Talk Elections

Indiana is a Northern conservative state. That's odd...
Kerry can win New Hampshire and Ohio but he can't win Indiana (unless he get Evan Bayh as his VP). Why ?

Gore-Bush was the most significant "North-South divide" of the last fifty years.
The division between the Right (South) and the Left (North) is the same since Lincoln in 1860. If you look at the electoral map of 1896 and at the one of 2000 (below), you'll see that the right-wing states and the left-wing states have not changed (the Republican party and the Democratic party switching positions).
...With a big exception : Indiana.
Indiana is extremely conservative while Michigan, Illinois and Ohio are centrist or liberal.
- In the 1920s, nationally, Indiana was said to have the most powerful Ku Klux Klan. It counted a high number of members statewide and its importance peaked in the 1924 election of Edward Jackson for governor.
- Indiana voted against FDR in 1940 and 1944 and against Kennedy in 1960.
- This state has supported the republican nominee in every election since the landslide of Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

How do you explain this ?
Why Illinois and Indiana are so different ?

1860 :
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1896 :
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2000:
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Like this: your theory is wrong

My thought is that given that Illinois has larger immagrant populations, even back then, more industrialized and more urban. Indianna is essentially a Illinois without a Chicago or other big cities. The power is in the urban areas, which were even developing back then. Indianna on the other hand was and is largely rural. Also the state of Indianna was mostly settled by Southerners that came north, not Northerners that came West. This may still be an influence today, voting trends can often be passed down through the generations, especially in states like Indianna that hasn't seen massive immagration, unlike Illinois.

Siege40

No it isn't.


Because GOP loyalties stretch back to the Civil War


Not true


Not true. Besides Lincoln was quite conservative (whereas Robert E. Lee was a liberal)


Sure... the Corn Belt is very conservative... but that extends into Illinois, Ohio, etc.
The Gary-Hammond area is strongly Democrat BTW


Civil War+Cornbelt=GOP

Parts of Illinois, parts of Michigan, and much of Ohio are as conservative as Indiana.  Jumping over a state MO is mostly as conservative as Indiana, and neighboring Kentucky is even more conservative.  Indiana just happens to be of more or less one geographic type, undiluted by other regions or excess urban areas.  

In other words a great deal of the North is very conservative, its just swamped in states that contain too many big cities.

How many is too many big cities? Don't tell me, Enough for the Dems to win?

Siege40

Don't lose my time with post like this, please.
"Because GOP loyalties stretch back to the Civil War"
And not New Hampshire maybe ??! ::)

Exactly :)

Once I asked my dad why they predicted Indiana and Kentucky so early for the Republicans.  He told me the polls closed early and that the Democrats never win Indiana :(

Do you think that in the future if the Democratic nominee was from Indianna or the VP, could they win it, assuming the political situation is the same or similar.

Siege40

No, definitely not with just the VP.  Maybe if Evan Bayh ran with Zell Miller as his VP.

The Republicans weren't that conservative:

They introduced the progressive tax, arguing that 'a tax properly levied, upon incomes...is an equitable and just tax'. Or as the Chicago Tribune put it: 'the rich should be taxed more than the poor'. :) Another Republican claimed that 'the universal cry of this people is to be taxed'.

Basically the GOP of Lincoln and the Civil War favoured a stronger central government, higher taxes and equal rights for blacks. That's fairly liberal.

I think they could... but they probably won't   ;)
It's a long shot, even with Evan Bayh.

I agree on the first two, the third one I could strongly debate you on. Yes the North wanted higher taxes on the south. The south was paying the north and getting nothing back. Compare the roads, railroads and waterway systems just before 1860. The Northerners were sucking the south dry of profits and giving them nothing in return. One of the MAIN reasons for the war. Abolition was a minority. On the high end 10% of the north was in favor of abolition. Most Northern businessman couldn't condemn slavery because they were in the process of enslaving the Irish in their factories and factory towns. Robert Gould Shaw who led the 54th Mass., a black regiment, was a very very wealthy man. And you want to guess how his father made his money? You guessed, the slave trade. The slave trade made Massachusetts a wealthy state.

