| Alas, the presidential election is again fast
approaching. And whether you deal in hard money or
soft---donkeys or elephants---we will shortly be besieged with
the quadrennial supplications of candidates who claim to have
the unique ability to save the country (if not the world).
In honor of the occasion, we will return to a subject first
discussed in the Fall 1992 number of the Miners Journal .
In that issue, Jo Daviess County was surveyed for the twenty-two
presidential elections between Lincoln's victory in 1860, and
Franklin Roosevelt's third run in 1944. Statistical data was
presented and conclusions drawn about the voting behavior of the
county and its individual townships. We will now complete that
survey, examining the elections from the Truman-Dewey contest of
1948, to the Clinton-Dole skirmish just four short years ago.
For those political junkies who missed the original article, the
good folks at the Galena History Museum have added it to this
History Highlights section.
Jo Daviess County continued to follow the
Republicans---eleven of the thirteen elections going to the
candidates of the GOP. Overall, the party received an average of
59% of the total vote (3% more than during the period
1860-1944). Twelve townships were carried by Republican
candidates in every election, 1948-1996. In terms of voting
percentages, Woodbine Township was the Republican stronghold,
the party receiving an average of 73% of the vote to the
Democrats 23%---a margin of 50%. Rush, Derinda and Pleasant
Valley were also GOP stalwarts, the party garnering over 70% of
the ballots.
Stockton has the distinction of being the only township to be
carried by the Republicans every election 1860-1996. Elizabeth
Township's string of Republican triumphs was broken only in
1964, when Lyndon Johnson received a mere five more votes than
Barry Goldwater.
The two successful Democratic candidates in Jo Daviess County
were Johnson in 1964, and Bill Clinton in 1996. However, their
party received just 37% of the county's vote in the thirteen
elections surveyed. The strength of the Democratic Party
remained centered in the northwestern corner of the county---an
area dominated by Catholic voters and by nearby Democratic
Dubuque, Iowa. Two townships were statistically Democratic:
Dunleith (59% of the vote), and Menominee (53% of the vote).
Several other townships, i.e. Rawlins, Vinegar Hill and West
Galena, were statistical ties between the two major parties.
The Democratic powerhouse of the 1860-1944 survey, Menominee
Township, showed a drop of 25% in its Democratic vote---and was
actually carried by the GOP in nearly half of the elections
1948-1996. Dunleith Township showed a 6% rise in its Democratic
voting percentage, and a 22% victory margin over the GOP.
Three "Third Party" campaigns showed significant
strength in Jo Daviess County: The 1980 run by former
Congressman John Anderson (11% of the county vote); and the 1992
and 1996 campaigns of Reform Party's Ross Perot (20% and 12%
respect-ively). The 1968 campaign of George Wallace received a
negligible percentage of county votes. If one township was
"independent-minded," it was Vinegar Hill. Anderson
received 29% of the township's vote---and Perot actually carried
the township in 1992 with 43% of the ballots cast.
And did the county go with the winners? Jo Daviess supported
nine of the thirteen successful presidential candidates. Those
men attaining the office without carrying the county were: Harry
Truman (1948), John Kennedy (1960), Jimmy Carter (1976) and Bill
Clinton (1992)---all Democrats.
The favorite candidate of Jo Daviess was Republican Dwight
Eisenhower, who in 1952 garnered 76% of the vote. And the least
popular candidate was Eisenhower's opponent Adlai Stevenson, who
could muster only 27% of the county's vote in the elections of
1952 and 1956.
Finally, if Jo Daviess County had a
"representative" township in the course of this
survey, it was Scales Mound. Its voting percentages most closely
matched the county as a whole---as did its two Democratic
victories in thirteen elections. So, perhaps, as Scales Mound
goes, so goes Jo Daviess. What will 2000 bring?
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