What does your map look like?

[pbrower2a]

Why not just leave the whole map gray, you (vile language deleted!)?

Sam Spade?

Here's my ridiculous map, anyways:

With one slight modification, that map makes sense with the right caption:

Obama (D)     388
Thune (R)          31
Huckabee (I)  118


It's not so ridiculous after all!

Oh -- the message that likely got "Alexander Hamilton" expelled for posting something that the real Alexander Hamilton  would never have said has been deleted.

 

[pbrower2a]

I like how you always give the Democrats the advantage when you create your maps.  Seems like you're guarantee Obama to win and his approval ratings are going down while disapproval ratings going up.  I think you ought to give your maps some more thought before posting.

Who doesn't have bias? Who doesn't have assumptions?  Mine so far are that nothing changes except demographics and that Arizona won't have a Favorite Son running.  Young voters are more Democratic than the public at large, and such results from the political and economic culture that we have, and that that will be enough to flip Missouri, Arizona, and maybe Montana and Georgia in that order.

If the GOP does better in 2012 it will because of voters over 35 changing their minds. Americans over 35 became more GOP-leaning in the 1960s because of highly-visible, obnoxious young adults rejecting the assumptions that underpinned prosperity and the few strictures on language and symbols. Today's youth are much unlike that, so they are not going to inspire any political backlash; they don't look like the cast of Hair; such isn't their style. If anything they are the sorts likely to convince their grandparents and parents that the GOP has little to offer and much to offend.

So far we have little room for thought, and everyone expects the 2012 election to hinge upon what people consider most important. People who think that the highest priority of government is to keep taxes down and facilitate profits will think anything other than a Corporatist Republican a poor choice for President. Such people may believe that people in a state like Pennsylvania will "come to its senses" and recognize how wonderful Rick Santorum was, that Michigan might be amenable to Right-to-Work laws, that Californians will tire of high taxes, and that some charismatic right-winger can sweep aside Obama and his failed liberalism in a landslide that looks like FDR against Hoover.  It's just as easy to believe that Southern poor white people will recognized how badly the Hard Right has $crewed them and begin voting like Big Government liberals, that people in Texas won't keep voting for right-wingers, that Utah will vote against Huckabee because Huckabee won't make political amends fast enough, and Obama stands to win by an LBJ-style margin.

Anyone who looks at the 2008 Presidential election will recognize how polarized America was by regions. States and districts not decided by 10% or more were

Missouri
NE-02
North Carolina
Indiana
Montana
North Dakota
South Dakota
Arizona
Georgia
South Carolina
Florida
Ohio
Virginia
Colorado
Iowa
New Hampshire

Over 400 electoral votes were decided by margins greater than 10%.  It's not as if comparatively-slight shifts of votes will make the difference between a landslide for Obama and a landslide for someone else. That deserves notice and should force people to recognize the impossibility of winning against Obama by going after marginal voters. Obama must fail catastrophically to lose in 2012.  Most of us prefer that Iran not nuke Tel Aviv and that North Korea not fire nuke-tipped missiles at Seattle, that the federal government respond effectively to any natural disaster, and that we have a solid recovery.

Obama can win without achieving much as President. He can play it straight, avoid taking on powerful interests, look askance at corrupt and incompetent institutions, and rely upon tried-and-true practices. George W. Botch achieved little and got re-elected against a weak opponent. Bill Clinton achieved little and got re-elected against a politician past his prime.

Did you know that 20,000 Americans die every year because they are priced out of necessary medical care? They either don't get the care that they need or they quit taking their overpriced medicines. That's about half the toll of motor-vehicle accidents, and we go to great lengths to cut down on deaths from automobile collisions.      

