Which democrats would win Wyoming?

[NOVA Green]

Liz Cheney switches parties and runs as a Democrat for President in 2032?

[NOVA Green]

Trust me, I know politics. I am a UMaryland poli sci professor.

My apologies for a sarcastic response and the inevitable Atlas feeding frenzy that always ensues when one raises a question which challenges the CW on the Forum.

Democratic Presidential candidates have in the not too distant past been able to perform relatively well in Wyoming....

Hell--- even if one looks at the County Presidential Map of Wyoming (Which not being a paid Atlas member had to pull out of a storage bin that I made way back when I was in High School in the late '80s/early '90s, it's actually pretty amazing how many counties in Wyoming Dukakis carried.

The key for a Democrat to win Wyoming is obviously the Southern Belt of the State, that runs all the way from Evanston to Cheyenne.

When I was a kid every year we drove all the way down that belt of I-80 in Wyoming to visit our Grandparents out on the East Coast, so I know most of the pit stops along the way, as well as where the vast majority of Wyoming Voters live.

Along that belt the most traditionally Democratic County is Albany County (Laramie) that voted overwhelmingly Dukakis in '88....

Look at Sweetwater County (Rock Springs) that went heavily Dem in '88, a place where my step-mother who grew up in Wyoming along with her seven brothers, warned me about mixing with the locals, as it was a "Roughneck" and Oil Boom Town.

Go out to Laramie County, which actually includes the largest population center (Cheyenne), and once you get off the highway even in the daytime you'll see the Petroleum refinery.

So, even if a Dem Presidential candidate can exceed Dukakis '88 numbers in the traditional Democratic Belt in the State, then you start to run into the subtraction of votes that come from heavily rural areas in the Middle and Northern Part of the State....

Sure, all politics are local, so maybe a Dem could potentially pick off a US Senate Seat/House Seat/Governor at some point down the line, but what Democrat running for President would be able to create a winning electoral coalition in Wyoming?

It would definitely have to be a Westerner (Not Californian), that understands both rural and energy issues in detail, that doesn't pander to the "Anti Gun" crowd....

Wyoming voters are very pragmatic when it comes to Social issues, with a strong Libertarian streak....

My stepmom used to tell me that "The cowboys were the first Hippies"...

So still not sure what Democrat might perform best in Wyoming at the top of the ticket, but definitely not seeing a Presidential GE win anytime in the future, regardless of whom the Dems decide to select.

[NOVA Green]

Trust me, I know politics. I am a UMaryland poli sci professor.

Hell--- even if one looks at the County Presidential Map of Wyoming (Which not being a paid Atlas member had to pull out of a storage bin that I made way back when I was in High School in the late '80s/early '90s, it's actually pretty amazing how many counties in Wyoming Dukakis carried.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Wyoming,_1988

Hmm, he did get a higher % of the vote than everyone except Carter in '72, JFK, and of course LBJ, but it doesn't look like he won any counties - he kept Bush down to less than 50% in two counties.

Good catch Big Tent!  Appreciate you taking a closer look at this one and calling out some "fake news"

So, it looks like the handmade map I pulled out was actually a National Map of the 1992 Presidential Election, which is obviously a somewhat unusual beast by nature, and I neglected to identify the election, solely the margins via color shading...

Still, the fundamental point is still relevant in that the belt of counties that runs from Uinta, Sweetwater, Carbon, Albany, and Laramie Counties has a relatively recent tradition of Democrats doing fairly well, compared to elsewhere in Wyoming, and does contain enough medium-sized population centers to potentially allow the right type of Democrat to be able to make for a more competitive race than normal.

1992: Was when Democrats won Sweetwater, Carbon, and Albany Counties... and only narrowly lost Laramie keeping Bush Sr to only a 5% win the State....

1996: Even with an almost 50% drop in the Perot vote, Clinton still managed to bag Sweetwater & Albany Counties, although Dole was able to win the state by 13%.

2008: Obama carried Albany County narrowly.

So, lest anyone misunderstand I am no way shape or form claiming that Wyoming will be anything but a solidly Republican State for quite some time, but rather calling out the places where a Democrat would need to win by decent margins to make the state competitive, including US Senate/US Rep/Gov, etc....

[NOVA Green]

I've never worked in Wyoming and don't know their politics all too well, could somebody please explain what makes it so red at seemingly every level?

No big cities.

That appears to be on surface a fairly simplistic analysis, although factually correct....

Sure, there are no "big cities" in Wyoming, but as in much of the American West, a large chunk of the population/voters do reside in cities, as opposed to proper rural residents.

That being said even if we were to run a compare and contrast with Montana (For example), the cities in Wyoming over the past 20 years have increasingly become Republican strongholds, hence the lack of any real competitive statewide elections, let alone competitiveness at a Presidential level.

It is the collapse of Democratic support in the cities of Wyoming that has caused the most dramatic changes in recent decades....

So, I took the liberty of pulling a few numbers from the largest cities in Wyoming at the Presidential level in 2000, and then pulled in some numbers for 2016.... Precinct/City data from Wyoming is slightly harder to obtain, so this is not intended as a complete report, but I didn't want to spend much more than 30-45 minutes trying to pull data and crunch numbers.

Largest Cities in Wyoming:

1.) Cheyenne--- Pop 60.5k--- (Laramie County)--- (65% of County Vote)

2000: (38 D- 60 R)     +22 R
2008: (44 D- 56 R)     +12 R
2016: (33 D- 59 R)     +26 R    (So Trump did worse than W. in the largest City in the State)

2.) Casper---    Pop 56.9k---  (Natrona County)---  (~70% of County Vote)

2000: (32 D- 64 R)      +32 R
2016: (22 D- 68 R)      +56 R     (These #s are approx bcs of poor precinct maps, but likely correct)

3.) Laramie--- Pop 31.2k--- (Albany County)---  (77% of County Vote)

2000: (38 D- 53 R)       +17 R
2016: (46 D- 42 R)       + 4 D

4.) Gillette--- Pop 30.5k---  (Campbell County)--- (~70-75% of County Vote)

2000: (18 D- 80 R)       +62 R

5.) Rock Springs--- Pop 23.5k-- (Sweetwater County)---  (60% of County Vote)

2000: (36 D- 59 R)      +23 R
2016: (19 D- 71 R)      +52 R

So, there you have it....

If Dem's can't win cities like Cheyenne and Rock Springs, let alone winning Laramie by large margins, they have virtually no hope of winning any statewide election in the near future...

One must assume that Casper & Gillette as oil & gas centers will continue to vote heavily Republican, but the only path towards a Democratic statewide win in Wyoming runs heavily through these five top population centers, plus keeping the Pub margins down in rural Wyoming.

[NOVA Green]

I've never worked in Wyoming and don't know their politics all too well, could somebody please explain what makes it so red at seemingly every level?

No big cities.

The collapse of unions in the cities, as well as the increase of Mormons in Wyoming, contribute more.

Kingpolean, I would like you to expand that argument in further detail if you don't mind....

Although I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the "collapse of the Unions in the cities", Wyoming has a much higher rate of Union membership than both New Mexico and Arizona.

It is true that Wyoming does have the 3rd highest rate of LDS population in the US, however the reality is that a Presidential Level, Mormons have been voting heavily Republican since '84, if not before....

IMHO: It really doesn't explain dramatic shifts/swings in voting patterns at a Presidential Level between '88 and '16.