Geography Of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004

This work concentrates on the longstanding and significant factors of regionalism and sectionalism in the voting for the U.S. chief executive. Even after the Civil War restored the nation’s wholeness, the first postwar election showed the persistence of regional voting patterns. These patterns became even more pronounced in the succeeding elections of the 19th century and beyond. For the 35 presidential elections from 1868 to 2004, a narrative describes how the regions, states, and, in some instances, counties responded to the issues and personalities of the presidential contest. The geography of each election reveals how the party coalitions were developed. Realignments can be traced to regional appeals. In addition to the narrative, coverage for each election includes a table of the electoral vote, a map showing how the nation voted, and a table indicating where the parties received their highest level of support. The second part of the book is a series of charts showing which party carried each United States county in each election during this period. These charts reveal at a glance which counties reliably voted Republican or Democratic over the years—and which ones became “breakthrough counties” where the opposition party first convinced the electorate that it should break with the past in a particular election. Such information, previously unavailable without extensive searching through dozens of diverse sources, is crucial to an understanding of how geography has affected elections over the years.