Editing Hancock County, Georgia (section)

==Politics==
Hancock County has been one of the most consistently Democratic counties in the entire nation since the Civil War. But the composition of the party voters and policies they support have undergone major changes since the late twentieth century, switching from whites to African Americans.

The majority of county voters have voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in every election since 1852 except that of 1972, when [[George McGovern]] lost every county in Georgia. McGovern did perform better here than elsewhere in the state, losing by only 93 votes. Apart from [[Richard Nixon]] in that election, [[Barry Goldwater]] in 1964 was one of only two Republicans since at least 1912 to gain 30 percent of the county's vote.<ref>Scammon, Richard M. (compiler); ''America at the Polls: A Handbook of Presidential Election statistics 1920-1964'', pp. 97, 100, 103, 106, 109 {{ISBN|0405077114}}</ref> That year, most of the county's African-American majority was still largely [[Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction era|disenfranchised]] and could not vote at all. The conservative white minority favored Goldwater because its traditional Democratic loyalties had frayed. In 2024, [[Donald Trump]] also managed to break 30% of the vote, the strongest showing for a Republican since 1972.

In 1980 Hancock County gave "[[favorite son]]" candidate [[Jimmy Carter]] his second highest vote share in the nation.<ref>Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas; [http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/stats.php?year=1980&f=0&off=0&elect=0 1980 Presidential Election Statistics]</ref> In 1984 it supported [[Walter Mondale]], who won more than 76.6 percent of Hancock County ballots, making it his fourth-best county outside the District of Columbia. He was otherwise within 3,819 votes of losing all fifty states.<ref>Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas; [http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/stats.php?year=1984&f=0&off=0&elect=0 1984 Presidential Election Statistics]</ref>

{{PresHead|place=Hancock County, Georgia|source=<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS|title=Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections|last=Leip|first=David|website=uselectionatlas.org|access-date=March 20, 2018}}</ref>}}
<!-- PresRow should be {{PresRow|Year|Winning party|GOP vote #|Dem vote #|3rd party vote #|State}} -->
{{PresRow|2024|Democratic|1,364|2,864|12|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|2020|Democratic|1,154|2,976|23|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|2016|Democratic|843|2,701|44|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|2012|Democratic|769|3,308|13|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|2008|Democratic|795|3,535|18|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|2004|Democratic|822|2,715|18|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|2000|Democratic|662|2,414|10|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1996|Democratic|438|2,135|73|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1992|Democratic|506|2,461|190|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1988|Democratic|621|1,947|21|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1984|Democratic|644|2,109|0|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1980|Democratic|573|2,205|31|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1976|Democratic|651|2,117|0|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1972|Republican|1,595|1,502|0|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1968|Democratic|381|2,165|1,104|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1964|Democratic|925|1,074|0|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1960|Democratic|286|780|0|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1956|Democratic|354|860|0|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1952|Democratic|267|1,245|0|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1948|Democratic|111|441|220|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1944|Democratic|109|380|0|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1940|Democratic|153|501|1|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1936|Democratic|57|504|9|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1932|Democratic|18|529|4|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1928|Democratic|118|552|0|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1924|Democratic|22|272|14|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1920|Democratic|53|498|0|Georgia}}
{{PresRow|1916|Democratic|30|562|22|Georgia}}
{{PresFoot|1912|Democratic|13|549|39|Georgia}}