Indiana had strong southern sympathies in the southern part of the state. Indiana actually sent a Confederate regiment south. Many Indianans consider themselves southern before mid-western.

Yeah but Southern Indiana is more Democrat than most of the rest of the state.
The early Republicans were divided between the Radicals and the Conservatives BTW.

NH is a Republican state

My point wasn't necessarily that the North wanted higher taxes on the SOUth, they wanted it in general. And even though racism was sadly strong even in the North, I do think that it's undisputable that a strong faction of Radical Republicans with a fairly strong amount of support among Northerners, were against slavery. And the Irish weren't enslaved, the formalia here makes a large difference, imo.

Working 15 hours a day locked in a enclosed warehouse when you were 8 years old isn't slavery?

There is a difference between someone owning you and someone not owning you...I'm not saying that working conditions were right at that time, but I wouldn't call it slavery or equal it with that.

Like IN, IL is democratic along Lake Michigan and in the southernmost areas, plus centers of industial and college towns. The state greatly differ in proportion of these groups. If Springfield or Peoria had grown like Indianapolis, and Chicago stayed the size of Gary and Hammond, the two states would still have very similar voting patterns.

You feel like you are owned when you have no right to leave your job whatsoever and signs around your town are posted up saying "Irish need not apply". The Irish were treated like dogs, believe my my ancestors went through it.

Indiana is so conservative for one simple reason:

It's the south, without the African-Americans.

Admittedly the northern lake area counties are part of the North and thus make Indiana a little closer to the center than the deep south (Carolinas, Georgia minus Atlanta, ala. , miss. , etc. ) if they all of a sudden lost all their African Americans.

Ohio and Illinois is much the same but they have far larger areas where the white folk are northern white folk, rather than southern white folk. Sorry if that seems offensive, but there really isn't a better way to put it, each minority type varies somewhat by region but caucasians vary wildly by region, some whites are new england liberals, and some are bible belt conservatives and the midwest is where they mix .

My theory on the Klan being so strong in Indiana is that they found it to be a haven of like minded people without too many of the people they hated (er ... still hate) being around.

Aaah... but the South of the state is more Democrat than the "GOP since 1856" Corn Belt

Of course, Indiana is like two seperate states. Thousands of Indianans fought for the south during the war.

HOOSIERS!  HOOSIERS!  ((hem... I'm crazy... yes... feel free to ignore this post))

Indiana used to be more Democratic in the old days. It voted for Cleveland in 1892 and was close in 1896, 1900 and 1908, to name a few. Wilson won it clearly in 1912 and only lost there by a small margin in 1916.

To me it seems like Indiana is basically more Southern than most other Northern states, and thus more likely to vote with the South. That means GOP nowadfays.

the southern part of the state is more democratic because it has generally been poor. also coal mining and limestone quarries are in the southern part of the state and they skew democratic as well.  Its the mining interests that caused Gore to do worse in Southern Indiana than Dukakis or Carter '80 .  With Evan Bayh's senate reelection plenty of those southern Hoosiers are going to come out for Kerry, Kerry just might break a million votes here, which no Dem has done other than Johnson. Even without Evan as VP, i think the networks might have to wait a few minutes to call us :) .

Woohoo!  It's a new record :)

Hey progress is progress. Its important for Kerry to make some sort of inroads here , assuming Bayh gets the nomination in the future then Indiana will be much more ripe for the picking if Kerry does well.

This sounds about right. There certainly are southern whites who live in the North, and visa versa. The suburbs of Chicago fit in with the North, but most of the state fits in with the South.

What I find interesting is why is the Fort Wayne area so conservative. I've never been there, but I didn't think it was at all southern.

I don't think Ill. (w/o Chicago) and Ind. are comparable politically. Gore would have still won Illinois without Chicago.

Indiana doesn't make much sense.  The guys who work at the factory in Elkhart county with my dad, are a bunch union workers a third of which are from WV. They seem like they should be rather democratic, They were pretty reasonably heavy Bush in '00. Now they seem to fall closer to the northern union worker average. They made fun of my dad for supporting the environut anti-gun Gore, now they tell him he was right all along.