[pbrower2a]

I think that we need to think of blocks of states. Here I modify a map that I placed in another of these Forums discussing States by shared demographic, cultural, and electoral features: 

From the states most likely to vote for Obama to the ones least likely  I can assign geographic groups:

1. Deep Red: Urban Yankee America

Giant cities dominate the political lives of these states. This is Metropolitan America, politically, where even the suburbs have taken on urban qualities. These states have huge appetites for high-cost government services.  They all voted for Obama by large double-digit margins. Anyone who expects political conservatism to regain power in this region in any form in the near future labors under extreme delusion. Not one state in this group has voted for any Republican nominee for President since 1988.

2. Red: Rural Yankee America

 Less urban than  "Urban Yankee America" they have prominent large cities and significant rural influence in statewide politics. As a rule they voted (except perhaps Vermont) less for Obama than Urban Yankee America but by decisive margins -- 9% to 12%. The most populous state in this group is Pennsylvania. New Hampshire barely voted for Dubya in 2000, and Iowa barely voted for Dubya in 2004.


3. Pink: "Resort"  America

These states are fairly similar in demographics (if diverse in geography) with large Hispanic populations. Much of the economic activity is resort-related (casinos, skiing, winter evasion) and this activity attracts people who are much more cosmopolitan in attitudes (and more liberal) than people with similar levels of education and economic status. These states got burned badly by the real estate meltdown which undermined the illusion of Dubya-era prosperity. Of these states, all voted for Dubya in 2004, and all but Arizona went for Obama -- and Arizona by less than the usual margin for a Favorite Son. Agrarian interests remain firmly GOP, but that's not where the people are anymore. 

New Mexico arguably belongs more with California than with other states in this group.

They were settled largely from the South (which explains Nevada because Las Vegas used to be a Southern city) except for native Hispanic and Indian populations.  The GOP can lose one of the states in this group (except Florida or perhaps Arizona) in 2012 and still elect the President, but not two. 

4. Beige: "Straddler" states

Missouri, Indiana, and Ohio are split about halfway (roughly along Interstate 70) between the Mountain South and the genuine North. Northern parts of these states (and some urban areas in southern Indiana and Ohio, as well as greater St. Louis and Kansas City in Missouri) vote more like Iowa or Michigan; the South is more like the Mountain South in culture and political life. Obama almost won Missouri, and barely won Indiana and Ohio; to the extent that these States are Northern they vote Democratic, and to the extent that they are Mountain South they vote Republican. Illinois and Pennsylvania are excluded because they voted decisively for Obama -- by more than 10% -- and are firmly in the so-called "Blue Firewall".    These states voted for Dubya in 2000 and 2004, and in view of their electoral size, the GOP nominee for President will not win while losing any one of them. .

5. Green: the Atlantic South (VA, NC, GA).

These states used to be firmly Democratic after the Civil War and went firmly Republican (except Georgia from 1976 to 1992, largely due to the influence of Jimmy Carter, a Favorite Son) between 1968 and 2004, inclusive. They split almost evenly between Obama and McCain. They have attracted many economic fugitives from the North -- to Washington DC suburbs, southeastern Virginia, the Research Triangle, Charlotte, and Atlanta. (Southern Georgia is clearly Deep South like Mississippi and Alabama -- but not so strongly populated as northern Georgia). Demographics alone could shift Georgia into an Obama win in 2012.

They used to be known as some of the most reactionary in their politics as demonstrated by Senators George Allen, Jesse Helms, and (now) Saxby Chambliss (and he came close to losing his Senate seat in 2008)... and they used to be the source area for the Plantation culture in America.  Such is past. They are more urban than they used to be, and that changes political values.   

Unlike the states in pale green, the style of politics in these states is NOT as populist. Obama could win these states or come close -- and Clinton didn't (except Georgia in 1992, which no longer seems relevant). They are only three states, but they comprised 43 electoral votes in 2008.    These states are large electorally, and in view of the so-called Blue Firewall, the Republican nominee must win all three of these states to have a chance to win the election.

