Why did the American West become more politically conservative by the 60's?

Apparently, when the feds passed a law cracking down in Utah polygamy, they also used the occassion to stamp out female suffrage in the state as well.

One could argue that that was possibly a net gain for feminism, since women in polygamous families were probably just gonna vote as ordered to by their husbands. YMMV.
 
I think 1980 is well worth looking at. Reagan won 51% of the popular vote nationwide (people forget how thin the popular majority was since Carter only got 41% with Anderson winning most of the balance). The Republicans won enough Senate seats to get majority, including

Frank Church of Idaho losing re-election, I think because he was the main guy shepherding the Panama Canal Treaty through the Senate,

and George McGovern of South Dakota lost re-election.

===============

I've started a thread:

AHC: George McGovern wins re-election to U.S. Senate in 1980.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ins-re-election-to-u-s-senate-in-1980.450964/
 
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The old joke was 'Too much Democrat, not enough Farmer-Labor'

Also Outstate DFL'ers were often more socially Conservative than your typical St. Paul big business Republican.

Not exactly happy that Walz 'evolved' his NRA rating from A to F

Well, Waltz is a current event so I don't think we can discuss the specifics, but you've really got the general sentiment. It's the difference between the "hard hats" (labor Dems, who more align with the Sanders platform for those who need a frame of reference) and the "suburban socialists" that lead to a lot of the drift away from the Dems in flyover country.
 
I think 1980 is well worth looking at. Reagan won 51% of the popular vote nationwide (people forget how thin popular majority was since Carter only got 41% with Anderson winning most of the balance).

IMO using the 51% figure to minimize Reagan's majority in 1980 is dubious because it assumes that Anderson's vote would otherwise have gone to Carter. As Newsweek reported at the time, "John Anderson's impact on the race was largely overshadowed by the broad-based Reagan landslide. It was in one sense tempting to view him as a spoiler; Anderson's vote was actually greater than Reagan's margin of victory in thirteen states, among them New York, Wisconsin, North-Carolina and Connecticut. But had Anderson not run, Carter would have picked up barely half (49 per cent) of his vote; 37 per cent of Anderson voters said they would have backed Reagan." https://www.salon.com/2011/04/04/third_party_myth_easterbrook/
 
Florida Voters in 2000 Election
(showing third party voters toward middle of liberal-conservative spectrum!)
19-Figure2-1.png



[Election Day Partisanship on horizontal axis]

Okay, so Gore supporters are represented by circles, Bush supporters by squares. And weirdly, both Nader and Buchanan voters are in the middle.

And this is a political science study that looked at electronic snapshots of actual ballots including the down-ticket voting.


http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/lewis/pdf/greenreform9.pdf
 
All the same, with Reagan winning 51% in 1980 (50.7%), I agree with the people who say Reagan had not so much a mandate as an opportunity.
 
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