Editing Aiken County, South Carolina (section)

===Politics===
Aiken County was one of the first counties in South Carolina to break away from a "Solid South" voting pattern. It has gone Republican in every presidential election since 1956. It even rejected [[southern Democrats]] such as [[Lyndon Johnson]] of [[Texas]], [[Jimmy Carter]] of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], [[Bill Clinton]] of [[Arkansas]] or [[Al Gore]] of [[Tennessee]]. Carter is the last Democrat to manage even 40 percent of the county's vote. However, it has trended more liberal in recent years, giving [[Bob Dole]] in 1996 a greater proportion of the vote than [[Donald Trump]] in 2016, despite Dole losing decisively to Bill Clinton nationally, and Donald Trump [[List of United States presidential elections by Electoral College margin| winning the Electoral College 304-227]].

The Republican trend runs through the local level as well. While conservative Democrats held most state and local offices well into the 1990s, today there are almost no elected Democrats left above the county level.

{{PresHead|place=Aiken County, South Carolina|whig=no|source1=<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 13, 2018}}</ref>}}
<!-- PresRow should be {{PresRow|Year|Winning party|GOP/Whig vote #|Dem vote #|3rd party vote #|State}} -->
{{PresRow|2024|Republican|53,592|31,298|1,201|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|2020|Republican|51,589|32,275|1,321|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|2016|Republican|46,025|25,455|3,371|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|2012|Republican|44,042|25,322|999|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|2008|Republican|42,849|26,101|820|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|2004|Republican|39,077|19,799|616|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|2000|Republican|33,203|16,409|1,170|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1996|Republican|26,539|14,314|2,221|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1992|Republican|25,731|14,802|6,245|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1988|Republican|27,665|10,598|244|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1984|Republican|25,872|9,892|369|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1980|Republican|18,570|13,014|785|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1976|Republican|16,011|14,927|235|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1972|Republican|21,117|5,745|545|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1968|Republican|12,264|6,319|8,815|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1964|Republican|17,467|7,622|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1960|Republican|10,715|6,674|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1956|Republican|6,195|4,280|1,821|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1952|Democratic|4,282|4,346|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1948|Dixiecrat|115|572|4,612|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1944|Democratic|60|2,403|170|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1940|Democratic|89|2,772|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1936|Democratic|35|3,298|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1932|Democratic|47|3,346|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1928|Democratic|242|1,308|3|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1924|Democratic|16|1,488|5|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1920|Democratic|64|1,649|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1916|Democratic|26|1,750|11|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1912|Democratic|2|1,452|4|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1908|Democratic|48|1,990|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1904|Democratic|35|1,672|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1900|Democratic|53|1,470|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1896|Democratic|137|1,819|11|South Carolina}}
{{PresFoot|1892|Democratic|396|1,802|70|South Carolina}}