Why is Indiana so conservative for its region?

What are the historical reasons for Indiana being so much more conservative than neighbouring states like Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan that seem to otherwise be quite similar?
 
Less big cities, so stronger suburbs, and it's more Southern, like Missouri, Kentucky and South Illinois. Unions are also a lot weaker, which reinforces the conservative cycle.
 
Indiana and Wisconsin both have similar sized urban populations: 65%. I appreciate it's more "Southern", but what's the cause of that relative to, say, Ohio?
 
Indiana and Wisconsin both have similar sized urban populations: 65%. I appreciate it's more "Southern", but what's the cause of that relative to, say, Ohio?
I'd question how liberal Wisconsin is outside of the large cities like Madison, just look at the fiasco of the recall votes.
 
Indiana is the most rural midwestern state, which tends to make a region more conservative. It's also farm-heavy, which in American politics tends to mean more pro-Republican, for some reason. (I still don't get why farmers vote Republican, but that's for a different thread, I'm sure)
 
Because it doesn't have a Detroit/Chicago equivalent of a massive metropolitan area dragging the entire state to the left?
 
Because it doesn't have a Detroit/Chicago equivalent of a massive metropolitan area dragging the entire state to the left?

Neither does Ohio really. Looking at the data, Indiana seems only slightly less urbanised than other parts of the rustbelt, yet is much more conservative.
 
I'd question how liberal Wisconsin is outside of the large cities like Madison, just look at the fiasco of the recall votes.

Outside Milwaukeee, Madison, Racine and Kenosha Wisconsin is a conservative state. The recall did nothing but strengthen Scott Walker for that very reason.
 
The most comparable state to Indiana is probably Ohio. But Ohio is less rural, has a little more black population, and its white population is a little more descended from Eastern and Southern European ethnics than is Indiana's (another way of stating this last point is that Ohio whites are more Catholic than Indiana whites). Indiana's economy is doing better and has for awhile, so it has more suburb growth and younger families with children. Both are correlated with voting more Republican.
 
Neither does Ohio really. Looking at the data, Indiana seems only slightly less urbanised than other parts of the rustbelt, yet is much more conservative.

But Ohio does have three mid-sized metropolitan areas (Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati) that combined have the same effect as a big metro area like a Detroit or Chicago.

Also, I'm not sure Indiana has been all that conservative compared to neighboring states over history. While we have tended to vote Republican in presidential elections, we haven't had that many more Republican governors than Democratic governors in the 20th/21st centuries (14 R to 11 D), and our Congressional delegation has usually been evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. So we have been slightly more conservative, for the reasons given among others, but not drastically out of step with neighboring states.
 
But Ohio does have three mid-sized metropolitan areas (Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati) that combined have the same effect as a big metro area like a Detroit or Chicago.

The big gap isn't just between urban and rural but between big city and small city. I read somewhere that metro's over 1 million vote Democrat 60/40, between 100,000 and 1 million 55/45 and under 100,000 favour Republicans 55/40 with rural areas 60/40 in the Republicans favour. So if most of Indiana's urban residents live in small cities they are likely to be more Republican leaning than a similar urban resident in Chicago.
 
The most comparable state to Indiana is probably Ohio. But Ohio is less rural, has a little more black population, and its white population is a little more descended from Eastern and Southern European ethnics than is Indiana's (another way of stating this last point is that Ohio whites are more Catholic than Indiana whites). Indiana's economy is doing better and has for awhile, so it has more suburb growth and younger families with children. Both are correlated with voting more Republican.

There is a great deal of truth to this, but the histories of each state are quite different. Through much of the 20th Century, Ohio was one of the nation's megastates; it was heavily industrialized and, beginning in the New Deal era, highly unionized. At one point, Cleveland was the fifth largest city in the nation. Even today, despite the decline of Cleveland, Ohio has three Metropolitan Statistical Areas (Cinicnnati, Cleveland and Columbus) that are larger than Indianapolis. And, as you note, Ohio was far more of a destination for immigrants early in the century, many of whom were from Eastern Europe, drawn there by an abundance of factory jobs in urban areas. Toledo, Cleveland, Akron and Youngstown drew many of them.

By comparison, Indiana never reached the level of industrialization or urbanization of Ohio. More importantly, Indiana politics was never influenced by unionization to the degree Ohio was and, along the I-80 corridor, still is.

These trends all created something of a divergence in the politics of each state in the first few decades of the 1900s; Indiana remained predominantly Republican while Ohio achieved something close to parity as urban Democrats grew in number.
 
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