Visiting the International Rose Test Garden
For most of the first half of the 20th century, Oregon leaned Republican relative to the country except 1932 and 1936, including the close elections of 1916, 1948, and 1960. The 1950s saw a transition from a Republican-leaning state to a swing state as Democrats also made significant gains in the state legislature.
Multnomah County (Portland) flipped to a Democratic Partisan Voting Index (PVI) in 1956 and hasn’t looked back since. Later in the 1970s Oregon had a Democratic PVI because of the bluing in Multnomah. After sliding a bit back to the Republican side in 1980 because of Jimmy Carter (D) being a poor fit for the West, Oregon turned sharply from D+1 to D+5 in 1984 amidst a drought and the farm crisis.
The PVI became less Democratic in 1996, 2000, and 2004 because of Ralph Nader’s (Green) overperformance especially in 2000, almost tipping the state to George W. Bush (R). Come 2008, Oregon’s PVI returned to D+5 and stayed there through 2012 and 2016. The Democratic trends in the Portland area, the college counties of Lane and Benton, and Deschutes County (Bend) are largely balanced out by the Republican trends in the east and parts of the west.
In the Portland area, Multnomah has been deep blue since the 1980s. Washington County used to be a Republican stronghold. In the 1990s, like many big city suburbs, Washington began trending Democratic and is now one of the more Democratic counties in the state. The technology hub of Silicon Forest is located in Washington County. Clackamas County is a bellwether; since 1912 it only missed in close elections such as 1976 and 2016.
Linn County is the most conservative county in the Willamette Valley.
Marion County (Salem) has a slight Republican lean.
East of Portland, Hood River County used to lean Republican and have swingy PVIs but more recently became solidly in the blue column thanks to many Hispanics (30% of the population) and white liberals. Also along the Columbia River, populous Umatilla and Union Counties are strongly Republican because they are composed almost entirely of downscale whites. Wasco County (The Dalles) also trended Republican though not as much.
Democratic trends in college towns moved Benton (Corvallis/Oregon State) and Lane (Eugene/University of Oregon) Counties into the blue column, especially Benton. Lane has some downscale areas that Republicans could make gains in, but Eugene anchors the Democratic strength.
The Oregon Coast is much less populated than most coastal areas elsewhere in the country, because all Oregon beaches are free for the public thanks to a bill passed in 1967. These counties are also more blue collar than many of their Washington and California counterparts. Tech doesn’t have as big an influence on Oregon politics as it does in its neighbors to the north and south.
Coos County is one of the biggest examples of Republican trends among blue-collar whites outside the Midwest. It went for George McGovern (D) in 1972. In later decades, with the decline of timber unions and the increasing environmentalism in the national Democratic Party, Coos turned into a Republican-leaning county.
Jackson County also leans Republican, though less so than its neighbors because of Ashland (Southern Oregon University).
Josephine County has been one of the most consistently Republican counties, only voting Democratic in 1932 and 1936, and only in the former did Franklin Roosevelt (D) win a majority.
Deschutes County was strongly Republican in the early 2000s, though rapid growth from upscale transplants from California and Washington to Bend are turning the county a light shade of red.
Eastern Oregon is solidly Republican and culturally has more in common with rural Idaho and Wyoming than the rest of Oregon. In 1941, some of these counties in the southwest along with culturally similar counties in northern California tried to form a State of Jefferson.
Here are the PVIs in map format.
Here are the PVIs in table format.
PS: I don’t know why the county GIF only goes to 2000 and the state GIF to 2008 (as well as having a red part in the 2008 map that shouldn’t be there). I redid the GIF and got the same results. At least I can show all the maps in the slides, and the maps are correct in my blog entry.
Oregon PVIs
Oregon State PVIs