Red, White, and Blue: How E.C. Has Voted Over the Past 150+ Years
from Lincoln to Biden, here’s who local voters favored
In recent decades, the City of Eau Claire and Eau Claire County as a whole have been reliably Democratic-leaning, at least when it comes to presidential politics.
That’s in stark contrast to Eau Claire’s earliest days, when the majority of voters were Republicans. In fact, between 1860 – the first presidential election that voters from the newly formed Eau Claire County participated in – and 1920, Eau Claire County favored Republican presidential candidates every four years. In 1924, Eau Claire County picked Progressive candidate (and fellow Wisconsinite) Robert M. La Follette for president, and in the ensuing 60 years switched frequently between Republican and Democratic majorities.
In 1984, Ronald Reagan became the last Republican to get the majority of Eau Claire County’s vote. Since then, the city and county have gone to Democratic nominees.
The chart above shows the preferred candidate of voters in all of Eau Claire County in each presidential election for which records exist. In some cases, separating city and county vote totals is difficult with historical records.
