Can Democrats be competitive in any of these "dark red" states in 2018?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Ugh, when you do these polls you don't need a "Yes" and a "No" for each state. You just need to list all six with a "NOTA" option.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

Ugh, when you do these polls you don't need a "Yes" and a "No" for each state. You just need to list all six with a "NOTA" option.

It's my poll, and I'll arrange it anyway I please.

[Horus]

Kansas only.

[ClassiCoolidge]

Tennessee. That's if the person has heavy support coming from the Memphis and Nashville areas. Even then I don't think it's possible.

[The Other Castro]

In many states for Governor races, individual people are more important than party label. The right person can win a race in any state regardless of party.

[Virginiá]

Why is Oklahoma so unlikely?

They had a Democrat governor before Fallin

Honestly, it's hard to say how certain Southern states will go from here on out. Yes, OK had a Democrat in the gov office prior to 2011, but that was before Obama's election virtually eliminated Democrats as a local political force in the South. They were already on track to lose control but I feel like Obama sped that up and hardened it. Some of these states can be quite uncompromising in their voting patterns.

Of course, since a lot of this happened under a Democratic president that was toxic in many states, perhaps an unpopular Republican president can create an opening. My point is that for all we know, OK could be like TX, where there was no Democrat after Richards despite the persistent success of Democrats prior to her tenure.

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For the poll - Kansas is the only one I feel comfortable with right now, but not to say definitively that all the others are impossible.

[Jeppe]

I think really only Kansas at this point. Oklahoma and Tennessee are a stretch, but might be possible under the right circumstances.

[smoltchanov]

Why is Oklahoma so unlikely?

They had a Democrat governor before Fallin

Honestly, it's hard to say how certain Southern states will go from here on out. Yes, OK had a Democrat in the gov office prior to 2011, but that was before Obama's election virtually eliminated Democrats as a local political force in the South. They were already on track to lose control but I feel like Obama sped that up and hardened it. Some of these states can be quite uncompromising in their voting patterns.

Of course, since a lot of this happened under a Democratic president that was toxic in many states, perhaps an unpopular Republican president can create an opening. My point is that for all we know, OK could be like TX, where there was no Democrat after Richards despite the persistent success of Democrats prior to her tenure.

-


For the poll - Kansas is the only one I feel comfortable with right now, but not to say definitively that all the others are impossible.

+1. The same (essentially) happened at almost the same time in Arkansas and West Virginia, which went "hard Republican right" at about 2009-10 (even local, much more conservative, then national, Democrats suddenly became almost "unelectable"). Yes, Beebe held a governorship for Democrats for a while, but this was HIS personal achievement  (as a pragmatic moderate conservative), not party's. Approximately at the same time (2008-2013) we see mass switching of white Democratic legislators in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, which were already Republican on most levels, and abandoning by them of "new, black Democratic party" (they are essentially correct saying "it's not the party i grew in", because until 1990th at least state Democratic parties in most of the South were still mostly white and mostly conservative). These states will not come back next 30 years, and when they will - it will be via different political coalitions in very different (in all, but name) states...