Swing Voters and Elastic States

[illegaloperation]

This is a very interesting read: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/swing-voters-and-elastic-states/

I am not going to reproduce all the content here.

[Skill and Chance]

The population of the state seems to be relevant here.  Bigger states look to be generally less elastic.  This also suggests that the easiest GOP route to 270 runs through CO and the upper Midwest as opposed to PA and VA. 

[illegaloperation]

The population of the state seems to be relevant here.  Bigger states look to be generally less elastic.  This also suggests that the easiest GOP route to 270 runs through CO and the upper Midwest as opposed to PA and VA. 

This would be correct. Virginia and North Carolina are going to be blue and probably stay there. Pennsylvania will probably stays where it is.

Colorado will be lean Democratic in the future (the chart above is based on 2008 data), but will still be elastic.

[illegaloperation]

What I wonder is if Georgia or Arizona should be the next state for Democrats to focus on.

Georgia is close, but inelastic. Arizona is further, but elastic.

Of cause North Carolina is inelastic, but Obama was able to win in 2008 with a good ground game and got close again in 2012.

[JRP1994]

What I wonder is if Georgia or Arizona should be the next state for Democrats to focus on.

Georgia is close, but inelastic. Arizona is further, but elastic.

Of cause North Carolina is inelastic, but Obama was able to win in 2008 with a good ground game and got close again in 2012.

Georgia. It actually trended Democratic this cycle (2008 to 2012), while Arizona did not. Had Obama seriously contested it in 2008, there's a real chance it could have been within 2%.

[illegaloperation]

What I wonder is if Georgia or Arizona should be the next state for Democrats to focus on.

Georgia is close, but inelastic. Arizona is further, but elastic.

Of cause North Carolina is inelastic, but Obama was able to win in 2008 with a good ground game and got close again in 2012.

Georgia. It actually trended Democratic this cycle (2008 to 2012), while Arizona did not. Had Obama seriously contested it in 2008, there's a real chance it could have been within 2%.

Arizona doesn't seem to be moving at all, which is very surprising.

Georgia seems to be ~2% more Republican than North Carolina (if contested) although it could be more since North Carolina is moving faster to the left.

I am guessing that after getting North Carolina back, Democrats would go after Georgia.

[barfbag]

Part of me sees trends as over-rated. They don't go on forever and often serve as teasers. Democrats shouldn't go after GA or AZ anymore than Republicans should go after CT or IL. It looks like we're heading for an era with just a handful of battleground states too. I suspect the traditional states will remain and the rest will remain moderately to largely on one side or the other. In the next election I'm looking at OH, PA, VA, FL, NH, CO, NV, MN, IA, WI, and possibly NM could come back. Democrats have been saying they have a chance at AZ since the early 90's and what do they have to show for it?

[DS0816]

The "blue firewall" states, as well as New Hampshire, are there for the Democrats for 246 electoral votes. Add to them New Mexico, which doesn't look like a bellwether state any longer (or, if it still is, it's tilted strongly Democratic with a realigning presidential period favoring the party in which N.M. carries every time with margins exceeding the national number). Add to this Nevada, another long-running bellwether state which has disagreed just once with N.M. (in 2000, with the split outcomes of Electoral College-vs.-U.S. Popular Vote winners) and boasts a spread typically between three to five points from its companion. Add to these Iowa, which tends to be no greater than three points in spread from the popular-vote margin and, along with that, has had a blue tilt since 1984.

That's already 263 electoral votes.

Under these circumstances, the Republicans have no choice but to win bellwethers Florida and Ohio (mathematically there is no other option) along with newly established ones Virginia and Colorado. With the latter, the GOP hasn't won a statewide race in this mountain west state since 2004. Add to this that North Carolina is trending away from the Republicans and toward the edges of Competitive/Bellwether. Then factor in Arizona and Georgia, states where Barack Obama won the female vote in at least one of his two elections. (And in 2008, there was no gender-voting gap in Ariz. That year's female voters in Ga. topped the percentages of the official Democratic pickup states Fla., Ohio, and Va.) If Hillary Clinton becomes the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, and the result is a third consecutive cycle victory for Team Blue, discussion will be had about the six states that used to back Team Blue in their prevailing elections: Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

There is Indiana, which has proven it is not shying away from splitting tickets and is winnable. And Montana, taken for granted because of its measly three electoral votes, is also underestimated. (Another state for which Obama won the female vote in at least one of his two elections.)

Coming up: Texas and South Carolina [?] !

[ElectionsGuy]

The "blue firewall" states, as well as New Hampshire, are there for the Democrats for 246 electoral votes. Add to them New Mexico, which doesn't look like a bellwether state any longer (or, if it still is, it's tilted strongly Democratic with a realigning presidential period favoring the party in which N.M. carries every time with margins exceeding the national number). Add to this Nevada, another long-running bellwether state which has disagreed just once with N.M. (in 2000, with the split outcomes of Electoral College-vs.-U.S. Popular Vote winners) and boasts a spread typically between three to five points from its companion. Add to these Iowa, which tends to be no greater than three points in spread from the popular-vote margin and, along with that, has had a blue tilt since 1984.

That's already 263 electoral votes.

