Is Oregon now more "winnable" than New Mexico for the GOP

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

Well, besides Susana Martinez being on a ticket....

[JRP1994]

Well, besides Susana Martinez being on a ticket....

New Mexico. They're about the same elasticity, but NM is D+4 while OR is D+5... It depends on the strategy pursued. If the GOP moderates and focuses on issues that most appeal to white suburban voters, Oregon becomes winnable. If they focus on a more open immigration message, and become more desirable to Hispanic voters, then New Mexico becomes winnable.

[morgieb]

Doubtful. Oregon still has Portland as an Achilles heal to victory and the East of the state can't get much more Republican.

[henster]

A Republican hasn't won statewide in Oregon since 2002 there would be have to be a strong third party showing like Ralph Nader in 2000 in order for the GOP to have any chance of winning this state.

[Orser67]

In statewide elections, Oregon is definitely more Democratic. But in presidential elections, I'd probably say the GOP is more likely to win Oregon. I just don't think the GOP is going to win Hispanic voters in presidential elections going forward.

[DS0816]

I won't answer the poll.

New Mexico very possibly having moved from longtime bellwether to partisan Democratic, and having produced substantially deep-blue margins in the 2008 Democratic pickup and 2012 Democratic hold elections—in which it bolstered even better numbers in both cycles than Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—was incredible. Each of those three other states haven't been carried by the GOP since after the 1980s (with Minnesota, not since 1972, making 2012 ten elections in a row for Team Blue).

This development in New Mexico—which boasts the best historical presidential record of any state in the union (the only one over 90 percent having carried for all winners since its first participation back in 1912)—does not cause me to worry about the margins in Oregon (which also hasn't colored red since after the 1980s).

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Possibly, but I kind of doubt it.  If the GOP improves its Latino outreach, then New Mexico will be close again like it was in 2000 and 2004.  That's the biggest reason Obama carried it by such wide margins the last two elections.

[ElectionsGuy]

No, Oregon is very culturally liberal, which, in my opinion, I can't see the GOP winning over. All the GOP has to do is do better with Hispanics (which they can easily do, but their image is killing them right now) and they'll do lots of improvement (since the state is almost majority Hispanic). New Mexico is closer to the GOP PVI wise as well.

[eric82oslo]

No, Oregon is very culturally liberal, which, in my opinion, I can't see the GOP winning over. All the GOP has to do is do better with Hispanics (which they can easily do, but their image is killing them right now) and they'll do lots of improvement (since the state is almost majority Hispanic). New Mexico is closer to the GOP PVI wise as well.

Current registration party enrollments in New Mexico (as of August 1, 2013) are:

Democrats: 47%
Republicans: 32%
Independents: 18%
Other parties: 3% (I guess these are mainly Libertarian voters)

So even if every independent New Mexico voter would vote for the Republican presidential candidate, that candidate would just barely win the state.

All independents voting Demcratic would end in this landslide: D 65% - R 32%
All independents voting Republican instead would squeak out a victory for the other side: R 50% - D 47%

The equivalent party registration in Oregon (as of August 1, 2012) are these:

Democrats: 39.5%
Republicans: 31%
Independents: 22.4%
Independent Party of Oregon (started in 2007): 4.4%
Libertarians: 0.7%
Green: 0.5%
Other parties: 1.5%

An interesting study found that Oregon has the most liberal voters in the US (more so than Vermont or D.C.), at the same time it also has the most conservative voters in the US (more so than Utah or Tennessee). This of course, makes Oregon the most polarized state in the entire US, at least by this approach. It's not even a racial thing in Oregon, as it would be in Mississippi and many other states. We're mostly talking extremely liberal whites versus extremely conservative whites.

So yes, it seems that New Mexico has already outgrown Oregon as the more Democratic-friendly state of the two, at least by these numbers, taking party registration into account.

[ElectionsGuy]

No, Oregon is very culturally liberal, which, in my opinion, I can't see the GOP winning over. All the GOP has to do is do better with Hispanics (which they can easily do, but their image is killing them right now) and they'll do lots of improvement (since the state is almost majority Hispanic). New Mexico is closer to the GOP PVI wise as well.

Current registration party enrollments in New Mexico (as of August 1, 2013) are:

Democrats: 47%
Republicans: 32%
Independents: 18%
Other parties: 3% (I guess these are mainly Libertarian voters)

So even if every independent New Mexico voter would vote for the Republican presidential candidate, that candidate would just barely win the state.

All independents voting Demcratic would end in this landslide: D 65% - R 32%
All independents voting Republican instead would squeak out a victory for the other side: R 50% - D 47%

Good point, but that assumes these turnouts are the same, which isn't totally realistic. We do know that, especially in the sun belt, republicans turn out much better than democrats. Plus not all people in the party vote the same way (there's usually about 10% that vote for the other candidate, don't ask me why).

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

No it is not.

