Can someone make a county map for 1920 and/or 1936?

[Beet]

It's interesting how the West is so much more volatile than the East. In 1920 and 1936, nearly every county in the west voted for the winning candidate, while the northeast and southeast resisted landslides quite well.

That tells you something about the bandwagon nature of politics in a place where people don't have strong roots and deep history.

[Beet]

It's interesting how the West is so much more volatile than the East. In 1920 and 1936, nearly every county in the west voted for the winning candidate, while the northeast and southeast resisted landslides quite well.

That tells you something about the bandwagon nature of politics in a place where people don't have strong roots and deep history.

However, Carter in 1976 did poorly in the west, despite winning.

1976 was hardly a landslide, though. Also, by the 1970s the West was begining to develop its own sustained political heritage.

The more interesting exception is 1896-- brought on by an economic crisis that disproportionately affected Western farmers. The West's abandonment of the Democratic ticket in 1900-1908 compared to the South's loyalty to it shows that 1896 is the exception that proves the rule, however.

[Beet]

1920, 1924, 1928, and 1936 have all been updated.

Very nice! I'm looking at the 1920 map and thinking "and people say we're too polarized now?"

Exit polls going back to 1972 show it's by far the most polarized it's been starting with 1972. Too bad we don't have exit polls from the '20s and '30s.

It is true that polarization has followed a rough parabolic shape from 1920 to today. Before 1928, the partisan bases were sharply defined and relatively homogenous. They could be determined through an economic basis derived from the agricultural economy, which in turn was derived soil fertility and ultimately from climate.

Northern white ethnics and blacks' invasion of the Democrats was then followed by southern Baptists' invasion of the Republicans that year. This threw the postwar partisan alignment into chaos. The agricultural basis was no longer relevant in the industrial society.

The chaos transition period (1928 onwards) is now coming to a close. The spoke-and-hub artificial transportation system has replaced the natural clime-based agricultural system as the basic unit of economic activity, and by derivation, of its contribution to the determination of politics.

The Republicans have found a new economically determined base around the spoke of the modern spoke-and-hub transportaiton system and the Democrats have found a similiar base near the hub of the system. The demise of Dixiecrat state legislatures in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee, when such occurs, can be said to be the final conclusion of such a transformation. As of today, it is not yet complete; but taking 1928 as the beginning and 1972 as the median, we can expect it to be completed around  the year 1972 + (72-28) = 2016, assuming symmetry around the trough of polarization and partisan power.

[Beet]

I actually found this site by accident, but it's pretty sweet!

county maps 1856-present!

So what if it's in french?

That's neat. I wonder if Dave has any plans to extend the site to cover county results for really old elections.

Wow! This officially makes it more informative than Dave's site. I wonder if Dave could get the data from them

[Beet]

The 1856-->1860 suggests that the Constitutional Union party was the true successor to the Whigs.

[Beet]

1936 must have been the greatest landslide in history.

By margin of the popular vote, 1920 was the greatest landslide in the 20th century. Other than that, you have to go back to the era of good feelings to get landslides on that proportion. It's funny that the greatest landslide of the 20th century produced what many consider to be the worst president of the century!

Also, the period from 1920-1944 was pretty unique; it was a quarter century of virtually continuous landslides. The next four decades 1948-1988 saw a high share of landslides, too, but not continuously. Since 1992, we have had four straight non-landslide elections.