Erratic county patterns

[christian peralta]

For example:
Clay County, South Dakota is a Nixon 68- McGovern 72- Ford 76 county

[TDAS04]

For example:
Clay County, South Dakota is a Nixon 68- McGovern 72- Ford 76 county

Yes, that's the location Vermillion, home of USD.  Wasthenaw County, Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Pitkin County, Colorado voted the same way.  In the case of Pitkin--home of Aspen--it went from +10 Nixon to +10 McGovern to +14 Ford.  Then, it was less Republican in 1980, when John Anderson took over 20% of the county's vote.

[Stranger in a strange land]

For example:
Clay County, South Dakota is a Nixon 68- McGovern 72- Ford 76 county

Yes, that's the location Vermillion, home of USD.  Wasthenaw County, Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Pitkin County, Colorado voted the same way.  In the case of Pitkin--home of Aspen--it went from +10 Nixon to +10 McGovern to +14 Ford.  Then, it was less Republican in 1980, when John Anderson took over 20% of the county's vote.

Also, McGovern was from South Dakota, and home state advantage mattered a lot more back then, so it's not that odd.

[SingingAnalyst]

There were many in the Deep South, and not just in the Black Belt where Blacks were disenfranchised until the mid-1960s. Itawamba County, MS went from voting 87%-11% for Stevenson in 1956 to 89%-10% Nixon in 1972. At the other extreme, the town of Lincoln, MA went from voting nearly 2-1 for Nixon in 1960, to nearly 2-1 Johnson in 1964; it voted for Humphrey, McGovern and Ford in the next 3 elections, and in 1980 Reagan carried the county with just 38%; 28% voted Anderson.

[DabbingSanta]

Not so much erratic, but the smallest county in America - Loving Co, Texas often has large swings in the number of voters. In some elections as recently as 2000, there have been more voters than residents. It also has produced some weird results, going for Wallace in 1968, and Perot in 1992.