Humphrey '68 - Bush '92 - Gore '00 counties

[SingingAnalyst]

Macomb, MI was a large one. Any other decent-size (or any size) counties in this category?

[Nym90]

I've always found it odd that Macomb voted for Bush in 1992. It seems like it should have been tailor made for Clinton's economic message that year, and as you noted it went on to vote for Gore and had usually voted Democratic in close elections like 1968.

My guess is that Perot's anti-free trade rhetoric may have been a factor in peeling away normally Democratic working class voters here in 1992 (the "Reagan Democrats" that Stan Greenberg wrote about and studied extensively in the 1980's; this is the county where that term came from).

As you can see from the 2016 results and the big swing from 2012, Macomb is not a pro-free trade area by any means.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes there's definitely a certain sort of ancestrally D voter in Michigan - and other parts of the Midwest actually - that went Reagan/Bush then Perot and later Trump. While often continuing to vote D downballot.

But Perot in general suddenly seems like a much more important candidate doesn't he? Not so much a weird 90s fluke as a harbinger.

[Nym90]

True, although there doesn't seem to be much if any correlation overall between the Perot vote and the places where Trump outperformed a typical Republican, at least outside the Northeast/New England.

Perot for example did very well in much of the West, and that was the part of the country where Trump tended to underperform past Republicans the most. Conversely Trump running well in the South which was by far Perot's worst region.

[Nym90]

But stylistically, thematically and in terms of their positions on trade and other economic issues ("America first") there is most definitely a similarity between the two that we haven't seen between Trump and any other major party nominee.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Probably a lot of them in Texas, since they were the only Humphrey state to go for Bush 1 in 1992.

[Sumner 1868]

Probably a lot of them in Texas, since they were the only Humphrey state to go for Bush 1 in 1992.

There are no Bush 92/Gore 00 counties in Texas.

[Miles]

Montgomery, OH is probably one the bigger ones.

[SingingAnalyst]

Montgomery, OH is probably one the bigger ones.

I suspect there are not many such counties, as there are few Bush '92 - Gore '00 counties except maybe in FL, and few Humphrey-Bush counties except in TX.

[GMantis]

Montgomery, OH is probably one the bigger ones.

Montgomery county did not vote for Bush in 1992.

[Miles]

^ looks like we found an error in Dave's 1992 county map, then:




That's what I was going by, but yeah it's right on the state version, now that I checked.

[GMantis]

I can not give a 100% guarantee, but I'm fairly certain that Macomb was the only one such county.

[SingingAnalyst]

I can not give a 100% guarantee, but I'm fairly certain that Macomb was the only one such county.

Interesting. I'm not too surprised, but also might have expected a few small counties to slip in.

Macomb is conservative and pro-incumbent, and has remained so even with an increasing influx of ethnic minorities. The drop in crime between 1992 and 1996, as well as the changing of the guard in Detroit (from Coleman A. Young to Dennis Archer as Mayor) may have contributed to Macomb's 1992-1996 Dem swing. Macomb followed the national average almost exactly in each of the 5 elections from 1996 to 2012, breaking hard for Trump in 2016.

Oakland, MI would also have been such a county had about 1,000 Nixon '68 voters voted Humphrey instead.