Maps of Generic Republican & Generic Democrat winning by historical landslides

[JRP1994]

Democrat wins by FDR 1936 Margin (24.25%)

Democrat: 467
Republican: 71

Democrat wins by LBJ 1964 Margin (22.58%)

Democrat: 447
Republican: 91

Republican wins by Nixon 1972 Margin (23.15%)

Republican: 489
Democrat: 49

Republican wins by Reagan 1984 Margin (18.22%)

Republican: 434
Democrat: 104

[5280]

Reagan only lost DC and MN in 1984 bro.

https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1984&f=0&off=0&elect=0

[Flake]

Reagan only lost DC and MN in 1984 bro.

https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1984&f=0&off=0&elect=0

They're using results from the last election, and how the map might look like in these scenarios. If it was really the FDR map, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana would not be blue.

[ElectionsGuy]

I agree with the OP on just about everything, except I would put SC on the LBJ margin map red.

[Niemeyerite]

I agree with the OP on just about everything, except I would put SC on the LBJ margin map red.

I think it's not an opinion.

[ElectionsGuy]

I agree with the OP on just about everything, except I would put SC on the LBJ margin map red.

I think it's not an opinion.

So the maps are factual pieces of data and I shouldn't agree or disagree with it

[Indy Texas]

I agree with the OP on just about everything, except I would put SC on the LBJ margin map red.

I think it's not an opinion.

So the maps are factual pieces of data and I shouldn't agree or disagree with it

I'm assuming what the OP did was take the PVI for each state and apply it to a baseline national popular vote equivalent to one of the prior elections. LBJ won by 22.58 percentage points. So if, say, Texas is R+10, then the Democrat will carry Texas by 22.58-10, or 12.58 percentage points.

So you can agree or disagree with using that method, but it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to cherry pick states unless you're willing to offer your own alternate method to extrapolate results.

[IceSpear]

Uniform swing is not real though.

[ElectionsGuy]

I agree with the OP on just about everything, except I would put SC on the LBJ margin map red.

I think it's not an opinion.

So the maps are factual pieces of data and I shouldn't agree or disagree with it

I'm assuming what the OP did was take the PVI for each state and apply it to a baseline national popular vote equivalent to one of the prior elections. LBJ won by 22.58 percentage points. So if, say, Texas is R+10, then the Democrat will carry Texas by 22.58-10, or 12.58 percentage points.

So you can agree or disagree with using that method, but it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to cherry pick states unless you're willing to offer your own alternate method to extrapolate results.

OK, but states like South Carolina have elasticity factors. And others factors contribute to certain states, so I guess I'm disagreeing with pure uniform swing, yes.

[henster]

If a Democrat is winning WV, MT, ND, SD, and AK then I'd say their probably winning KY, TN, and AR too.

[JRP1994]

I didn't use a uniform swing - I did everything one would do with a uniform swing, but also accounted for each state's elasticity.

[pbrower2a]

Reagan only lost DC and MN in 1984 bro.

https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1984&f=0&off=0&elect=0

True -- but America was then much less polarized in partisan identity. Ronald Reagan won by a 58-41 margin, and there were fourteen states within 5% of the national average.   In 2008, in which President Obama won by 7.26%, there were only eight such states. 

Barack Obama won a bunch of states by landslide margins characteristic of Ronald Reagan but lost some by margins characteristic of George McGovern or Walter Mondale. Such shows the consequences of a Presidential nominee running a slick but polarizing campaign in a polarized country.

This is 2008:

State       %Margin
Wyoming       32.24%
Oklahoma       31.29%
Utah               27.98%
Idaho       25.30%
Alabama       21.58%
Alaska            21.54%
Arkansas       19.85%
Louisiana            18.63%
Kentucky            16.22%
Tennessee    15.06%
Nebraska            14.93%
Kansas            14.92%
Mississippi    13.17%
Texas       11.75%
South Carolina      8.98%
North Dakota      8.65%
Arizona              8.48%
South Dakota      8.41%
Georgia              5.20%
Montana              2.38%
Missouri              0.13%
North Carolina      0.33%
Indiana              1.03%
Florida              2.81%
Ohio                      4.58%
Virginia              6.30%
Colorado              8.95%
Iowa              9.53%
New Hampshire  9.61%
Minnesota    10.24%
Pennsylvania    10.31%
Nevada        12.49%
Wisconsin          13.90%
New Mexico    15.13%
New Jersey    15.53%
Oregon            16.35%
Michigan         16.44%
Washington    17.08%
Maine          17.32%
Connecticut    22.37%
California            24.02%
Delaware            24.98%
Illinois       25.10%
Maryland           25.44%
Massachusetts    25.81%
New York            26.86%
Rhode Island    27.81%
Vermont            37.01%
Hawaii            45.26%
D. C.             85.92%
Total                  7.26%

This is 1984:

