ME-02-Normington Petts: Trump +4

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

could it be that Maine and New Hampshire are switching positions?

If the Northeastern suburbs are starting to move hard to the Democrats, while rural areas start to shift to Republicans, that would make sense.

Yep. I think we're beginning to see the culmination of what had been a gradual realignment transforming into a more rapid one during this election cycle. The Republican Party, as it stands today, is anathema to minorities and most educated white voters - especially those living in large metropolitan areas. Rural and working class white areas will become increasingly Republican. I'd predict we'll see this manifest in the leftward swing of counties that constitutes the Boswash megalopolis, essentially establishing a nearly solid blue wall from the counties of NoVa to southern New Hampshire. We'll also see a greater divergence in trends between the rural and/or blue collar parts of states trending R (such as Western Pennsylvania, Northern Florida, Northern Maine, Upstate New York) and the metropolitan and educated parts of states trending D (Research Triangle, Boswash from NoVa to Southern New Hampshire, Coastal California, the Denver-Boulder-Fort Collins area, and places like Austin and Atlanta).

This is the most depressing thing I've read all day and you're probably completely right.

Well, rural New England+NY's North Country is the only area that has resisted this trend over the past 20 years. In fact, it's a lot more Democratic now than it used to be not so long ago. It's possible that this trend will begin reversing itself in 2016, but I still have reasonable hopes that this one holdout will continue resisting.

Well its about damn time, I say. I hope it reaches Vermont in 10 years or so.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

could it be that Maine and New Hampshire are switching positions?

If the Northeastern suburbs are starting to move hard to the Democrats, while rural areas start to shift to Republicans, that would make sense.

Yep. I think we're beginning to see the culmination of what had been a gradual realignment transforming into a more rapid one during this election cycle. The Republican Party, as it stands today, is anathema to minorities and most educated white voters - especially those living in large metropolitan areas. Rural and working class white areas will become increasingly Republican. I'd predict we'll see this manifest in the leftward swing of counties that constitutes the Boswash megalopolis, essentially establishing a nearly solid blue wall from the counties of NoVa to southern New Hampshire. We'll also see a greater divergence in trends between the rural and/or blue collar parts of states trending R (such as Western Pennsylvania, Northern Florida, Northern Maine, Upstate New York) and the metropolitan and educated parts of states trending D (Research Triangle, Boswash from NoVa to Southern New Hampshire, Coastal California, the Denver-Boulder-Fort Collins area, and places like Austin and Atlanta).

This is the most depressing thing I've read all day and you're probably completely right.

Well, rural New England+NY's North Country is the only area that has resisted this trend over the past 20 years. In fact, it's a lot more Democratic now than it used to be not so long ago. It's possible that this trend will begin reversing itself in 2016, but I still have reasonable hopes that this one holdout will continue resisting.

Well its about damn time, I say. I hope it reaches Vermont in 10 years or so.

It won't. Upstate New York and Northern Maine are fundamentally different from Vermont. The latter is significantly more educated (has one of the nation's highest postsecondary degree rates) and has an economy better adapted to the 21st century. There may be a slight trend R, but that'd be attributable solely to their incredibly low minority population.

The most interesting trends to watch within the Northeast alone will be the trend R in central and southern Pennsylvania, rural Maryland, southern Delaware, upstate New York, northern New Hampshire, northern Maine, and possibly northeastern Vermont, eastern Connecticut, and western Rhode Island. In contrast, the areas trending D will likely be the metros (urban core and suburbs) of Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford, Providence, Boston, Worcester, Manchester, Portland, and the university towns. The easiest way to distinguish which county will trend D or R is to evaluate its current trend, postsecondary educational attainment, and minority population.

I don't expect religion to remain a factor going forward. These Maine voters aren't going for Trump because they attend church every week, many probably don't, are secular or just lapsed Catholics. If anything the movement away from religious issues and towards trade and immigration are the reason why they are voting for Trump. And lets not forget that as much as coalition you mention for Rockefeller, these types of voters in Maine, Iowa and elsewhere were also a part of the Republican coalition at one point and even ancestrally so, the partial inheritence the party received at its founding from the Jacksonian coalition.

If the Clintonian Democratic party becomes and continues to be interventionist and the Republicans continue to move away from that and more towards a restrained foreign policy, there is no way that Vermont doesn't start trending Republican regardless of educational attainment, especially with future candidates who are far better at coming off as less offensive to well most people (but especially the college educated) than Donald Trump does.