When will we see Michigan vote Republican again?

[DS0816]

While not the most liberal state, Michigan has not voted Republican since 1988, but now people are seriously saying this state will flip in the next couple of elections, due to the Midwest trends.
Under which circumstances would we see Michigan vote Republican?

That's because the people saying so have no idea.

[DS0816]

It isn't hugely D, but it isn't trending R either. Here's the D% in Michigan compared to their national share of the vote the past few elections.

2000: +2.9%
2004: +3.0%
2008: +4.5%
2012: +3.0%

I'd say the tipping point is >Obama 2012 margin of victory, but <Obama 2008 margin. aka GOP wins something like 52-46.

Whole-number estimates, Michigan has performed since 1992 (the year it officially decamped from a base Republican to a base Democratic presidential state) more bluer than the national margins with the following:

1992: D+2
1996: D+5
2000: D+5
2004: D+6
2008: D+9
2012: D+6


Given the Democrats have won the popular vote in all those elections, minus 2004, a Republican is going to have to win nationally by a large national margin (six points may or may not be enough), with base support from the Old Confederacy states, and then see what he/she can get from states that do not normally identify with the party.

If Michigan were to become flipped for such a given Republican-winning presidential election, so too would a host of other states which historically carry the same routinely in presidential elections.

The Republicans have not won the popular vote by a margin greater than George. W. Bush's R+2.46, from 2004, and they haven't once nationally carried the female vote since George Bush in 1988, the very year that Michigan and a host of other states—which haven't carried once for the GOP since after the 1980s—was last in the column for Team Red.

In its voting history, dating back to 1836, Michigan has participated in 45 presidential elections. It carried for the winner in 34 of them. It carried for popular-vote winner Al Gore in 2000. (And, yes, I would give half-credit to states which carried for popular-vote winners because normally a prevailing presidential candidate clears the threshold there and with the Electoral College.) That is right around 75 percent. And there are states with even better records—ones with Michigan routinely carries the same in presidential elections. An example is Pennsylvania, which actually rates in the 80s and is a remarkable companion state. (They've disagreed only in five cycles. Three of them involved a major-party nominee whose home state was one of these two who did not carry the other state. The other two occurrences were during the Franklin Roosevelt era when both states carried three times but colored red not timed for the cycle.)

Michigan is a state that has carried for the winner on average three of every four election cycles. And it is an example, in a realigning presidential period now favoring the Democrats, where having your base in the Old Confederacy (by comparison, Texas's record is historically in the 50-percentile range) is at the disadvantage. The Republican Party of Lincoln, Teddy, and Ike had their base in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. Now the Republican Party has its base in states like Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama.

The Republican Party will not have Michigan become a base state for the party, once again, unless the Old Confederacy realigns back to the Democratic Party. Realignments inside both parties would have to happen for that to become feasible.

[DS0816]

Michigan is a swing state that always seems to go D at the last minute, kind of like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown.  I could see it going for a Republican in 2016 with the right candidate (like Christie or Huntsman.)

Michigan's "swing state" label was more closely appropriate in description with how it performed in 1984 and 1988, giving Republican carriage to the re-election of Ronald Reagan, from the former, and the promotion from vice president to president, in the latter case, with George Bush.

Corporate media loved hanging onto that for a good two decades later.

That's a joke. The 1992 election was a counter to the Old Confederacy moving from the Democratic to Republican side as party identification and recognition of base of support. The "north" countered. You look at the past elections and you will know what I'm talking about. (If you're being accurate, you will note what I'm talking about.)

When the Republican Party first competed in 1856, Michgian didn't carry for another Democrat until Franklin Roosevelt unseated Herbert Hoover in 1932. And nationally while Roosevelt won by 17/18 points, he pulled in Michigan with a margin of around 8 points. So, from 1856 to 1928, Michigan not once carried for a Democrat. That was 19 election cycles. Now that the Republicans haven't carried Michigan since 1988 (and the same can be said of the "Blue Firewall" states), we have seen six consecutive election cycles in which Michigan has said no to Republican presidential candidates. That Michigan being Mitt Romney's birth state meant even less than Wisconsin being Paul Ryan's home state.

[DS0816]

The Republicans will win it again, but not in the next 2 presidential elections.

Perhaps that will happen when Vermont also carries Republican just as Alabama and Mississippi move to carry for the Democrats. "But not in the next 2 presidential elections" in okay, for the time being, answer.