Elkhart County used to be more dependent on factory jobs than any other county in the nation. It still voted 2 to 1 for Bush, its in the North, it borders Michigan and it was still more Republican than the state average.  The city of Ft. Wayne is a little more democratic, but Wayne county is much more conservative. I'm not sure what to say about it but the fact that the northern two/thirds of Indiana away from the lake and not in the city of indy proper is all staunchly Republican.

Gore would have lost Illinois if you took Cook county (Chicago's county) out of the state. Bush beat him by like 150,000 in the rest of the state. The reason the rest of Illinois would be more moderate than Indiana is because there are more Northern whites in Illinois.  Look at the counties on the Iowa border.

Indiana can be (roughly) divided into:

1. Gary-Hammond (part of "Chicagoland" and the biggest steel producing area in the US)=Strong Democrat
2. South Bend and surrounds=Tossup
3. Indianapolis=leans Democrat
4. Southern Indiana=leans Democrat
5. Corn Belt=Very strong GOP (est. 1856)

Dunno where to put Muncie though...

Dan Quayle brought that state over to us. LOL

As Kghadial said, IL goes to Bush in 2000 without Chicago or Cook Co. Without Cook, Bush wins 1,484,591 to 1,308,041, a comfortable margin. If only the city of Chicago is removed, Bush still wins by 1,862,189 to 1,834,305. All Democrats know they need a big margin in Cook (Gore was +750,000) to offset the rest of the state.

There were a lot of very interesting replies : I really learned a lot from this thread.
I'd like to thank siege40, muon2, kghadial, gustaf and staterights for their input. I'm impressed.

To summarize, there are two big explanations :
Indiana = Illinois - Chicago
Indiana is more Southern than the other Northern states

They're good explanations and they work well together.
Although, I'm not 100 % satisfied.
The border states like Kentucky and Missouri are more Southern than Indiana. They voted more "progressive" in recent elections (more Gore, less Bush, less Dole, more Dukakis, more Mondale, less Reagan,...)
Actually, the margin between the republican candidate and the democratic candidate has been higher for Indiana since 1912 !
If you look at the demographics, the black vote and the big cities are not significantly different.
So........................... Why ?

Well...you have to keep in mind though that the Dems used to have the South, so being more Southern worked for the Dems for a long time. Unless I'm mistaken the difference between Indiana and Kentucky wasn't very big last election?

No, they were very close - 56.65% IN and 56.5% KY for Bush.  I think KY is less 'Populist' than people think.  For example I think I would've won it in the Forum Four Way.  But IN is one of the main centers of the Conservative Party.

You wish. :) Who won KY in the four way, I don't remember?

That Populist Al.

Ouch. ;)

I think KY would be a bit of a swing state though, it did vote for Clinton once.

Twice actually.

Bush's margin of victory in Kentucky was unusually large... it'll come down this year I'd guess.

You're right, the South voted for the Dems before 1964.
But the southern states (including the border state named Kentucky almost every time) voted more Bush jr, less Nader, less Gore, more Dole, less Clinton (96), less Perot (92 & 96), more Bush sr (92), less Dukakis and less Mondale than northern states did. While Indiana voted more like that than Kentucky (and Missouri), by a little margin in 2000 but usually by a big one in the previous elections.
You can check it on this site.

Indiana is really a state like no other. It's strange...
KY has no big city and about the same percentage of black people. Why the northern folks of Indiana voted more "southern" than the southern folks of Kentucky ? Why Indiana voted more conservative than all the other northern states (with the possible exception of New Hampshire) ?

The most conservative part of Indiana is the Corn Belt (which extends into Ohio) and has been loyally Republican for 140 years.

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Doesn't Louisville count as a "big city"?

Not compared to Indianapolis. But you can count it... and you should count Fort Wayne for Indiana. It's a tie, at best.

It's got it's own Congressional District.

Kentucky is poorer than Indiania, BTW

Where can I find a map on the web with states ranked by poverty (or by median income) ?
Do Poorer states vote always more democratic ?

Where can I find a map of the Corn Belt ? Thank you.

