The next Vermonts and West Virginias

[Alcon]

South Dakota, but not North Dakota.

[Alcon]

Delaware

That's a very interesting choice.  Truth be told, I'm always surprised by how conservative central Delaware is.  I'd think it would be a swing area, with Dover and everything.

[Alcon]

Rhode Island goes Republican  (the next West Virginia)

Idaho goes Democrat (the next Vermont)

Maybe somewhere around 2080

Wow, what kind of party switch will this be?

[Alcon]

South Dakota, but not North Dakota.

Why would South Dakota turn Democratic but not North Dakota?  Aren't these states pretty similar?

Because South Dakota has a (relatively) large Native American population, and they are heavily Democrat. They also have a higher birth rate so they are increasing as a percentage of the state (same in ND but smaller population base). The white population in the Dakotas is very old and the young always leave after high school. BRTD knows more about this, I'm just speaking in general terms.

I was actually being facetious, and the population exodus is really much more of an issue in North Dakota than South Dakota.

[Alcon]

Vermonts:  Virginia, Colorado (these will be fairly Democratic by 2016)
West Virginias:  Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas (if we keep ignoring them)

Uh, the GOP already has those three.

One could reasonably interpret it as this year - Vermont trended heavily Democratic (that is, Bush lost vote share - he only did that in two states) and West Virginia trended heavily Republican.

[Alcon]

Fezzy, do you think part of the Republican-ward trend in New Jersey is liberal independents who dislike the Democratic Party's local corruption, which bounced up the ticket?

[Alcon]

Wisconsin and Michigan. 

Moving in opposite directions?  That would be surprising.

[Alcon]

Here's my list of Top 5:

Hard Rep:
NJ (corruption and tiring of machine)
FL (various reasons)
HI (amount of military people)
PA (various reasons)
OR (various reasons)
MI (tie for 5th)

Why would Hawai'i move hard right due to lots of military people when the number doesn't realyl look to change that substantially?  I'd also love to hear your reasoning on Oregon.  I've seen lots of Oregon predictions like that, but none of them really satisfy me.  Same deal with New Mexico to the Dems.