This county has always picked a Democrat for president. Could it go for Trump?
Elliott County in Eastern Kentucky has voted for a Democrat for president in every election for 144 years.
This might be the year that changes, says the election-stats and data-crunching website fivethirtyeight.com.
“Will 2016 be the end of the streak? Demographically, Elliott County looks like the kind of place where Donald Trump could do well,” the site said in a post on the outlook for Elliott County.
Elliott County has drawn national attention before for its longest-in-the-nation streak of voting for the Democratic nominee for president in every election since the county was incorporated in 1869. It has been called the “most reliably Democratic county in America.”
In 2008, 61 percent of Elliott County voters supported Barack Obama for president. That was even after the county had overwhelmingly favored Hillary Clinton in her primary against the eventual two-term president. In 2012, Elliott County voters narrowly went for Obama over Mitt Romney.
But Democratic voters there favored Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in Kentucky’s Democratic primary in May, a primary that saw Clinton just hold on to win the state. In the primary, Clinton won the state’s population centers — Louisville, Lexington and Northern Kentucky — while Sanders won most of the rural counties, performing especially well in areas hard hit by the decline of coal.
In its post, fivethirtyeight.com notes that “85 percent of the major-party vote in Elliott County in 2012 was from non-college-educated white voters — the demographic group among which Trump is strongest. Even a small shift among those voters toward Trump could win him the county.”
It’s the same demographic shift that has made Eastern Kentucky a prime battleground in the race for control of the state House.
“The folks in Eastern Kentucky are very frustrated with Obama and that translates down to Hillary Clinton and that translates down to Democratic House leadership,” House Minority Leader Jeff Hoover, R-Jamestown, said in a recent Herald-Leader article on the House campaign battles in the region.
As that article also noted, registered Democrats still outnumber Republicans in many Eastern Kentucky counties such as Pike, Breathitt, Knott, Perry and Harlan. In 2000, all five of those counties voted for Democratic Presidential Candidate Al Gore. Then Harlan and Perry counties voted for President George W. Bush in 2004 and all five voted for U.S. Sen. John McCain in 2008 and former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012.
Elliott County remains overwhelmingly Democratic in its registration, with 4,580 registered Democrats and 429 registered Republicans.
But could 2016 be the year when it, too, votes red?
This story was originally published October 26, 2016 at 4:37 PM with the headline "This county has always picked a Democrat for president. Could it go for Trump?."