2016 Battleground States?

[pbrower2a]

Elections 2000-2012 as a basis:

D 4 times
D 3 times R once
even split (white)
R 3 times D once
D 4 times

[pbrower2a]

It probably comes down to how well the nominees fit the culture as well as the relative strengths and weaknesses of the nominees. Barack Obama was an excellent fit for Virginia for a Democrat, having won it twice -- which is the sum of all other Democrats since FDR winning the state. Bill Clinton never won it, and neither did Carter. It is possible that Virginia has become demographically more like Pennsylvania than like Alabama. 

President Obama did worse than McGovern in 1972 and Mondale in 1984 in some states. 

Florida and Ohio have been swing states for a very long time and probably will be again.

New Mexico is now more solidly D than such states as Iowa, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and even Minnesota that have generally been considered part of the Blue Firewall. Colorado and Nevada may be going that way. I can imagine a Democratic nominee winning Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico yet losing Minnesota or Pennsylvania. Minnesota, the only state that voted for the late George McGovern? It was close this time.

The weakening of unions as a political force explains West Virginia going from a sure thing for Democrats in all elections other than blowouts (the state went for Carter in 1980 and Dukakis in 1988!) Coal executives have shown themselves political thugs, perhaps expecting that they would turn such coal miners who remain into pawns of a right-wing resurgence. I expect that the Obama presidency is going to try to undercut the power of mining tycoons who misbehaved politically. 

That said, Barack Obama was a horrible match, at least culturally, for the white South and almost all rural areas.  Too cosmopolitan? Too intellectual? Not connected to fundamentalist Christianity?     

[pbrower2a]

@tokar

PA, MI, WI and MN are trending Republican. With a right candidate (one who can relate to white working class and turn out evangelicals = a compassionate conservative bordering populist) they can be in play as soon as 2016.

A compassionate conservative would greatly increase his share of blacks and Hispanics and probably win Asians.

Evangelicals are a shrinking constituency. If I were on the Right I would not bank on their votes.

[pbrower2a]

The first thing to consider is that a large portion of the Republican vote was not necessarily anti-Democratic, it was anti-Obama, with the majority of that anti-Obama coming from either Hillary supporters (2008), people who (wrongly) believe he is a socialist (2012), and just general racists (2008 and 2012). I think by 2012 those pro-Hillary (Hillary44?) people came around to the Dem side (although I doubt that most of them honestly voted for McCain ticket in 2008). Don't have to worry about changing their minds to vote Democratic. The socialist-believing people have been, for the most part, tea party-ers. Again, don't need to worry about changing their minds. Not too many of the center-left/center-right electorate crying "socialist" either. That leaves the racist crowd. I think there is a good number of people who would have voted Democratic if the candidate was white, just being racists...

But they did not vote for either Gore or Kerry, just the same. (Tennessee was 'only' a 5% loss for Gore, but that is supposedly his home state; take out 10% from the vote for Gore and you have an idea of how the state is without a Democratic favorite son). Is there someone who could win the (Bill) Clinton-but-not-Obama voters in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia? If so, then that Democratic nominee wins a landslide in 2016. Texas and Arizona, good for about as many electoral votes, will likely be closer than any of those states in 2016.

It is hard to imagine any black person as a Presidential or Vice-Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in 2016. Barack Obama was good enough a politician that he could get away with being black and become President and be good enough as President to get re-elected despite still being black. You missed Douglas Wilder, who is already old. I can say this: the first black winner of any statewide election in the Deep South (especially Governor or US Senator) will have shown what it takes to be President. Lots of luck.  A black pol can be elected to the US Congress or as Mayor of a giant city, but such is at least two steps away from the Presidency.        

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Americans may want someone to continue the policies of Barack Obama without being... you guessed it. Such could cripple a Republican's chance of winning the Presidency. Take away the votes of people who would never vote for any black person for high office and President Obama wins a landslide similar to that of Eisenhower in 1956.

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It is much more likely that one of the nominees for President or Vice-President will be Hispanic than black. But even so, the Republicans have much to do to start eroding the Hispanic support for Democrats. That includes Cuban-Americans in Florida.

Pandering to superstition and pseudoscience of low-class whites will not win Hispanics.

Other minorities are smaller, and perhaps except for Asians in Nevada, not so critical. In a close-enough election one can attribute the difference to such groups as Jews, homosexuals, people with advanced degrees, or even to people in certain professions. Could several states have been decided by the "schoolteacher vote"? That is a large occupational group.

[pbrower2a]

@tokar

... MI, WI, PA and OH lots of working class whites didn’t turn out.
I think these are lost to the Democratic Party and that they will turn out next time to vote for a compassionate conservative with a populist message.

1. Barack Obama is a poor cultural match for working-class whites. Unlike working-class blacks, Hispanics, and Asians they (especially in the South) do not follow the influence of more liberal-leaning middle-class whites (and that is where most of the liberal whites are even if they are decidedly less than a majority of the white middle class).  Anti-intellectualism is more powerful than racism as a political tool for winning over working-class whites heavily concentrated in the South. Gore and Kerry did about as badly among working-class whites, and they were both white.

