)
marginal = SW Oklahoma and other parts of Central Oklahoma

South Dakota
Republicans = much of the state, especially west of the Missouri

Democrats = occasional catholic county

Marginal = occasional county in eastern SD


West Virginia
general rule of thumb is that the further you get from I-77, the more republican it gets.

Wisconsin

Republicans = Fox River Valley (rural Racine and Kenosha, Walworth, the WOW and a few other counties like Green Lake). Also, SW Wisconsin (Thomson district) was pretty strongly republican then and voted like NW Illinois.

Democrats = Racine and Kenosha proper, Milwaukee, Madison, some of the areas in the old 10th district (not sure how Alvin O'Konski survived so many tough elections)

Marginal = occasional catholic county that would vote for a democrat for president (parts of the old 6th and 8th districts).

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Rockefeller GOP
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« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2015, 02:07:20 PM »

Fun read, thanks for posting.
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freepcrusher
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« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2015, 12:08:07 AM »

Ex Confederacy

Alabama
Republican = a few isolated counties in northern Alabama and after WWII the cities (Birmingham and Montgomery in particular)
Democrat = anywhere else. The TVA area (old 8th district) was pretty strongly dem

Arkansas
Republican = areas closer to OK and MO
Democrat = areas closer to MS, TN, LA

Florida
Republican = anything south of Daytona save Dade County
Democrat = anything north of Daytona (especially the current FL-2)
Marginal = parts of south Florida without northern migrants (i.e. Polk County, everglades)

Georgia
Republican = isolated mountain counties
Democrat = the whole state pretty much but it varied. The piedmont was marginal while the south of the fall line often gave Soviet style numbers for dems (though this inverted in 1964)

Louisiana
- By the early 1960s, the catholic/baptist divide was unfolding as the 4th and 5th districts were "unpledged" while southern Louisiana was still dem voting (though it did vote for Eisenhower)
- the republican stronghold was Shreveport which despite 25% unpledged, went majority for Nixon in 1960 and was a RW oil town, very much like Tyler, Tulsa, Midland etc
- dem stronghold was the most cajun heavy areas (3rd and 7th districts)

Mississippi
The entire state was dem back then but there were different types of politics in each state.
MS 1 - populist hill country territory (not unlike next door northern Alabama)
MS 2 - the deep south -iest part of the state
MS  4 - not as many blacks but still plenty reactionary
MS 3 - qualities of both the 2nd and 3rd districts.

NC
I-85 is historically the dividing line with areas west of it republican and areas east of it dem; but it was still varied. The most dem areas were the areas east and northeast of Raleigh (Bonner and Fountain districts) while the 4th, 7th and 3rd were more D+10ish. Eastern NC has always been part of the deep south/tidewater.

West of that line it was still ancestrally democratic (save for a few counties in the NW corner of the state) but was fast receding. The state elected a republican congressman in 1952 and the republicans came close to beating Bob Doughton and Hugh Alexander several times until finally succeeding in 1962 when James Broyhill knocked him off.  Unlike TN, the most republican areas were not the mountain areas though but the piedmont (especially the areas between charlotte and winston salem/greensboro)

SC
- SC was different from NC in the sense that there was no tidewater/piedmont divide. It was more nuanced. The divide was more north-south with northern SC (save for Greenville) voting dem and southern SC (especially Columbia) voting republican. SC-2 (the district containing Columbia and Lexington) actually elected a republican for the first time in 1965. The 5th district was often the most dem part of the state

TN
The 1st and 2nd (especially the 1st) were hardcore republican and has been since the civil war. The 3rd at the time was marginal and when an incumbent democrat lost renomination in 1962, it went republican (though switched back a dozen years later). Middle Tennessee is more populist and like Northern Alabama, NE Mississippi and less obsessed with racial issues. Western Tennessee is more deep-south like, although Memphis 50 years ago was showing signs of a republican trend as the 9th district nearly elected a republican congressman in 1962 and 1964.

TX
Republicans = German areas of Central TX and the gulf coast in the past and more recently the oil community (Tyler-Longview, Midland-Odessa, Dallas) and the wheat counties in the panhandle.

Democrats = rural Central and eastern Texas and south Texas

Marginal - the cotton counties in between the metroplex and Lubbock (the old 17th), San Antonio (German-Mexican schism), Fort Worth and Houston (historic east-west division)

VA
Republicans = much of the rural mountainous part of the state (which had always been suspicious of secession) and more recently Henrico and Chesterfield.

Democrats = rural areas south of Richmond, east of the piedmont and west of hampton roads (4th and parts of the old 5th). Also a few coal counties in SW Virginia

Marginal = (DC Area, Hampton Roads, Richmond Proper (which was experiencing white flight at the time)).
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Libertarian Socialist Dem
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« Reply #3 on: January 18, 2015, 01:57:26 AM »

NYC:

Republican: The Upper East Side and certain outer borough particularly German and Italian neighborhoods in The Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn.

Democrat: Pretty much everywhere else.
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SingingAnalyst
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« Reply #4 on: April 30, 2015, 09:22:48 PM »

Democratic base: 1896-1920- South, KKK, plains, poor farmers. 1924-1968: northern ethnic Catholics, Jews. 1964-present: Blacks. 1984-present: gays.

Republican base: Until 1960 northern small business and farmers. Since 1964, Dixie and plains.

1908-2008 saw a near-perfect reversal in party loyalties.
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