What States Would Have Remained Swing States If Bush Had Won In '92

[RTX]

Since the realignment from the 1992 election, several swing/lean R states have become solid D, and likewise, some swing/lean D states have become solid R.

If Bush won and Clinton hadn't flipped some of these states into the D column, which would you predict would remain a battleground state the longest? I included 1976 instead of 1984 and 1980 due to the landslides in each of those elections.

Vermont
1992 - Clinton: 46.22%; Bush: 30.42%
1988 - Bush: 51.10%; Dukakis: 47.58%
1976 - Ford: 54.34%; Carter: 43.14%

Maine
1992 - Clinton: 38.77%; Bush: 30.39%
1988 - Bush: 55.34%; Dukakis: 43.88%
1976 - Ford: 48.91%; Carter: 48.07%

Connecticut
1992 - Clinton: 42.21%; Bush: 35.78%
1988 - Bush: 51.98%; Dukakis: 46.87%
1976 - Ford: 52.06%; Carter: 46.90%

New Jersey
1992 - Clinton: 42.95%; Bush: 40.58%
1988 - Bush: 56.24%; Dukakis: 42.60%
1976 - Ford: 50.08%; Carter: 47.92%

Illinois
1992 - Clinton: 48.58%; Bush: 34.34%
1988 - Bush: 50.69%; Dukakis: 48.60%
1976 - Ford: 50.10%; Carter: 48.13%

California
1992 - Clinton: 46.01%; Bush: 32.61%
1988 - Bush: 51.15%; Dukakis: 47.56%
1976 - Ford: 49.35%; Carter: 47.57%

[Never]

I don't know if I would call 1992 a realignment (mainly because I usually don't agree with that theory), but regardless of that, Clinton did have a convincing win in his own right, and many individual states did change their voting habits, so I'll try to formulate an adequate response to your question.

Perhaps Maine, Connecticut, and New Jersey could have remained swing states if Bush had won, but predicting how long they would have stayed that way seems difficult. If Bush had won in '92, that means Republicans would have held the White House for 16 years by his final term, and it's possible that the voters could have been itching for a political change by 1996. If that happened, Democrats could have won over 400 electoral votes (there were many close states that ultimately voted Republican that year), and it's entirely possible that all of the states you listed could have become Safe D in 1996 just like real life. On the other hand, 1996 was a superb environment for an incumbent, with the strong economy and lack of significant conflict abroad from the American standpoint, so if economic indicators and the like had remained the same under a second term of Bush 41 as they did in reality, ME/CT/NJ probably would have remained swing states until about 2000. Under ideal circumstances for Republicans, I could see Maine staying a swing state until 2004 or so, after which it would be a Lean D state (the other states would be Safe D).

[Skill and Chance]

With the economy being so good in 1996 and 2000, I could easily see Republicans matching the 5-term FDR Dem streak or even the 6-term post-Civil War GOP streak.  Looking back, the economy wasn't even that terrible in 1992.

[hcallega]

To answer this question, we first must see what states Bush would have won in 1992 to defeat Bill Clinton. According to the Atlas, the narrowest victory for Bush involves him swinging Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana,  New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. In this scenario, all of New England besides New Hampshire stay blue, joining New Jersey as the only Northeastern states in the Republic column. Ultimately, this creates a scenario pretty similar to the political map today, more or less. Therefore, I don't see a lot of changes.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

According to the Atlas, the narrowest victory for Bush involves him swinging Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana,  New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. In this scenario, all of New England besides New Hampshire stay blue, joining New Jersey as the only Northeastern states in the Republic column.  

I wonder what the PV totals would look like if this scenario happened in real life (not the Atlas 300,000 vote shift, because that's not how it would really work), how Perot's totals would change (if he's still in this at all), and how Democrats would respond to losing such a winnable election with a strong candidate and crap economy (would they blame Perot instead like Repubs do now?).

[Indy Texas]

With the economy being so good in 1996 and 2000, I could easily see Republicans matching the 5-term FDR Dem streak or even the 6-term post-Civil War GOP streak.  Looking back, the economy wasn't even that terrible in 1992.

Of course it wasn't bad compared to what we've been through since 2008.

But things were not good from 1990-1991. In addition to the recession, you had deindustrialization being completed in the Rust Belt and you had the Midwest recovering from the price collapse of various crops in the mid-late '80s. And many of those people felt very threatened by NAFTA.

[Simfan34]

According to the Atlas, the narrowest victory for Bush involves him swinging Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana,  New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. In this scenario, all of New England besides New Hampshire stay blue, joining New Jersey as the only Northeastern states in the Republic column.  

I wonder what the PV totals would look like if this scenario happened in real life (not the Atlas 300,000 vote shift, because that's not how it would really work), how Perot's totals would change (if he's still in this at all), and how Democrats would respond to losing such a winnable election with a strong candidate and crap economy (would they blame Perot instead like Repubs do now?).

This map is bizarre.