Lean Partisan States that Consistently Voted Partisan for an "era", or more.
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  Lean Partisan States that Consistently Voted Partisan for an "era", or more.
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Author Topic: Lean Partisan States that Consistently Voted Partisan for an "era", or more.  (Read 2323 times)
Mechaman
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« on: September 04, 2012, 04:41:22 PM »
« edited: September 04, 2012, 05:06:44 PM by James Badass Monroe »

This is an interesting thread idea I got after looking at some historical data for Minnesota, which everyone and their grandmother knows hasn't voted Republican since 1972.  The idea behind this is to bring up states that are only lean partisan (defined as rarely going over 20 percentage points or more for a party) that have managed to in a "political era" (which I would define as at least six electoral cycles (24 years)) vote consistently for one party.  Of course, using this definition there would be a number of states you could put under this definition for the Democrats and Republicans since 1988.  I decided to go with the 24 year mark because:

1) My initial thought was to go with 28 years (based off of how long Minnesota, the most contemporary example I could think of, voted Democratic despite being more of a "swing state" than some more Democratic states).  However, I believe that doing so would skew the results as being Republican heavy (given that Minnesota was the ONLY state to vote Democratic in 1984) so I believe that going 24 years would give more of a "fair and balanced" result.

2) Twenty Four years is flexible for electoral analyses.  Twenty-Four is both nearly a quarter of a century long and almost a quarter of a century long.  Less than 24 years and there is an overload of states, more than 24 years and there is a lack of states.

and finally,

3) To date a "party system" has never been less than 24 years (the shortest, the "Second Party System" was, depending on who you ask, was somewhere between 24-32 years long (either 1828-1852, if going by official presidential results, or 1824-1856, if going by the establishment of voter coalitions lining up with mid antebellum politics up to the Election of 1856 which saw a significantly different voting coalition rise up)).  Given that it would be a fair assumption to gauge voting intentions for states for as long as a period of years that qualifies for a "party system" that typically represents political alignments.  Twenty four, as it appears, would be the base minimum amount of years to gauge partisan behaviors of state over a period of years.

If anybody wants to contribute to this thread in anyway, with a different definition for an "era", they are more than welcome to.  I am merely opening a channel of dialogue for this sort of analysis.

EDIT: I realize that going back to 1988 using "24 years" might, by technical wording, make assumptions about how states WILL vote this November.  So, for the sake of convenience consider the 24 year period as "up to present day" and not including the upcoming election.  So, to make an exception for modern day elections, I will use the period of 1988-2008, so only twenty years in that instance.  I apologize for the confusion.  Please note, though, that my analysis can and will go longer than 24 years in a number of circumstances.

More EDIT: Due to the confusion over what I mean by "rarely over 20% margin for a party" I would probably say that "landslide elections" would be an exception.
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Mechaman
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« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2012, 05:02:35 PM »

Minnesota
Voting Democratic since 1976
Partisan Voting Data:

1976:
Carter: 54.90%, 12.88% margin
1980: Carter: 46.50%, 3.94% margin
1984: Mondale: 49.72%, .18% margin
1988: Dukakis: 52.91%, 7.01% margin
1992: Clinton: 43.48%, 11.63% margin
1996: Clinton: 51.10%, 16.14% margin
2000: Gore: 47.91%, 2.41% margin
2004: Kerry: 51.09%, 3.48% margin
2008: Obama: 54.06%, 10.24% margin

Notes:

Minnesota has the distinction of being the only state that has voted Democratic in every election since 1984.  It has also voted Democratic since the Election of 1976, which I would say having Walter Mondale, a popular Minnesota politician (at the time) on the Democratic ticket (VP in 1976 and 1980, Pres. in 1984), and factors in the state/region (farming crises and trade questions) that tended to favor the Democrats.  HOwever, despite it's consistent Democratic voting nature it has, in close elections, gotten close to being a tossup state.  Depending on how 2012 comes out, Minnesota could lose it's lean Democratic status in 2016.
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Mechaman
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« Reply #2 on: September 04, 2012, 05:38:45 PM »

And now, for a Historical Analysis:

Ohio
Voted Republican from 1856-1908
Partisan Voting Record:

