2000 election - beginning of a realignment

[freepcrusher]

ok that might be too strong of a word but it seems to be the election where the dems start to become glaringly more self packed.

[Mr.Phips]

ok that might be too strong of a word but it seems to be the election where the dems start to become glaringly more self packed.

Definately.  Gore kept Clinton's strength and sometimes even expanded it in most suburban and urban areas, while doing worse than even Dukakis in most non-southern rural areas(including the California Central Valley).  Gore losing solidly in West Virginia, a state that Dukakis carried solidly, pretty much sums this up.  

This trend certainly continued in 2004 as Kerry kept Gore's strength in the suburbs, but tanked further in the rural areas.  Had Kerry gotten even Dukakis' numbers in the 6th and 18th districts of Ohio, he probably would have been President. 

[old timey villain]

The realignment really began in 1992, with a southerner like Clinton dominating in the northeast, upper midwest ,and west coast but only managing to win a handful of southern states. It accelerated in 1996 with Clinton improving in the "liberal" states but losing ground in southern and rural states. I believe even Arkansas trended against him.

2000 was the first election where the trend really became apparent because it was a southerner running against a southerner. It also seemed like the first campaign where the Democrat had a strictly urban appeal and the Republican had a strictly rural appeal which has been the norm since then.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

WVa, nh, co, and nv changed. Where wva only state to be gop. White working class in wva and females and mexicans in the others. Gore would have won nh wout lieberman but nadar split vote.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

2000 was the culmination of the trend that existed from 1964 to then; the shifting of the South to the GOP combined with Democratic consolidation of the Northeast, Great Lakes, and West Coast. The changes less visible on a map were/are a far wider gender gap, a further Republican drop with blacks, and Democrats losing the white vote everywhere outside New England, the West Coast, and urban centers outside the South.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

While it was not the beginning of the realignment, I would say it was the culmination of it.  Look how badly Gore lost Southern states like Georgia and North Carolina.  This was the year when the rural voters left and left for good.  Dems started making up those votes, though, with big gains in the suburbs... which left us with the current voting habits:

City + suburbs = Democratic

Exurbs + rural = Republican

...and this largely with few exceptions. 

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

IIRC, suburbs voted for Romney overall in 2012.