sentences:  Between its first election in 1840, and 1852, it always favored the Whig Party, and although Whiteside was not as strong for the Free Soil Party as counties to the east like Boone and Lake, it gave substantial votes to that party in 1848 and 1852 and became powerfully Republican for the next century-and-a-quarter.Between 1856 and 1988 the only time Whiteside County did not vote for the Republican candidate was in 1912 when the GOP was mortally divided and Whiteside County voted for Progressive Party nominee and former President Theodore Roosevelt over conservative incumbent William Howard Taft.Between at least 1880 and 1960, no Democratic Presidential nominee ever won forty percent of Whiteside County's vote, and even Alf Landon in 1936 carried the county by 22 percent when losing 46 of 48 states.