Elections in which the last never-Democratic counties voted Democratic in every state

With the same rule about later-formed counties as here, except I didn't bother marking certain states with silcrows. Also, for the reasons noted here, 'never voted Democratic from 1836 on' is treated as equivalent to 'never voted Democratic'. (Finally, Breckenridge is treated for these purposes as a Democrat.)

1836
New Hampshire

Every extant county in New Hampshire voted for van Buren in 1836. Two new counties were formed between 1836 and 1840, and they both voted for van Buren in 1840.

1852
Connecticut (Hartford, Litchfield, New Haven, Tolland, Windham)

1856
Delaware (Kent)

1868
Florida (Santa Rosa, Walton)

1876
Georgia (Greene)

1880
Mississippi (Adams)

1888
Alabama (Greene)

1896
Arkansas (Lincoln)
Nevada (Eureka, Lyon, Ormsby)

1904
Louisiana (St James)
South Carolina (Beaufort)

1908
Texas (Kendall, San Jacinto)

1912
Colorado (Washington)
Nebraska (Brown, Burt, Cass, Pawnee, Thayer, Washington, York)

1916
Montana (Custer, Dawson)
Utah (Kane)
Wyoming (Big Horn, Carbon, Converse, Natrona)

1932
California (Alpine, Orange)
Idaho (Adams)
Iowa (Butler, Cass, Cerro Gordo, Dallas, Dickinson, Emmet, Floyd, Franklin, Grundy, Hamilton, Hardin, Henry, Humboldt, Kossuth, Louisa, Mitchell, Montgomery, Pocahontas, Winnebago, Worth, Wright)
Minnesota (Aitkin, Anoka, Becker, Chippewa, Chisago, Cottonwood, Crow Wing, Dodge, Douglas, Faribault, Fillmore, Freeborn, Goodhue, Grant, Isanti, Jackson, Kanabec, Lac qui Parle, Meeker, Mille Lacs, Mower, Nobles, Pope, Redwood, Renville, Rice, Rock, Sherburne, Swift, Wadena, Washington, Watonwan, Wright, Yellow Medicine)
Missouri (Christian)
North Dakota (Benson, Billings, Steele, Traill, Wells)
Oklahoma (Blaine, Garfield, Kay, Kingfisher, Lincoln, Logan, Major)
Oregon (Clatsop, Washington)
South Dakota (Campbell, Codington, Deuel, Douglas, Grant, Gregory, Hamlin, Hutchinson, Hyde, Lincoln, Roberts, Spink, Sully, Turner)
Washington (Cowlitz, Klickitat, Lewis, Pacific)
Wisconsin (Adams, Barron, Burnett, Clark, Door, Dunn, Eau Claire, Florence, Jackson, Pepin, Pierce, Polk, Richland, Trempealeau, Washburn, Waupaca)

Alpine County, California voted Republican in its first 17 elections. (Orange County, which was founded later, voted Republican in its first 10 elections.) There was one county that was founded after Alpine that didn't vote Republican until 1936, but the number of consecutive elections it voted Republican before finally voting Democratic was 'only' 10: Riverside. When doing this for the never-Republican counties, this 'rule' generally just prevented silliness (such as saying that Minnesota still had never-Republican counties after the 1924 election, which it technically did). This hasn't been the case so much with the never-Democratic counties.

In a similar vein, the most elections in a row any of the counties in Iowa that FDR flipped in 1932 had voted non-Democratic was 21 (which was the number of elections Dallas, Henry, and Louisa Counties had rejected the Democracy). There was one Iowa county that had never voted Democratic and wouldn't until 1936, like Riverside, but, because it had been founded a little later, it had voted non-Democratic 'only' 20 elections in a row: Black Hawk. 

