Counties with voting histories that are difficult to explain

[Joe McCarthy Was Right]

Alamosa County CO: Since 1916, it has only voted Republican in 1940 and 1996. So Bob Dole and Wendell Willkie were the Republicans they've been waiting for all this time?

Every mining county: A lot of mining counties in Appalachia were Davis/Hoover, but there were a lot of mining counties in the West that were Coolidge/Smith. A lot of these counties, like Mineral County NV, aren't even that Catholic. Oh, and Mineral County CO was a heavy Eisenhower/lean JFK county too, so it's almost like the Catholicism of those candidates was actually an advantage. Maybe westerners like to drink beer, but that doesn't explain Carbon County UT.

Camas County and Custer County ID: Two JFK/Goldwater counties, rare outside the South.

Arostook County ME: It has resisted patterns typical of French counties. While Coos County NH and Androscoggin County ME were two of Harding's worst counties in New England, Arostook was one of his best. Maybe there were restrictions put in place to prevent French speakers from voting?

Lake County MN: It was the only county in Minnesota that FDR lost in 1932, then it was his best county in the state in 1936. In its early history, it was also a pro-Republican yet pro-socialist county.

Corson County SD: It is 2/3 Native American with an unpredictable voting pattern.

Teton County WY: I guess this is a rich latte liberal county, but why did they vote so heavily for Bush in 2000? It became more Democrat in 2004 than it was in 1996.

Edit: oh, this should be in the US presidential election results forum. I wasn't thinking.

[David T]

I don't think Lake County, MN is that difficult to explain.  The Mesabi Range attracted a large number of radical, largely Finnish workers, and for that reason the county was a Socialist stronghold.  One major reason FDR didn't carry it in 1932 was the large (19.32%) vote for the Socialist candidate, Norman Thomas.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Minnesota,_1932 These were the sorts of voters who in other states voted for FDR.  By 1936 the Socialist Party was in steep decline and organized labor was overwhelmingly pro-FDR, so it was natural that FDR would carry the county although the huge margin by which he did so suggests that he converted ex-Republicans as well as ex-Socialists.  (One reason Lake County was so heavily Republican in 1920-28 and gave Hoover a plurality though not a majority in 1932 is, I would guess, that a lot of German-Americans resented the Democrats as the party that had brought the US into war with  the Vaterland.).

[TDAS04]

Corson County, SD:  Counties with large Native American populations have unpredictable patterns in part because Native turnout is unpredictable, and usually lower than white turnout.

Teton County WY:  Patterns similar to college towns and to other ski resort areas.  These places usually swung left in 2004 because of Iraq, Nader in 2000, and other reasons.  Teton’s large swing I noticed resembled Travis County (Austin), TX.  Perhaps theses “latte liberal” counties in Texas and Wyoming had extra large swings to make up for home state effects that caused them to vote Bush/Cheney in 2000?