Cook County (MN) Voting Patterns

[H. Ross Peron]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_County,_Minnesota

Neighbouring Iron Range counties (Saint Louis and Lake) have been generally consistent Democratic since the New Deal though it swung Republican heavily in the 2016 election, but Cook County seems to have distinct voting patterns separate from them.

-Swung strongly Republican after Eisenhower with the only Democrat until 1988 to win being LBJ in 1964. Notably, Minnesotans Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale both failed to take the county nor did Carter in 1976.
-Swings strongly Democratic starting with Dukakis in 1988 and the only Republican victory in 2000 seems attributable to a high third-party vote.
-Unlike many other white rural counties, Hillary Clinton did not lose much county and most defections were third party rather than towards Trump.

Some of the quirks might be explainable by the Native American reservation but they form less than a tenth of the population.

[H. Ross Peron]

Checked further and Cook County stands out in several elections as the only GOP county in northern Minnesota.

[AudmanOut]

I think there more college educated people there,then the surrounding counties in the iron range which would explain a lot of it’s voting pattern.

[TDAS04]

Cook has a lot of artsy, nature-loving types who enjoy the beauty of the North Shore. 

It was also the third strongest county against the ban on gay marriage in 2012.

[completely dead account]

So it seems pretty obvious at this point Cook County (MN) is a Democratic stronghold, on both statewide and national levels. It will likely continue to vote Democrat for a while. Also, Minnesota whites in general tend to lean left more than the average white voter.

[ElectionsGuy]

I think its like those rural mountainous counties in Colorado that are very liberal. When the Iron range inevitably sheds its Democratic roots Cook County will likely still be left standing.

[completely dead account]

I think its like those rural mountainous counties in Colorado that are very liberal. When the Iron range inevitably sheds its Democratic roots Cook County will likely still be left standing.

I think some of those rural counties in CO vote Democrat because of the tourists that come to their region. Not to mention CO has an above average amount of college educated white people.

[TJ in Oregon]

Cook County, MN is a tourism/vacation home county. It's trended the ways you'd expect given that.

[pops]

Cook County will keep voting themselves into hell for ~15 years. Then some hot shot young Republican will win there and it’ll be deeply red.