The idea of a political bellwether is a concept of a place or person who consistently predicts the results of elections. American politics has a particular focus on political bellwethers for the US Presidential race; districts or towns that have voted for the winning presidential candidate constantly over the decades.

No single state can claim to have cast its electoral votes for only winning candidates, but one gets close.

Missouri has cast its electoral votes for only winning candidates since 1904 with only four exceptions. This idea is known as the Missouri bellwether phenomenon.

From 1904 to 2004, the state of Missouri voted for only winning candidates with a single exception: the 1956 presidential election where the state narrowly picked Adlai Stevenson over Dwight D. Eisenhower by a margin of just over 0.2%

That status was a bellwether is largely no longer still considered relevant with Missouri casting electoral votes for three more losing candidates in the last 20 years in 2008, 2012, and 2020 respectively.

A handful of counties, however remain across the country that have been calling presidential races for decades. They include Vigo County, Indiana, Ferry County, Washington, and Lincoln County, Missouri. These counties have selected the winning US Presidential candidate since 1960.

In Minnesota, Nicollet County, just southwest of the Twin Cities Metro has selected winning candidates for president since 1980 with only a single exception: the county voted for John Kerry in 2000.

So how is Hastings’ track record as a bellwether municipality?

Comparing voter data from Hastings precincts from the Minnesota Secretary of State against federal numbers from the Federal Election Commission shows that in the twenty-first century, Hastings doesn’t have a strong track record of picking winning candidates.

In the seven presidential elections since the turn of the century, Hastings residents have split their votes almost evenly, with the majority of residents voting for four Democrats and three Republicans (all of whom were President Donald Trump). It’s record of selecting winners is equally mixed with the majority of the city’s votes going to only four of the last seven winning candidates.

A majority of Hastings voters chose three losing candidates since 2000. A majority of Hastings voters never selected President George W. Bush overall in both the 2000 and 2004 election where he would go on to win, and chose President Trump in the 2020 election where he would go on to lose.

Since the 2000, Hastings voters aren’t quite indicative of the country at large.

That being said, there is a compelling argument about the trajectory of Hastings voters in that timeframe.

What is particularly striking is that in 2008, Hastings voters matched national data to within a single point. Roughly 52.04% of Hastings voters chose Barrak Obama, just below the national rate of 52.93%, with 45.51% of Hastings voters casting votes for John McCain, almost exactly the same amount as the national margin of 45.65%.

Before 2008, Hastings voters chose Democratic presidential candidates at higher rates than the national average in 2000 and 2004. Since 2008, however, Hastings voters have chosen Republican candidates at a higher rate than the national average without exception. The largest difference was in 2016 where Hastings voters cast votes for Hillary Clinton at a rate 7.56% lower than the national average, choosing Trump by a margin 3.51% higher than the national average.

Based on presidential data, 2008 can be potentially seen as an inflection point for Hastings voters.

That being said, it doesn’t take a political scientist to say that politics has changed pretty rapidly in the last decade. Traditional coalitions for each party have been reshaped changing the broad landscape of American politics. This shift is neatly demonstrated by how Missouri is no longer a consistent bellwether for the first time in a century.

So how did Hastings fare as a bellwether before the year 2000?

Looking back at the seven elections before 2000, a majority of Hastings voters selected three winning presidential candidates: Jimmy Carter in 1976, and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996.

With those numbers, for the past 50 years, Hastings voters have an exactly 50% rate of choosing a winning candidate.

In this timeframe, Hastings voters chose Democratic candidates at higher rates than national numbers.

The farthest that Hastings voters differed from national numbers perhaps unsurprisingly is in the 1980 presidential election where President Ronald Regan won with 58.77% of the popular vote. Only 35.52% of Hastings voters cast votes for Reagan in that election, more than 20 points below the national average. At that same time, 53.66% of Hastings voters cast votes for Jimmy Carter more than ten points above the national average of 41.01% of the popular vote.

In the next presidential election in 1984, Minnesota would be the only state in the country to not cast its electoral college votes to Reagan. Hastings voters again would echo the trend from 1980.

Sufficed to say, in the last 50 years Hastings is not an accurate bellwether for presidential elections.