1936
New Mexico (San Miguel, Valencia)
Rhode Island (Newport)

1940
Maine (Kennebec)

1964
Hawaii (Hawaii, Kauai, Maui)
Indiana (Wabash)
Massachusetts (Barnstable, Dukes, Franklin, Plymouth)
New Jersey (Ocean)
New York (Chautauqua, Cortland, Essex, Genesee, Livingston, Ontario, Orleans, Schuyler, Washington, Wyoming)
Ohio (Clinton, Geauga, Meigs, Warren)
Vermont (Addison, Bennington, Caledonia, Orange, Orleans, Rutland, Windham, Windsor)

1992
Arizona (La Paz)

Every county in Arizona voted for Wilson in Arizona's first participating election, in 1912. However, La Paz County wasn't founded until the 1984 election, and it cast its first two votes for Reagan and HW Bush. It voted for Bill Clinton twice and then has voted Republican in every election since. It would be kind of silly (as though we had had to count Broomfield as the last never-Democratic county in Colorado), except La Paz has gone on to be pretty Republican.

> 2020
Illinois (Edwards, Ogle)
Kansas (Doniphan)
Kentucky (see here)
Maryland (Garrett)
Michigan (Missaukee)
North Carolina (see here)
Pennsylvania (see here)
Tennessee (see here)
Virginia (Colonial Heights City)
West Virginia (Grant)

All of these counties I discussed in the previous post, except one: Colonial Heights City, Virginia, which escaped my attention. 

When considering counties or county-equivalents in Virginia that were created in the 19th century, the longest non-Democratic record may belong to Charles City County, which voted non-Democratic in 14 straight participating elections from 1836 through 1896, and then is marked 'N/A' in 1900. It seems hard to believe it simply didn't cast any votes in 1900. Maybe we just don't know. Anyway, if it wasn't until 1904 that it voted Democratic, then it holds the record for Virginia counties in terms of holding out against the Democracy from its founding.

If it voted Republican (or otherwise non-Democratic) in 1900, then--amongst Virginia counties established in the 1800s--it shares the record with James City and Westmoreland Counties.

However, that's not what we said we were looking for. We simply said we were looking for the county that had voted against one or the other party the most times in a row before its first-ever vote for that party. That would in fact be (counting county-equivalents) the independent city of Colonial Heights, which was separated from Chesterfield County in 1948 (although not, it appears, in time to participate separately--or to be tabulated separately--in the 1948 election). It first appears separately in the 1952 election, in which it voted Republican, and it has voted Republican in every subsequent election, which is to say it has voted Republican 18 elections in a row now without once voting Democratic.

I've never been quite sure whether Virginia's independent cities should count quite the same as counties, since they seem able to go into and out of existence more easily than counties. I am not aware of when the last time that a (populated) county went out of existence (Bullfrog County, Nevada, which had no permanent inhabitants, was dissolved in 1988). But for example, the (formerly) independent city of Bedford, Virginia was re-absorbed into Bedford County as recently as 2013. Clifton Forge ceased to be an independent city in 2001.

In any case, naturally, Colonial Heights City is an exception to the rule about never-Democratic counties or county-equivalents in the South being unionist counties in Appalachia. Colonial Heights is not in Appalachia, and it was probably not unionist (Chesterfield County itself was a never-Republican county until 1928). (Also, even though it voted for Eisenhower twice, the vote shares it gave him were 51.7% and 47.7%.)

But, according to our rules, it is the county(-equivalent) in Virginia that has gone the longest since its founding without voting Democratic--at this point, by a pretty decent margin, and one that appears likely to keep growing; it voted 65.7% for Trump in 2020. The Republican vote share has steadily been dropping for four straight elections, but not terribly precipitously. The steady fall in the Republican vote share--which makes sense given its position adjacent Chesterfield County (which turned blue in 2020 for the first time since 1948)--does mean that Colonial Heights is the remaining never-Democratic county that is most likely to vote Democratic at some point in the foreseeable future. (Indeed, it is perhaps the only one that is at all likely to do so in the foreseeable future.) But, given the gentleness wherewith the GOP vote share has been falling, it seems likely to have at least several more Republican votes left to give. If and when it does vote Democratic, it will still be a fairly impressive streak to have ended, despite that it is considerably less ancient (at least as a county-equivalent) than the likes of Elliott County, Kentucky or Ogle County, Illinois.

