The symbol of the Democratic Party. Courtesy | Wikimedia

Has Hillsdale County always voted Republican? 

Since the formation of the Republican Party in 1854 — a year after Michigan Central College moved from Spring Arbor to Hillsdale and became Hillsdale College — Republicans have won a majority or plurality of Hillsdale County’s votes in all but two presidential elections: in 1912, when Progressive Theodore Roosevelt won a 47% plurality and in 1964, when Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson won the county by 144 votes over Republican Barry Goldwater. 

Paul Porter, who served from 1975 to 1978, was the last Democratic state representative from Hillsdale County. 

How does Trump’s popularity compare to previous Republican candidates?

President-elect Donald Trump is the only candidate in Hillsdale County history to win more than 70% of the vote in three consecutive elections. The last candidate before Trump to win more than 70% of the vote was Ronald Reagan in 1984. Dwight Eisenhower is the only other candidate to win more than 70% of the vote in consecutive elections, in 1952 and 1956. 

Four Republican candidates who won more than 70% of the Hillsdale County vote still lost Michigan: Wendel Wilkie in 1940, Thomas Dewey in 1944, Richard Nixon in 1960, and Donald Trump in 2020. 

How often does Hillsdale County support the same candidate as the rest of Michigan? 

Hillsdale County has supported the same presidential candidate as the rest of Michigan in 31 of the last 43 elections. Of the 12 elections in which a different candidate won the state, seven were in the last nine presidential elections. 

The election of 1892 was the only time Michigan split its electors, giving nine electors to Benjamin Harrison and five electors to Grover Cleveland. After a law passed that prohibited faithless electors, every other election has followed the “winner takes all” system, giving all the electors to the candidate with a majority or plurality of the state’s vote. 

Who is the most popular candidate in Hillsdale County’s electoral history? 

In 1928, Republican Herbert Hoover beat Democrat Al Smith, the governor of New York and the namesake of the political event that Vice President Harris chose to skip last month, when she broke a modern tradition of the candidates from both parties making an appearance. Hoover captured 81 percent of Hillsdale County’s vote and defeated Smith by 62 points — the highest percentage and margin in county history. Hoover won Michigan with 70% of the vote. 

Trump’s 17,037 votes in 2020 were the most ever in county history — until he beat his own record this week with 18,627. 

Sourced through Election Atlas.

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