1856:
Fremont: 48.51%, 4.30% margin
1860: Lincoln: 51.24%, 7.94% margin
1864: Lincoln: 56.37%, 12.74% margin
1868: Grant: 54.00%, 8.00% margin
1872: Grant: 53.24%, 7.09% margin
1876: Hayes: 50.21%, 1.14% margin
1880: Garfield: 51.73%, 4.72% margin
1884: Blaine: 50.99%, 4.05% margin
1888: Harrison: 49.51%, 2.33% margin
1892: Harrison: 47.66%, 0.13% margin
1896: McKinley: 51.86%, 4.78% margin
1900: McKinley: 52.30%, 6.64% margin
1904: Roosevelt: 59.75%, 25.43% margin, the Big Exception
1908: Taft: 51.03%, 5.21% margin

I would say this is mostly due to the GOP having a midwest candidate in every election.  As for 1856, I guess would be American candidate taking nativist Democratic votes.
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Mechaman
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« Reply #3 on: September 05, 2012, 07:33:45 AM »

Tennessee
Voted Lean Democratic from 1872-1916:
Partisan Voting Record:

1872:
Horace Greeley: 52.16%, 4.32% margin
1876: Samuel J. Tilden: 59.79%, 19.58% margin
1880: Winfield Hancock: 53.26%, 9% margin
1884: Grover S. Cleveland: 51.45%, 3.71% margin
1888: Grover S. Cleveland: 52.26%, 6.5% margin
1892: Grover S. Cleveland: 51.36%, 13.53% margin
1896: William J. Bryan: 52.09%, 5.76% margin
1900: William J. Bryan: 53.03%, 8.08% margin
1904: Alton Parker: 54.23%, 10.83% margin
1908: William J. Bryan: 52.73%, 6.86% margin
1912: Woodrow Wilson: 52.8%, 28.8% margin Landslide Exception
1916: Woodrow Wilson: 56.31%, 13.61% margin

Surprisingly lean state for it's time and location.
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Mechaman
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« Reply #4 on: September 05, 2012, 08:03:50 AM »

Maryland
Voted Lean Anti-Jacksonian from 1824-1848
Partisan ID:

1824:
John Q. Adams: 44.05%, 0.32% margin
1828: John Q. Adams: 50.25%, 0.5% margin
1832: Henry Clay: 50.01%, 0.02% margin
1836: William H. Harrison: 53.73%, 7.46% margin
1840: William H. Harrison: 53.83%, 7.66% margin
1844: Henry Clay: 52.39%, 4.78% margin
1848: Zachary Taylor: 52.10%, 4.38% margin
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morgieb
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« Reply #5 on: September 06, 2012, 03:58:18 PM »

Tennessee
Voted Lean Democratic from 1872-1916:
Partisan Voting Record:

1872:
Horace Greeley: 52.16%, 4.32% margin
1876: Samuel J. Tilden: 59.79%, 19.58% margin
1880: Winfield Hancock: 53.26%, 9% margin
1884: Grover S. Cleveland: 51.45%, 3.71% margin
1888: Grover S. Cleveland: 52.26%, 6.5% margin
1892: Grover S. Cleveland: 51.36%, 13.53% margin
1896: William J. Bryan: 52.09%, 5.76% margin
1900: William J. Bryan: 53.03%, 8.08% margin
1904: Alton Parker: 54.23%, 10.83% margin
1908: William J. Bryan: 52.73%, 6.86% margin
1912: Woodrow Wilson: 52.8%, 28.8% margin Landslide Exception
1916: Woodrow Wilson: 56.31%, 13.61% margin

Surprisingly lean state for it's time and location.

tbf, East Tennessee (which remained loyal to the Union) was still a Republican bastion at the time.
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Vosem
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« Reply #6 on: September 06, 2012, 04:24:22 PM »

Tennessee
Voted Lean Democratic from 1872-1916:
Partisan Voting Record:

1872:
Horace Greeley: 52.16%, 4.32% margin
1876: Samuel J. Tilden: 59.79%, 19.58% margin
1880: Winfield Hancock: 53.26%, 9% margin
1884: Grover S. Cleveland: 51.45%, 3.71% margin
1888: Grover S. Cleveland: 52.26%, 6.5% margin
1892: Grover S. Cleveland: 51.36%, 13.53% margin
1896: William J. Bryan: 52.09%, 5.76% margin
1900: William J. Bryan: 53.03%, 8.08% margin
1904: Alton Parker: 54.23%, 10.83% margin
1908: William J. Bryan: 52.73%, 6.86% margin
1912: Woodrow Wilson: 52.8%, 28.8% margin Landslide Exception
1916: Woodrow Wilson: 56.31%, 13.61% margin

Surprisingly lean state for it's time and location.

tbf, East Tennessee (which remained loyal to the Union) was still a Republican bastion at the time.