There is an additional wrinkle as far as never-Democratic county-equivalents in Virginia are concerned, however, and it again arises from Virginia's idiosyncratic practice of making all municipalities incorporated as 'cities' independent from their counties. The independent city of Poquoson, which first voted as an independent city in 1976, has never voted Democratic since becoming an independent city. (Poquoson was separated from Charles River County, so it is certainly not in Appalachia; and although Charles River County itself was a never-Democratic county until 1896, it voted Democratic in every election from 1896 through 1948 save 1900 and 1928, including for Parker, Cox, and Davis.) 

Poquoson's never-Democratic status might be somewhat safer than Colonial Heights'. Trump got 71.3% there in 2020, considerably better than he got in Colonial Heights, although his vote share was slightly down from what it was in 2016 (and his vote share in 2016 was sharply down from Romney's). (And its former county, Charles River County, is itself on a long-term Democratic trend, although it stayed red in 2020.) 

My sense is that Colonial Heights' Republican winning streak could eventually reach an impressiveness at least somewhat akin to the deeply ancestral streaks of voting (or not voting) for a party seen in the likes of Elliott, KY or Ogle, IL--and which would make it substantive to say that such-and-such a Democratic candidate was the 'first' Democrat ever to carry it (if that should happen). That is much harder to see with Poquoson, and not only because it was incorporated after Colonial Heights--indeed, it would seem somehow misleading to say that its Republican winning streak was more impressive than Colonial Heights', if, say, Colonial Heights made it to 2032 without voting Democratic (thereby having voted Republican for 20 straight elections), but Poquoson made it to 2056 without doing so (thereby having voted Republican for 21 straight elections). It is not simply that 1952 was at an earlier point in the country's history, but that it was before the last Democratic landslide. On the presupposition that the persistently landslide-less character of post-1984 US presidential elections continues (and that could change, of course), then, no matter how long Poquoson's Republican winning streak continues, none of its Republican votes will have required it to have voted for as dramatically losing a nominee as Landon or Goldwater. 

It seems that both Poquoson and Colonial Heights are on a slow but steady Democratic trend, and Poquoson's lead over Colonial Heights (in terms of their respective Republican vote shares) is not likely to be enough to lead to Poquoson voting Republican for six more elections than Colonial Heights. But, of course, trends are not guaranteed to continue, or to continue in tandem, or to continue at the same pace, etc.

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These were the states that had no never-Democratic counties on the eve of the 1912 election. (I am including Virginia since, at the time, its last never-Democratic county had voted Democratic in 1900 or 1904; with the never-Republican counties, so far as I recall, it doesn't seem that there were any cases where a state lost its last never-Republican county and then gained a new, more longstandingly never-Republican county so much later.)

At this early date, a state's having never-Democratic counties was something of a regional proxy. The states with never-Democratic counties were three ancient states with relatively few counties (New Hampshire, Delaware, and Connecticut); the significantly Southern-settled state of Nevada, and the states that seceded before the attack on Fort Sumter, plus Arkansas and Virginia (in perhaps another display of Virginia's 'exceptionalism'). Ironically, the first states to lose their last never-Democratic counties were overwhelmingly Southern; and, it seems, the last states to keep their last never-Democratic counties will also be (or are) overwhelmingly Southern.

But these, more specifically, were the cotton states (plus, again, Virginia). Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, and South Carolina had no county-level pockets of unionism (or at any rate, not any that continued voicing their unionism by stubbornly voting Republican for decades after the war). In the other cotton states (plus Virginia), there were county-level pockets of unionism that persisted in bucking the postbellum South's Democratic loyalty--but, unlike in the Upper South, they invariably voted Democratic at least once or twice during the Gilded Age, even before the FDR landslides or the division of the Republican vote in 1912. Gillespie County, Texas, for example, voted Democratic in 1872, 1876, 1888, and 1892; Fannin County, Georgia voted Democratic in 1876, 1880, and 1900; Pickens County, Georgia, voted Democratic in 1876; Winston County, Alabama voted Democratic in 1880 and 1900; and Floyd County, Virginia voted Democratic in 1876 and 1880.

