DS0816
Sr. Member
Posts: 3,140
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« on: March 17, 2013, 07:32:20 PM » |
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« edited: March 17, 2013, 07:36:38 PM by DS0816 »
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I'm among those who consider 2008 a realigning presidential election favoring the Democrats.
The Blue Firewall remains with the Democrats.
Iowa has a Democratic tilt. And Republicans have a demographic tide against them that is turning blue longrunning bellwether New Mexico. Nevada votes just like N.M. (They've only disagreed in one presidential election: 2000, the year of a split outcome in popular vote vs. electoral vote.) Barack Obama carried Nev. by stronger statewide margins vs. his national margins in both elections, creating a Democratic tilt. (He's the first more-than-one-term Democrat to do that since Franklin Roosevelt.)
Right there, with the 2010s map, that totals 263 electoral votes.
Florida and Ohio are constantly the leading bellwether states which end up carrying for the winner. Virginia and Colorado are the newest bellwethers. North Carolina is trending competitive (spread in statewide margin vs. national margin). Those are 84 electoral votes.
Georgia and Arizona, both having delivered the female vote to President Obama (with Ga., true in 2008 but exit polls didn't include Ga. in 2012; applicable to Ariz. in 2012), and the trendlines show these two states are loosening up their Team Red grip. They add up to 27 electoral votes.
Texas, the No. 2 state, has a Strong GOP hold where it's been nearly 20 points redder than how the nation votes. (Polar opposite of the No. 1 most-populous state of California.) It's a question as to whether demographic changes move Texas more rapidly over the next ten years. Right now, a Democrat would have to nab about 57 or 58 percent of the national vote to pull in Texas. If demographics changes loosen up the red -- and Democrats move Dallas County (Dallas) and especially Harris County (Houston) deeply blue -- then they can compete in the state more effectively. Tarrant County (Fort Worth) is key to statewide victories in Texas.
Montana should be on the Democrats' itinerary. That state isn't voting for the Democratic presidential candidates in part because the state isn't getting courted. Obama won the female vote from the Big Sky State in 2008. Democratic hold for governor, with 2012, when the Republicans were supposedly assured the pickup. They failed to unseat Jon Tester. 2008 was winnable for Obama. His campaign should've been more aggressive.
Indiana, which some thought was a fluke in 2008, is still winnable for the Democrats. The problem is in giving up on the state when they had the counterflips in 2012: President went from D to R; Senate went from R to D.
North Dakota and South Dakota have not been taken seriously by the Ds. The raw-vote margins in both, in presidential years won by the Ds, are not so dramatically R that they're unwinnable in D-winning presidential cycles.
The absolutely safe states -- and I number them at ten -- for Republicans are: Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina (which have voted the same in the last 100 years' worth of elections except the last having voted differently in 1960 and 1968; the first two have disagreed only once since they first voted in 1820); Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming; Kansas, Nebraska (statewide and #03), and Oklahoma in the plains and, to the west, Alaska. Now with a partisan advantage for the Republicans are the Bill Clinton-carried Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, and West Virginia. So, that brings it up to 15 states for the GOP. Missouri, a former bellwether which has voted the same as that cluster in every election since 1972, is tilting decisively, but not as dramatically, red. This brings it up to 16 states. They are worth 106 electoral votes.
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