Under these circumstances, the Republicans have no choice but to win bellwethers Florida and Ohio (mathematically there is no other option) along with newly established ones Virginia and Colorado. With the latter, the GOP hasn't won a statewide race in this mountain west state since 2004. Add to this that North Carolina is trending away from the Republicans and toward the edges of Competitive/Bellwether. Then factor in Arizona and Georgia, states where Barack Obama won the female vote in at least one of his two elections. (And in 2008, there was no gender-voting gap in Ariz. That year's female voters in Ga. topped the percentages of the official Democratic pickup states Fla., Ohio, and Va.) If Hillary Clinton becomes the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, and the result is a third consecutive cycle victory for Team Blue, discussion will be had about the six states that used to back Team Blue in their prevailing elections: Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

There is Indiana, which has proven it is not shying away from splitting tickets and is winnable. And Montana, taken for granted because of its measly three electoral votes, is also underestimated. (Another state for which Obama won the female vote in at least one of his two elections.)

Coming up: Texas and South Carolina [?] !

South Carolina will not become Democratic in the near future, it has no signs of going democratic (unless the white vote gets more democratic or the black vote grows) and is inelastic. Texas however has some potential, but if were being realistic, don't count on it until 2020's.

I will say Indiana was a once-in-a-lifetime swing in a heavy democratic wave year, people really shouldn't think it has any chance of going democratic in the near future, even Bob Dole won it and he did worse than McCain. Montana wasn't a rare swing, but it will need Obama 2008+ levels of Democratic Power to win (Bill Clinton won it in 1992, but it has gotten more republican since then).

Also I know your just speculating, but all the six southern states you mentioned are all trending republican and have 57%+ republican levels of support. A democrat would need a landslide to get any of those in the current day.

[eric82oslo]

What I wonder is if Georgia or Arizona should be the next state for Democrats to focus on.

Georgia is close, but inelastic. Arizona is further, but elastic.

Of cause North Carolina is inelastic, but Obama was able to win in 2008 with a good ground game and got close again in 2012.

Georgia. It actually trended Democratic this cycle (2008 to 2012), while Arizona did not. Had Obama seriously contested it in 2008, there's a real chance it could have been within 2%.

Arizona doesn't seem to be moving at all, which is very surprising.

Georgia seems to be ~2% more Republican than North Carolina (if contested) although it could be more since North Carolina is moving faster to the left.

I am guessing that after getting North Carolina back, Democrats would go after Georgia.

I wouldn't say that Arizona isn't moving at all. It's just that white voters are becoming increasingly conservative, while minority voters are becoming more liberal. And 3 out of 4 voters in the state still being white. I also strongly suspect that we have been seeing a considerable McCain effect in the state ever since the late 90ies, with him becoming more and more prominent in the eyes of national voters and not to mentioned being one of the best-liked Republican politicians of the nation for all, or most, of this time. However I think that this strong McCain effect of the years say 1999-2013, might slowly start to fade out a bit. He will still be a compromising and well-respected figure in the Senate, but he will never run for president again, of course. I think his considerable shadow over Arizona politics will start to diminish from now on, and we might thus start to see figures like those we witness during the 90ies, when the two parties were at least somewhat competitive in the state.

I agree with you that Georgia should be the most likely pick-up state for Democrats in the years ahead, behind Florida and North Carolina of course. Fourth I would place Arizona, whenever Dem leaders can start to register voters there en masse. Fifth is more tricky. It could be Texas, Alaska or South Carolina perhaps, even Louisiana maybe. Yet Texas will always remain more Republican-leaning than the popular vote. This is simply due to it being such a massive state. It will always remain more conservative than other large states like New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey and Florida.

States that could easily tilt more Republican are slow-growing, poor, traditionally worker-intensive states with a very low percentage of minorities and a considerable number of value-voters. (Yet this is exactly the kind of states where the Clinton brand is stronger, so it might take a while still before it happens.) States like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Missouri and Indiana. Michigan and Ohio have obviously thrived under Obama, due to his auto rescue, but in 8 or 12 years from now, that fact might be somewhat forgotten already. West Virginia is another state that probably won't know many limits, and might in a decade's time or so overtake the position of states like Utah, Idaho, Oklahoma and Alabama, as the most conservative, Republican-leaning state of them all. Unless it's right what I read recently that the suburbs/exurbs of Washington D.C. are extending even across the border of West Virginia? It's incredible how stable Ohio - and to a lesser degree Pennsylvania - has been over the past 30 years or so. However, with an evermore rapidly changing demographic, I have my doubts about how much longer Ohio can remain as the battleground state of the nation. I suspect that in 10 more years, Ohio will lean Republican by a margin of some 5-6%.

[eric82oslo]

South Carolina will not become Democratic in the near future, it has no signs of going democratic (unless the white vote gets more democratic or the black vote grows) and is inelastic. Texas however has some potential, but if were being realistic, don't count on it until 2020's.

South Carolina - along with its neighbours to the north, west and south - North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Florida, is one of the fastest-growing states in the nation, so I don't necessarily agree with you there. The state has been pretty clever in attracting new businesses. Don't see that changing anytime soon. Demographics will start to mix up a lot and voting trends will as well.