Presidential Voting Regions of the Northern Great Plains: No Need for an East Dakota and West Dakota

Authors

Robert H. Watrel, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Erin Hogan Fouberg, Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, VA

Date of this Version

Spring 2000

Comments

Published in Great Plains Research 10 (Spring 2000): 189-213. Copyright © 2000 The Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Used by permission. http://www.unl.edu/plains/publications/GPR/gpr.shtml

Abstract

In South Dakota and North Dakota, political pundits, journalists, politicians, academics, and citizens often reduce political questions to an east-west divide. Here we statistically examine whether an east-west divide occurred in presidential voting behavior in the Northern Great Plains over the last century. We found that there were four presidential voting regions in South Dakota and North Dakota. These presidential voting regions reflect the economic, ancestral, and political cultures and landscapes of this area of the Northern Great Plains.