[henster]

No, Oregon is very culturally liberal, which, in my opinion, I can't see the GOP winning over. All the GOP has to do is do better with Hispanics (which they can easily do, but their image is killing them right now) and they'll do lots of improvement (since the state is almost majority Hispanic). New Mexico is closer to the GOP PVI wise as well.

Current registration party enrollments in New Mexico (as of August 1, 2013) are:

Democrats: 47%
Republicans: 32%
Independents: 18%
Other parties: 3% (I guess these are mainly Libertarian voters)

So even if every independent New Mexico voter would vote for the Republican presidential candidate, that candidate would just barely win the state.

All independents voting Demcratic would end in this landslide: D 65% - R 32%
All independents voting Republican instead would squeak out a victory for the other side: R 50% - D 47%

Good point, but that assumes these turnouts are the same, which isn't totally realistic. We do know that, especially in the sun belt, republicans turn out much better than democrats. Plus not all people in the party vote the same way (there's usually about 10% that vote for the other candidate, don't ask me why).

Oregon is a vote by mail state who turns out better is meaningless everyone gets a ballot in mail and chooses to fill it out or not that's why Democrats are so resilient in Oregon there really isn't a dropoff in Democrat support in midterms.

[ElectionsGuy]

No, Oregon is very culturally liberal, which, in my opinion, I can't see the GOP winning over. All the GOP has to do is do better with Hispanics (which they can easily do, but their image is killing them right now) and they'll do lots of improvement (since the state is almost majority Hispanic). New Mexico is closer to the GOP PVI wise as well.

Current registration party enrollments in New Mexico (as of August 1, 2013) are:

Democrats: 47%
Republicans: 32%
Independents: 18%
Other parties: 3% (I guess these are mainly Libertarian voters)

So even if every independent New Mexico voter would vote for the Republican presidential candidate, that candidate would just barely win the state.

All independents voting Demcratic would end in this landslide: D 65% - R 32%
All independents voting Republican instead would squeak out a victory for the other side: R 50% - D 47%

Good point, but that assumes these turnouts are the same, which isn't totally realistic. We do know that, especially in the sun belt, republicans turn out much better than democrats. Plus not all people in the party vote the same way (there's usually about 10% that vote for the other candidate, don't ask me why).

Oregon is a vote by mail state who turns out better is meaningless everyone gets a ballot in mail and chooses to fill it out or not that's why Democrats are so resilient in Oregon there really isn't a dropoff in Democrat support in midterms.

I was arguing for New Mexico in that case. For Oregon I would actually say democratic turnout is higher than republican turnout.

[ottermax]

Why exactly is New Mexico a swing state historically? It's Hispanic population has been there a long time (lowest foreign born pop. in SW), so the sudden increase in D vote doesn't seem attributable to Hispanics. Are there other hypotheses?

[opebo]

Two very solid Democratic states, neither is likely to go R in the next generation.  NM however has to be more winnable if only because the possibility of a fluke occurrence such as some sort of populist Hispanic GOP candidate from New Mexico is a slight possibility, whereas the liberal whites in OR simply aren't going to vote GOP.

[Flake]

Why exactly is New Mexico a swing state historically? It's Hispanic population has been there a long time (lowest foreign born pop. in SW), so the sudden increase in D vote doesn't seem attributable to Hispanics. Are there other hypotheses?

The Republican Party has alienated these moderates who otherwise would have voted Republican, but people like Mitt Romney have hurt the Republicans chances of winning back Hispanics.

[minionofmidas]

Neither state is particularly winnable for Republicans right now.

[DS0816]

New Mexico first voted in 1912. Carried for all presidential winners except 1976 Jimmy Carter and 2000 George W. Bush. In 2000, it was narrowly Democratic held by Al Gore. N.M. and Iowa were the only two states which carried for the popular-vote winners of the 2000 and 2004 cycles. But the state voted excessively in margins support for Democrat Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012. And he carried the male, along with the female, vote in 2012 N.M. while numerous "Blue Firewall" states could not say the same.

Looking at elections won from 1912 to 2012, and the two parties, along with presidential winners with their base in the "north" or "south," N.M. has been more with those winners whose base states came from the "north." (Same goes, of course, with Oregon.)

Strictly comparing the 26 election cycles of participation for New Mexico to that of the same time-frame's worth of those from Oregon: The two have carried the same in all but five: 1916, 1948, 1960, 1988, and 2004. And 21 of those 26 cycles accounts for 80 percent agreement (4 of every 5 election cycles) between the two states.

New Mexico, and not Oregon, is the long-running, reputable bellwether. But the two sure do agree with each other a lot.

[PJ]

My state is very inelastic. As mentioned earlier, we have the most liberal liberals and the most conservative conservatives, so its very unlikely for us to switch. At the very best, the GOP will do as well here as they did in 2000 for the foreseeable future. New Mexico's future is almost entirely dependent on outreach to hispanics, which is unlikely but possible.