By Karen Clem Fritz
County Historian
As county residents gear up to participate in another presidential election in 2020, one that has become notably contentious, it’s fascinating to look back at how Pulaski County voted in its early years.
A year after the county’s establishment, in November 1840, Pulaski County residents favored, in a 60-51 vote, Democrat Martin Van Buren over Whig William Henry Harrison (victor of the Battle of Tippecanoe). Harrison won the election but died a month following his inauguration. Four years later Pulaski County voted 124-123 for Democrat James Polk over Whig Henry Clay in a race that was also very close nationally, won by Polk.
Pulaski County residents also voted for the Democrat candidate over the Whig/Republican candidate in eight of the following nine presidential elections through 1880. Yes, that means the county voted against Abraham Lincoln in both 1860 and 1864. The local vote was decisive (1860: Douglas 632, Lincoln 488; and 1864: McClellan 718, Lincoln 488).
Pulaski County residents narrowly picked a Republican in 1872, voting 640-634 for Ulysses Grant over Liberal Republican/Democrat Horace Greeley. (The Republican Party split into two factions that year – it’s complicated!). But the county voted against Grant in 1868, and it returned to Democrats in 1876 and 1880.
Source: Counties of White and Pulaski, Indiana Historical and Biographical. (Published 1883).