General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Ranchers who supported Tea Party shutdown stunned at lack of federal aid. [View all]hatrack
(64,989 posts)The brunt of the snowstorm was borne by eight counties, collectively making up about one-quarter of the state.

In the absence of county legends on the NOAA map above, here's a substitute, with the names of each county:

So (from north to south), Harding, Perkins, Butte, Meade, Lawrence (the small one on the left), Pennington (the long, vaguely hatchet-shaped one), Custer and Shannon. Fall River, in the extreme SW corner, didn't get all that much snow, so I'm leaving it out.
So, how did they vote?
Presidential Election, 2012
Butte - 1002 Obama/Biden, 3073 Romney/Ryan
Custer - 1335 Obama/Biden, 3062 Romney/Ryan
Harding - 82 Obama/Biden, 638 Romney/Ryan
Lawrence - 3973 Obama/Biden, 7025 Romney/Ryan
Meade - 2928 Obama/Biden, 7566 Romney/Ryan
Pennington - 15125 Obama/Biden, 28232 Romney/Ryan
Perkins - 319 Obama/Biden, 1205 Romney/Ryan
Shannon - 2937 Obama/Biden, 188 Romney/Ryan
US House of Representatives, 2012
Butte - 3100 Noem (R), 1089 Varilek (D)
Custer - 3068 Noem, 1417 Varilek
Harding - 642 Noem, 90 Varilek
Lawrence - 7075 Noem, 4204 Varilek
Meade - 7692 Noem, 3028 Varilek
Pennington - 28418 Noem, 15516 Varilek
Perkins - 1197 Noem, 369 Varilek
Shannon - 504 Noem, 2599 Varilek
http://sdsos.gov/content/html/elections/electvoterpdfs/2012/GeneralElectionDocs/2012generalelectionstatewidecandidatesbycounty.pdf
IOW, 13 out of every twenty ballots cast in the region for either Democrats or Republicans went to a ticket featuring the "intellectual father" of austerity in the form of Paul Ryan, or a House candidate who ran on a platform of working even harder to repeal Obama care. On edit - and that's including Shannon, an overwhelmingly Democratic county for decades.