This could also mean that Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia are swinging Democratic heavily...those are the large population states in the South.
This is a uniform 18 point swing from 2012:
Note that Virginia is over 60%, while Florida is very close to that point as well. This doesn't seem realistic.
Delaware, the District of Columbia, and Maryland are officially part of the Census South, but politically they are more like New England than like Dixie. Florida is distinct in the South, its closest analogue in political orientation being Ohio, definitely not a Southern state. Virginia is 'losing' its Southern characteristics. All that remains of its 'Southern' heritage is monuments to its time in the Confederacy.
I concur that 60-40 is practically impossible for either Virginia or Florida. 55-45, max, barring something like a Reagan 1980 win.
Even shifts just do not happen. The oddity of Obama winning with Reagan-like landslides in the Northeast and West Coast and marginally in a few states (enough to win) but getting crushed as if he were McGovern or Mondale elsewhere is unlikely to last. He may have been a very polarizing President in a polarized time. That is an unstable situation, and really bad for democracy in general.
Even swings do not happen. Obviously, Hillary Clinton is not going to get 103% of the vote in DC. The most likely big gains from Obama to Clinton will be from states that Obama lost badly in 2012, which means all states in this group except Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia. Hillary Clinton does not pose the visceral fear of a
BLACK MALEleading them.
Oh, the horror! Zombies! Werewolves! Frankenstein monsters! Cannibals! Goblins! Black people in roles of leadership! If that is the difference between 10% of the white vote going for Obama and 30% of the white vote going for Hillary Clinton, then that could be the difference between Obama losses and Clinton wins in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia... maybe Louisiana as well.
(Truth be told, Barack Obama is really an above-average President, probably close to Dwight Eisenhower in temperament, integrity and political skills. But the Mountain and Deep was the only one that voted against Eisenhower, which may say more about the political culture than anything else).
Texas? I do not trust any poll of Texas. The only polls of Texas that I trust are the results of the most recent election. Texas Hispanics (largely Mexican-American) are arguably more conservative than any other Hispanics in America except for Cuban-Americans in Florida. But move them toward the norm for Hispanics nationwide in 2016 because of the incendiary statements by Donald Trump, and the GOP could be in trouble in Texas.
South Carolina? I need to see another poll.
A recent poll suggests that West Virginia is swinging even more Republican -- probably because West Virginia has demographics more hostile to the Democratic Party than almost any other state.
But for all this analysis I recognize that I agree with you even if I find the conclusion counter-intuitive. On objective grounds I see Donald Trump as a very poor fit for most of America, a country becoming less white, less straight, less Christian, less Anglo, and more educated.