"Is." Though the reasons and margins have shifted, East Tennessee has in fact been a consistently safe Republican area since the Civil War.
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benconstine
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« Reply #7 on: September 07, 2012, 08:20:46 AM »

Tennessee certainly does seem to be the closest state of the old Confederacy.
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Emperor Dubya
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« Reply #8 on: September 07, 2012, 01:32:01 PM »

Tennessee certainly does seem to be the closest state of the old Confederacy.

To me the image of the solid south is overrated. Whilst true in the really deep south, it doesn't look into how close many states like Tennessee and Virginia were at a Presidential level.
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Mechaman
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« Reply #9 on: September 07, 2012, 04:49:45 PM »

Tennessee certainly does seem to be the closest state of the old Confederacy.

To me the image of the solid south is overrated. Whilst true in the really deep south, it doesn't look into how close many states like Tennessee and Virginia were at a Presidential level.

Very true Dubya.

Part of this thread is to shatter some previously held stereotypes about voting patterns, specifically the "Super Duper Solid South" one.  Truth of the matter is, as anyone who has wasted hours upon hours using excel and other data analysis of elections could tell you, the South wasn't really "Solid" by most interpretations of the word until the early 20th century.  Granted, it was more pro-Democratic than say New England was Republican, but still not to the extent as some people make it out to be.
I think a lot of the misconceptions (?) people have is that they don't break down political analysis by subregions and instead take an all on approach.  As one can see by spending some time in the US Election Results page on this site, it's mostly the so-called "Deep South" plus Florida and Texas that seem to have the "Solid" Democratic trends.  A lot of this can be explained quite easily by the progression of Jim Crow Laws and other segregation enforcement measures that kept out "undesirable" voting.  It's politically incorrect to state, but the farther South one went the more racial political coalitions were.  Which probably explains how in the Mid-Atlantic/Border State regions voting is a lot more balanced, given the varied economics of those states and the demographics.
Perhaps it's something we can look into more, given the interesting history of Tennessee and Kentucky (both were die hard Whig states after Jackson and then ended up regularly, but not really strongly, voting Democratic).
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memphis
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« Reply #10 on: September 07, 2012, 07:48:36 PM »
« Edited: September 07, 2012, 07:50:33 PM by memphis »

This is the Black Belt. It's the lowland areas that had most of the slaves before the Civil War.


Whites here have gone from pretty much unanimous Dem to uniaminous GOP. The white population in most other areas in the South (East Tennessee is an exception) were strongly Dem but much further from unanimously so. Similarly, non-Black Belt Southern whites today are strongly GOP but much less so than in the Black Belt. As others have pointed out, East Tennessee hasn't budged a bit in well over 100 years. Not many other places can the same although New York City comes to mind.
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Mechaman
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« Reply #11 on: September 22, 2012, 01:11:29 PM »

New Hampshire
Voted Lean Partisan Republican from 1856-1892
Partisan Voting Record:

1856:
John C. Fremont: 53.71%, 8% margin
1860: Abraham Lincoln: 56.9%, 17.64% margin
1864: Abraham Lincoln: 52.56%, 5.12% margin
1868: Ulysses S. Grant: 55.22%, 10.46% margin
1872: Ulysses S. Grant: 53.94%, 8.33% margin
1876: Rutherford B. Hayes: 51.83%, 3.78% margin
1880: James Garfield: 51.94%, 4.7% margin
1884: James Blaine: 51.14%, 4.8% margin
1888: Benjamin Harrison: 50.34%, 2.5% margin
1892: Benjamin Harrison: 51.11%, 4% margin

Given the voting leans of the region post civil war, a most interesting pattern.
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nclib
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« Reply #12 on: September 22, 2012, 02:03:54 PM »

Pennsylvania is considered a (Dem-leaning) swing state, though it hasn't voted more GOP than the national average since 1948.
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