As is typical of southwestern Oregon, Jackson County leans toward the Republican Party in presidential elections, although the presence of a substantial student body at Ashland means Democrats get a larger proportion of the vote in statewide elections than in any other county south of the Willamette Valley. No Democratic presidential candidate has won an absolute majority in Jackson County since Lyndon Johnson’s landslide in 1964, although Bill Clinton in 1992 and Barack Obama in 2008 both obtained narrow pluralities–in both cases, carrying the county by fewer than 500 votes.