For income etc. try: http://nationalatlas.gov (http://nationalatlas.gov)
For the "cornbelt" look at one of the national county maps on the Atlas (Western Ohio/Eastern Indiana... it's very easy to spot. Lots of dark blue)

Where did you find these numbers ?

A lot of states vote republican outside their big cities. What would be New York without New York ? Republican ? (frightening)
If you take Philadelphia out of Pennsylvania, is Pennsylvania becoming "solid Bush country" ?

Thank god for the big cities  ;)

I used the Illinois State Board of Elections (http://www.elections.state.il.us), the Cook County Clerk (http://www.voterinfonet.com) (Cook County Election Department covers suburban Cook), and the Chicago Board of Election Commisioners (http://www.chicagoelections.com) (for the city).

Gore won upstate NY with something like 52%.

Indiana is conservative because it's major city, Indianapolis, is much closer to Cincinnati than Cleveland or Chicago. Those keep Ohio a swing and Illinois solidly Democratic. Both states also have lots of union areas, Indiana relatively doesn't. They also border Democratic areas, Illinois with eastern Iowa, Ohio with western Pennsylvania. Indiana is basically what you get if you take all liberal elements out of the midwest.

also, I think comparing Indiana to the south is innacurrate. While it may share the same social conservatism as the south, it is not the same politically or culturally. The strip running across Kentucky is much like the south and was heavily Democratic in the "solid south" days, but the Corn Belt like Al has always mentioned has ALWAYS been Republican. But let's backtrack to the 1860's. Back then, the whole Midwest was Republican. Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and even Minnesota were all Republican strongholds (although Minnesota and Wisconsin have always been pretty progressive states, the Teddy Roosevelt brand of Republicanism is light years away from the current. I would still consider these states to be liberal. Woodrow Wilson, the most progressive President of the era [despite his terrible racism] almost won Minnesota and let's not forget Robert LaFollette.) Indiana was actually the least Republican state of the region and basically a swing, due to the southern strip. Then during the New Deal, all the other states that I mentioned started to switch. Indiana was just left behind, probably due to the fact it wasn't as industrial heavy as those, and has always been more socially conservative.

So in a way, Indiana is much like Arkansas, Louisiana and New Hampshire, it just didn't change with the rest of the region. However even those states are starting to fall in line, and I don't see the same happening to Louisiana.

Do you know what congressional districts that corresponds with?

Here's a map with higher median income states in red and lower median income states in blue. It looks like higher income states are more likely to vote Democratic.

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How is Alaska a high income state?

Poor counties go Dem... usually...
The average income of a lot of states is exaggerated because urban income per capita is distorted by a few rich b*stards.

Actually for median income, wouldn't the very rich outliers not matter (other than counting as above average) ?

Sorry I said that wrong...
I meant to add that income is all relative and so on.

People there are paid a lot, the cost of living is extremely high.  Also something to do with the oil money perhaps?

I don't know much about Alaska, never been, but I can't imagine why the income would be so high. From what I understand that government pays people to live there.

Jobs pay a lot there to attract people - not that many people want to live in such a godforsaken place.

My cousin went on a mission for his church and when he got back he told me the people are really really weird up there.

Alaskans probably get isolation pay as they do in Northern Canada. It's quite a lot from what I understand. Also most jobs in Alaska are mineral/ore related and usually pay very well.

As for Indiana, it's conservative simply because it's rural. Gary is heavily democratic, but it's population is very small. Indianapolis is heavily outvoted by it's suburbs.

You mean Indiana ?

Some states are more rural than Indiana AND less conservative. It's a bit too simple

This is an interesting point. Indiana's population density is twice the national average and is more dense and less conservative (at least by presidential standards) than about 20 states, including several midwestern states (Minn., Iowa, Wisc., Missouri...).

I know somebody that used to work in Alaska.  As an oil engineer he was getting paid $200k.  Alas, now he is one of the many working among failed software company to failed software company in in the good old California economy.

Yes I think they can I'm looking at obamas 2 point win in Indiana in 2008

LOL this thread./

I love read old random posts on here like how any state bush lost is never going republican or how Indiana will never go democrat it's just funny