Future voting patterns....

[Senator Ben]

My guess for a 50/50 election in 2020:

[pbrower2a]

Let's look at a contrast between the 1976 and 2000 elections, the one preceding the Reagan 1980 landslide and the one following the Clinton 1996 landslide:



blue          Ford 1976/Bush 2000
red           Carter 1976/Gore 2000
green       Carter 1976/Dubya 2000
orange     Ford 1976/Gore 2000

If there is such a thing as a realignment, it happens under the cover of landslide elections during which the real action is somewhere other than the Presidency -- Congressional elections, and state and local elections.
 

[Senator Ben]

New Mexico voted for Gore in 2000.

[realisticidealist]

New Mexico voted for Gore in 2000.

It also voted for Ford in 1976...

[Californian Tony]

Here is my map.



269/269 : perfect tie

However, I don't like so much doing this sort of map, we can't really know how will the states vote. The more usefull stuff is to do a trend map. I did 6 maps showing the possible trend in this topic http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=94836.0.

[pbrower2a]

re: New Mexico, 1976 and 2000:

Corrections have been made.

[War on Want]

[Smash255]

It's just an educated guess. My thoughts are, that while Latino's start breaking hard Democrat, African-Americans will start trending Republican. Now, we won't win the black vote, but it won't be a landslide. Maybe, 65-35. Therefore, we won't lose by as much in cites such as Chicago or New York. As states around it start trending Republican, I suspect it will too! It's the only state in that area that is a solid Democrat. Something has to give.
The Republican party will become much more moderate, appealing to whites in places such as Connecticut. The Democrat party will be dominated by older liberals and Latino's. Connecticut is a stretch, but once again, this is only a guess. Utah could be voting Democrat in 20 years...

The person you support for VP in 2012 is as psycho as it gets, yet you still believe the GOP will become more moderate?  They have to in order to have a chance, but the GOP is showing no signs of moving that way.  How will the GOP get 35% of the African American vote?

[Devilman88]

[pbrower2a]

It's just an educated guess. My thoughts are, that while Latino's start breaking hard Democrat, African-Americans will start trending Republican. Now, we won't win the black vote, but it won't be a landslide. Maybe, 65-35. Therefore, we won't lose by as much in cites such as Chicago or New York. As states around it start trending Republican, I suspect it will too! It's the only state in that area that is a solid Democrat. Something has to give.
The Republican party will become much more moderate, appealing to whites in places such as Connecticut. The Democrat party will be dominated by older liberals and Latino's. Connecticut is a stretch, but once again, this is only a guess. Utah could be voting Democrat in 20 years...

The person you support for VP in 2012 is as psycho as it gets, yet you still believe the GOP will become more moderate?  They have to in order to have a chance, but the GOP is showing no signs of moving that way.  How will the GOP get 35% of the African American vote?

The only way in which I can imagine the GOP winning a significant number of blacks over to its side will be to run "Clean Government" candidates against corrupt urban machines -- politicians sure to be liberal, but what the heck? If urban and suburban white people aren't voting for conservative "small government, just keep taxes low no matter how bad the public services get" politicians, then black people aren't going to vote for such types, either.  The GOP will have to support candidates for school boards, city council seats, elected sheriffs, and the like, and many of those will never reach high offices. But what the heck? There's nothing wrong with a corrupt Democratic machine (such as that in Detroit) that a few Republican reformers can't improve. Of course it will take a decade or two for some young reformer as a member of a school board or a city council becomes a Congressional Representative with an incongruous "(R)" following a name... but that looks like the best way in which to get any GOP presence in bailiwicks that now have practically none. 

There will be a price to pay for some GOP constituencies, most notably the dilution of the conservative element within the Party, to which one must ask the question whether it's so great to lose elections just to maintain ideological purity. Heck, Commies seem to be very satisfied with their candidates and their ideological purity, but they just don't win elections.