(This is leaving aside that all the above-mentioned counties had also voted Democratic at least once before the war, which would already have disqualified them as never-Democratic counties--but the point is that even if it didn't, these counties did not match the stubbornness of a Sevier County, Tennessee or a Jackson County, Kentucky. In most cases, this can be seen in later elections as well; Gillespie, Pickens, and Winston all voted at least once for FDR [Pickens even voted for Wilson in 1916, albeit with a plurality of 39.4%].)

Arkansas was an exception (and more of one than I initially realised). It had two unionist Ozarkia counties, Newton and Searcy. Following Arkansas' readmission to the union, Newton did not vote Democratic until 1912. (According to the Crystal Ball database, Searcy also voted Democratic in 1912, but it appears this is another error in that database; Searcy appears actually not to have voted Democratic following the war until 1932--making Arkansas rather more of an exception than I had initially thought.) However--at least according to the Crystal Ball database--all of Newton's and Searcy's ante-bellum votes were for Democrats (including, in 1860, for Breckenridge).

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After the two Wilson elections, these were the states with no remaining never-Democratic counties. (Again, I am including Arizona on similar grounds as Virginia--it would have appeared at the time, and would continue appearing for over half a century, that there had never been no never-Democratic counties in Arizona.) Most of the interior Mountain West has been bereft of its last never-Democratic counties, as has the ancestrally Republican Plains state of Nebraska. 

After the two Roosevelt landslides (1932 and 1936), these were the states with no remaining never-Democratic counties. Almost the entire Plains and Mountain West, with the conspicuous exception of Kansas, has now been filled in. 

However--apart from heavily Scandinavian-influenced Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin--the Frost Belt states are persisting in retaining never-Democratic counties. It is also becoming clear that, although the map of states with no never-Democratic counties in October 1912 would have seemed an indication of (Deep) Southernness, the Upper South was not simply going to follow somewhat behind in shedding its last never-Democratic counties. Already, not only almost every Western state (including the relatively old, and deeply ancestrally Republican, state of Nebraska), but also the antebellum states of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, have lost their last never-Democratic counties ahead of Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Maryland. Minnesota, whose first participating election had been in 1860, had never voted Democratic before 1932. Wisconsin and Iowa had both voted for Frémont in 1856; since the founding of the GOP, Iowa had voted Democratic only in 1912, when the GOP was divided (Wilson carried it with a 37.6% plurality).

The only Southern state to lose its last never-Democratic county after 1908 (apart from the very young state of Oklahoma) was Missouri, whose Christian County cast its first-ever Democratic vote in 1932. Christian County is in Ozarkia (not far from Newton and Searcy Counties, Arkansas), and voted for Bell in 1860, so it seems likely that it was a 'Jacksonian unionist' county (rather than being loyally Republican out of heavy German influence, like Gasconade County--which is not a never-Democratic county only because it voted Democratic in 1836, 1840, 1844, 1848, 1852, and 1856; it has not budged from the GOP since). The date of Christian County's first Democratic vote is also aligned with the date of nearby Searcy County, Arkansas' first postwar Democratic vote.

FDR took Maine's last never-Democratic county in 1940--in an election in which that county's flipping made it a deeply anti-trend county. 

In 1964, with the candidacy of Barry Goldwater, the last never-Democratic counties throughout the Northeast (bar Pennsylvania) fell. The Midwest became a mixed picture--the last never-Democratic counties in Ohio and Indiana fell, but Michigan retained one, and Illinois, a few. I'm not sure what, if anything, the significance of this split is. Most of Michigan's never-Democratic counties did fall in 1964--on the eve of the election, the state had seven (Antrim, Benzie, Charlevoix, Mecosta, Midland, Osceola, and Tuscola, along with Missaukee)--significantly more than the Lower Midwest states of Ohio and Indiana had at that same point. It also had more never-Democratic counties lose their never-Democratic status in 1964 than either Indiana or Ohio, but it was still left with one.

