[2] The county was founded in 1874 and is named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

As of the 2010 census, Lee County has a similar ethnic makeup compared to the overall United States.

It nonetheless voted Democratic in every election up to 1976 except the landslide Republican triumphs of 1956 and 1972, plus the heavily war-influenced elections of 1916 and 1940, when its German-American population was suspicious of the Democratic Party's position towards Germany.

Since 1980, like all of the rural white South, Lee County has become powerfully Republican.

In the past five elections, the GOP candidate has always passed two-thirds of the county's vote and Donald Trump exceeded three-quarters in 2016, 2020, and 2024.

[12] As of 2004[update], the Giddings State School was Lee County's largest employer.