Anti-intellectualism offends all Asian groups, the extended "talented tenth" among blacks and those that they influence, and Hispanics who recognize education not so much a threat to their culture (it is to poor whites) as the only possible means of avoiding poverty. 

2. "Compassionate conservative" is all but an oxymoron in American politics as the word "conservative" is now used. The Radical Right has seized the word conservative for its own reactionary agenda and stripped it of the connotations of caution and respect for institutions that the word once met.

But that said, the old sort of conservative was always the antithesis of a populist. Right-wing populism with its basis in economic and cultural resentments (ill-educated whites have to compete with poor blacks and Hispanics and resent the loss of privilege in being white that they once thought theirs) can be demonically effective in winning votes. 

[pbrower2a]

@tokar

PA, MI, WI and MN are trending Republican. With a right candidate (one who can relate to white working class and turn out evangelicals = a compassionate conservative bordering populist) they can be in play as soon as 2016.

A compassionate conservative would greatly increase his share of blacks and Hispanics and probably win Asians.

Evangelicals are a shrinking constituency. If I were on the Right I would not bank on their votes.

What would you do then?

Remember, the goal is to win the election, not to merely participate.

Republicans need to hold onto that group, but that will be easy. They need to pick off more people. Pandering to the anti-intellectualism of that group ensures that the Republicans must
win some new batch of single-issue voters. Anti-abortion, anti-homosexual, and gun-rights groups are already theirs.  

Republicans have a chance if the Democrats nominate an unusually-weak candidate for President, but at this stage that says little.  

[pbrower2a]

This is a good idea of what we start with. There will be no change in the electoral votes of states this time. At this point anyone trying to predict who will be the Presidential nominee for either party is a fool. I assume a close Presidential contest in November 2016 because such is the only possibility that is interesting now. Blowouts are boring.



1. Colorado was the tipping-point state in 2012. Due to its demographics (fast-growing Hispanic population) it is likely to go up the list, perhaps going up with states like Michigan and Minnesota as unreachable in a close race. Pennsylvania (because of its size and position) is most likely to be the tipping-point state in 2016.

2. The Favorite Son effect could be enough to swing a state. If Governor Rick Snyder (R-MI) is the Republican nominee, then Michigan goes from Solid D to weak R due to that effect, ceteris paribus. In contrast, Brian Schweitzer (D-MT) might be enough to swing Montana. Of course that is with someone who has a positive image in his own state. Michelle Bachmann will not swing Minnesota, and John Edwards will not swing North Carolina.  Consider the weird possibilities if Kathleen Sebelius is the Presidential nominee. She was an effective Governor of Kansas, arguably one of the strongest Republican states. 

3. The polarization between the states says much about the states --  but it also reflects how Barack Obama campaigned for re-election. Almost every state that he contested he won (North Carolina is the exception). He had a broader focus than Gore (Florida above all else) or Kerry (Ohio above all else) but it was only five states. In view of the resources that the Right had against him, he had to stay clear of such states as Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, and Missouri which otherwise might have been closer. But getting closer in Georgia and still losing it and losing Wisconsin would have been a disaster to his strategy.   

4. We are going to see fresh approval ratings for President Obama. The polling business does not stop on election day; it only takes a short vacation. Polling on whether Hillary Clinton or Mario Cuomo (or for that matter, Mario Rubio or Jon Huntsman) projects to win South Carolina will likely have the question "Do you approve or disapprove of the performance of Barack Obama as President?"

How well things go for President Obama determines how vulnerable almost any Democrat will be in 2016 and whether a Republican can offer a viable alternative to the status quo. The barrage of deep-pocket invective against President Obama will quickly fade from relevance in day-to-day politics. If approval ratings for the President go into the high 50s and stay there, then any Republican nominee will have potential difficulties in some of the states that President Obama didn't campaign in.

Barack Obama could not afford to campaign in Georgia, Missouri, Indiana, Montana, South Carolina, or Arizona in 2012.  He campaigned in all of those except South Carolina and Arizona in 2008.

9. Primary campaigns can leave behind an apparatus for contesting the national election. That is how Barack Obama put Indiana in play in 2008. Unlikely states might go into play because someone decides to keep a state in play because he can turn resources established in the primary into a campaign apparatus in the autumn. 

10. Some people whom we think are likely candidates will decide early that the Presidency isn't for them (think of Mike Huckabee). Some may have hidden scandals or make discrediting gaffes. There could be issues of health.

11. Doesn't winning the Big Prize all come down to personalities, perceptions of competence, and fundraising?

 

[pbrower2a]

Map Series!!

Obama's second term a disaster

Republican: 285
Democratic: 166
Toss-Up: 87

The Favorite Son effect disappears from Illinois, which didn't give that smashing an Obama  win in 2012. Chicagoland suburbs hold the balance of power in Illinois, and if they go R, the Democratic nominee is in big trouble.

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I would put Indiana in play.

Indiana? Sure -- if conditions resemble 2008 in which the democratic nominee contests Indiana and keeps it in play. If Sherrod Brown should be the Democratic nominee, then Indiana is in play. That also happens if Indiana legislates voting hours more like those of Ohio or Michigan or allows early voting, in which case Indiana no longer gives nationwide Republicans an advantage. NE-02 could again be interesting.

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What Democrat runs will matter greatly.