State        %Margin
Utah              49.83%
Idaho      45.97%
Wyoming       42.27%
Nebraska       41.74%
Oklahoma       37.94%
New Hampshire    37.71%
Alaska       36.79%
Arizona       33.88%
Nevada       33.88%
Kansas       33.67%
North Dakota    31.04%
Florida       30.66%
Colorado       28.32%
South Carolina   27.99%
Texas       27.50%
South Dakota    26.47%
Virginia        25.19%
Mississippi    24.39%
North Carolina    24.00%
Indiana       23.99%
Louisiana       22.60%
Montana           22.30%
Alabama       22.26%
Arkansas       22.18%
Maine        22.05%
Connecticut    21.90%
New Jersey    20.89%
Kentucky       20.66%
New Mexico    20.48%
Georgia           20.39%
Missouri       20.05%
Delaware       19.85%
Michigan       18.99%
Ohio     18.76%
Vermont       17.11%
Tennessee       16.27%
California      16.25%
Washington        12.97%
Illinois              12.88%
Oregon               12.17%
Hawaii                  11.28%
West Virginia      10.51%
Wisconsin              9.18%
New York              8.01%
Iowa              7.39%
Pennsylvania      7.35%
Maryland              5.49%
Rhode Island      3.65%
Massachusetts      2.79%
Minnesota   0.18%
D. C.          71.66%
Total          18.22%

Color code -- States with margins within 5% are in purple and for the US at large. In 1984 Reagan won all of those; in 2008 Obama won them all.  Otherwise --

2004 -- Barack Obama lost the state by a margin of 10.98 or more (which would have been enough of an even shift of votes to give Obama a margin like that of Reagan in 1984)
Barack Obama lost the state by a a margin of 10.98 or less 
Barack Obama won the state that he would have lost had he won by a margin of 5% or less
Barack Obama won by a margin of 5% more or less than his nationwide victory margin of victory
Barack Obama won the state by more than 5% of his national margin of victory. 

1984 -- Ronald Reagan still lost the state or DC
Ronald Reagan won the state despite winning it by a margin more than 5% less than his national margin of victory
Ronald Reagan won the state with a margin  within 5% of his national victory
Ronald Reagan won the state by more than 5% over his national margin of victory.    
   

The difference between the Obama win of 2008 and of Reagan in 1984 is a swing of about 5.5% in the national margin.  In many respects the two pols could hardly be more different -- Barack Obama was one of the younger successful nominees for President, and Reagan was the oldest. Reagan had had some successes as President, and Obama ran for an open seat in the wake of arguably the worst Presidential meltdown since Buchanan (at least Hoover was squeaky-clean on ethics and didn't stick America with a war going badly).

It's not a particularly good comparison. Still, Barack Obama has shown much the same skill set as Ronald Reagan as a politician. Reagan got away with it by winning over conservative Democrats that he never challenged as electoral opponents. Barack Obama had practically  no liberal Democrats  that he could ever influence on his legislative agenda.

America has changed. It is obvious that Ronald Reagan won all but the core liberal voters, and that Walter Mondale was a singularly-awful nominee for President. In 1984 America still had many liberal Republicans who still tended to vote Republican unless the Republican nominee was crazy. In 2008 those liberal Republicans hardly existed. In 1984 America had a large number of conservative Democrats who could be the swing between a moderately-successful run for a Democrat running in the political sector (Carter, 1976) and a Republican blowout (Nixon 1972 and Reagan 1984).

The states in purple were the real swing states in the event of a 50-50 election in either 1984 or 2008. Neither election really was close to being a 50-50 election.  Barack Obama had a Reagan-like landslide in roughly 2/3 of America but lost by a Reagan-like landslide in the other third.  America was not very polarized on partisan lines in 1984, and a 59-41 split of the popular vote was severe enough to leave Walter Mondale with only his own state (barely!) and the District of Columbia. Such a split would have left Barack Obama with 'only' 418 electoral votes.     

[pbrower2a]

So here's what I get with a uniform swing from the 2012 election to 1984, and that is more relevant because there are no significant third-party campaigners. Reagan won by a margin of 18.22% in 1984, and Obama won by 3.86% in 2012. That is a 14.36% difference. Add a nationwide swing of 7.68% in all states, and you get

OK, no way does President Obama win 98% of the vote in DC, 79% of the vote in Hawaii, 75% of the vote in Vermont, 71% of the vote in New York, or 70% of the vote in Maryland. Maybe the nationwide votes swing something like 10.2% in Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, and Missouri, and he picks off NE-02.

"Only" 401 electoral votes go to him in that scenario. 

....Now let's see what happens had  Ronald Reagan won by only 3.86% of the popular vote in 1984. Consider the scenario: he's being called a warmonger and an enemy of the working man by a political Left that has leadership that declares that "My first priority is to ensure that Ronald Reagan is a one-term President" Inflation is still underway and unemployment is high. But the Amazing Power of Coincidence operates as my deus ex machina, and I get this result:

Anything in gray (I lack the time for coloring in the Reagan states) is a Reagan victory, and the hypothetical results would be (using 2012 electoral votes)

Reagan  (R, CA)  333 EV
Mondale (D, MN) 215 EV

which is amazingly close to  the raw results of 2012 (trade some electoral votes from California and Washington to New York and Pennsylvania and one has a fair representation of reality for 1984).