Deer Lodge and Silver Bow counties, Montana. Why are the so Democratic?

[bgwah]

Deer Lodge has a small population, is over 95% white, and voted 59.4% Kerry. I don't really understand it. It's sort of poor, but it seems like most other counties with similar demographics were solidly Bush. It has 13 people per square mile.

It's neighbor, Silver Bow, is home to Butte and a university. Again, over 95% white yet it voted 58% Kerry. I can see how the university might affect things, but it still seems like Kerry got an unusually high % of votes there.

[Grad Students are the Worst]

The county seat of Deer Lodge is Anaconda.  Does that ring a bell?

It's all about the Anaconda Copper Company.  Anaconda effectively screwed over its eponymous city and the nearby city of Butte.  They left it with the Berkeley Pit, a massive, sprawling copper mine and now-Superfund site that has turned the landscape into a barren, desolate area - a depressing contrast to the beautiful surrounding areas.

To put it simply, the areas are Democratic because they were economically depressed in the 1980s and people remember.  Unemployment exceeded 20 percent.  A good description can be found in The Profits of Doom, which was published in Atlantic Monthly.

Unemployment has since fallen, but the area is still a wasteland.  It's improving, certainly, but people are still upset and there is a very strong anti-corporate movement.  Anaconda, on the other hand, seems fairly better off and still remains quite beautiful, but scars remain.  It'll be interesting to see if the area remains so Democratic as time goes by.

[Cubby]

There is a huge mining economy there. Unions are/were very strong. Like West Virginia the voters in these 2 counties have always voted on economics. Unlike that state though, they are still strongly Democrat. I've read that the Anaconda Mining company used to be the most powerful political force in the entire state.

Someone with better knowledge of Montana might be able to answer your question better.

As I was about to post this, I see Alcon has answered the question

[Sibboleth]

Due to the mining economy of the area and the resulting strong unions, those two counties have been strongly Democratic at all levels for a very long time; last time Silver Bow (Butte) went for a Republican presidential candidate was 1956, last time Deer Lodge (Anaconda) went for a Republican presidential candidate was 1924.
There was a notable Democratic surge in Deer Lodge in the '80's; Carter polled 54% in 1980, Mondale polled 64% in 1984 and Dukakis polled 72% in 1988. This has since gone down (both Kerry and Gore polled 59%) although whether this is due to the memories of the '80's fading or just another case of recent Democratic candidates badly unpreforming in mining areas isn't something I'm entirely sure of.
In case anyone's interested the Democrats hold all the state house and state senate districts in the area.

[Vasall des Midas]

Last time Silver Bow (Butte) went for a Republican presidential candidate was 1956, last time Deer Lodge (Anaconda) went for a Republican presidential candidate was 1924.

Stat I'd been looking for, and only real bit of news for me here.