Illinois was one of two mega states, along with California, where Goldwater seems to have done relatively well for some reason. Goldwater seems not to have had the same kind of repelling effect on traditional Republicans, of both rural and suburban stripes, in Illinois as he did in other Midwestern states. He carried DuPage County, for example, but not Waukesha County, Wisconsin. (He carried Hamilton County, Indiana and Delaware County, Ohio, but neither of these counties cast so much as 20,000 votes in 1964, whereas Waukesha cast a bit over 75,000 votes and had already become Wisconsin's third-largest county.) He held four of the state's five then-never-Democratic counties (Carroll, Edwards, Ogle, Whiteside)--most of them in the state's north--with Johnson managing to carry only one (Mercer). Goldwater carried 23 counties in Illinois, as compared to three in Wisconsin, seven in Iowa, three in Michigan, and five in Ohio. 

Goldwater did carry 14 counties in Indiana, where he also did somewhat idiosyncratically well in the Midwest--but, in contrast to Illinois, he failed to hold the state's one then-never-Republican county, Wabash. Most of the counties he carried in Indiana were traditionally Republican (if not as staunchly as Wabash had been), but it's worth noting that two of his Indiana counties (Boone and Johnson) had voted for Wilson in 1916, and one (Johnson) had voted for Truman, whereas none of his Illinois counties had voted Democratic at any point after 1900 save in the divided-GOP election of 1912 or in the FDR landslides of 1932 and 1936. The most recently any of his Indiana counties had voted for a losing Democrat was 1920, when Johnson County voted for Cox (indeed, until 1924, Johnson County had been a never-Republican county); the second-most recently was 1908, when Boone County voted for Bryan. The most recently that any of his Illinois counties had voted for a losing Democrat was 1900, when Woodford County voted for Bryan; the second-most recently was 1864, when Ford and McDonough Counties voted for McClellan.

Illinois was the only free-soil state east of Beatson's Line in which Goldwater carried a Congressional district. Aside from being joined by neighbouring Indiana, it is also something of a geographical outlier amongst the states in which Goldwater got at least 40% of the vote.

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1964 was only Colonial Heights' fourth election; it wouldn't overtake Charles City County's steadfastness in voting Republican until 2012 (assuming Charles City County voted Republican in 1900, which there's not necessarily any good reason to assume). And, of course, Arizona would gain a never-Democratic county after the 1984 election (which it would lose after the 1992 election). But, if we skip over La Paz's brief never-Democratic status and add Virginia back in already, the map of states with no never-Democratic counties is pretty much set after 1964. Apart from a handful of Northern states that don't really fit a coherent pattern, the states with remaining never-Democratic counties are overwhelmingly in the Upper South, neighbouring the states that were the first to lose their last never-Democratic counties. (Of course, Virginia's seeming unity with neighbouring Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina here is somewhat misleading.) Democrats have, of course, continued (occasionally) carrying counties that had never voted for their party before, but they have barely dented the standing of any state that still has never-Democratic counties as such. Together, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama came somewhat close in Illinois, and Robert Wheel seemed to be thinking that Hillary Clinton might be able to almost finish the job by carrying Ogle, which voted for McCain in 2008 by just 7.6%. But if there was a window of opportunity for Democrats to carry Ogle, it was gone even as Wheel wrote in early October 2016; a month later, Trump flipped Whiteside and Carroll and carried Ogle by over 25%. In any case, however, neither Bill Clinton nor Obama ever came particularly close to carrying Edwards County, down in the state's Little Egypt.

In 1992, Bill Clinton became the first Democrat ever to carry Union County, Tennessee (before which Tennessee was even more dominant in claiming a plurality of the nation's never-Democratic counties). He carried it again in 1996. This, obviously, hardly did anything to wipe out Tennessee's last never-Democratic counties.

At this point, the Democracy is so wiped out in rural areas, both Yankee and Southern, that there is scarce little hope of a future Democrat carrying a never-Democratic county (again, bar the idiosyncratic exceptions of Colonial Heights and Poquoson Cities). Which means that the odd collection of free-soil states that still have a never-Democratic county--Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, and Kansas--will probably stand indefinitely, together with all the Upper Southern states (save, perhaps someday again, Virginia) that extend into Appalachia.