6. Brown: the Northern Plains

The smallest electoral region in America by votes, if large in area. More Democratic-leaning than the Central Plains or Northern mountain states, they still were decidedly more Republican than the national average: Montana and the Dakotas. Comprising only nine electoral votes, the GOP could lose all thre of these states and still win in 2012... but other states are more critical and more likely to vote for Obama.

[pbrower2a]

(Continued):

Light Green 7.  the Clinton-but-not-Obama arc

These states voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, but rejected Obama by huge margins in 2008. They could be called the "Mountain South", an area settled heavily by Scots-Irish backwoods people. These states did NOT polarize as did Alabama, Louisiana, or Mississippi along racial lines. They are more industrialized than the Deep South, but they are still much more rural than the national average. Fundamentalist Christianity is strong from northern Louisiana to West Virginia, and such shapes political attitudes toward the GOP. They have far fewer blacks than Mississippi or Alabama (Louisiana clearly fitting the Alabama-Louisiana pattern).

These states can vote for a Southern moderate populist Democrat (Carter 1976, Clinton).. but not a d@mnyankee liberal (Humphrey, Kerry, Obama) or a Southerner who forgets his roots (Carter 1980, Gore 2000). They probably voted for Carter in 1976 because they figured that Ford was more likely to be a liberal RINO.  These states largely move in tandem, although Louisiana seems less likely to go for Obama in 2012 than any of the other states in this category. Can Obama win these states? Sure -- if he can be an effective populist running against a d@mnyankee technocrat like Romney or Ridge. They go to Obama only in a landslide.


8. Pale blue: the Central Plains and the  Northern Mountain States (include Alaska) .

These states have voted firmly Republican for a very long time. Except for the LBJ landslide of 1964, Democratic nominees for President have combined for only one electoral vote from these states since at least 1948 (when Truman won Oklahoma). Utah is definitely not Southern, but it is closer to voting like the Central Plains than any other region even if its geography is more like Nevada.  Politically, Alaska votes like Oklahoma because of the oil industry. They have straightforward economies based heavily on farming, ranching, or oil extraction.

9. Orange: Texas

Texas doesn't fit easily into any region of America; it straddles regions due to its size and (for the South) diversity. It has characteristics of the Deep South (East Texas), the Resort South (the Rio Grande valley from El Paso to Brownsville), and the Central Plains (northwestern Texas, including about everything west of Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio except for El Paso) while containing an urban triangle including Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and Galveston.  Politically, Texas is a composite -- something like Kansas grafted onto Florida. Obama wins Texas if Florida goes for him by 8% or Kansas goes for the GOP nominee by less than 8%, neither of which is likely in 2012.

10. Deep Blue: the Deep South. 

They definitely include Alabama and Mississippi -- and arguably Louisiana and South Carolina-- the four states most polarized in voting along racial lines. Southern Georgia really belongs here. These states went from racist, reactionary Democrats to the Dixiecrat secession of 1948, went back to voting for Stevenson and Kennedy, turned down the LBJ landslide because LBJ stood for civil rights for blacks, voted for George Wallace's racist campaign of 1968, and went Republican and have stayed that way except for the 1976 candidacy of Jimmy Carter -- whom they turned upon after finding that despite the drawl he wasn't politically one of them. Voters polarize between democrats (the de facto the Black People's Party) and Republicans (the de facto White People's Party) as no other state (except Louisiana in 2008) did.  Former Senator Trent Lott would have never been elected from any State other than Mississippi or Alabama. Louisiana may have gone for Clinton in 1992 and 1996, but its behavior in 2008 that it fits this group.  This is a very reactionary region in America -- because white people have shown that very few of them can vote for any black candidate. Blacks are as liberal in this region as any in politics; white people simply vote in statewide monoliths in these states as they vote in no other states.

[pbrower2a]

Here's one trend to watch:

The youngest voters from 2004-2008

State       2004 Margin      2008 Margin            Swing

The Mid-Atlantic

PA            60-39 Kerry       66-34 Obama          D + 6
DE           54-45 Kerry        71-25 Obama         D + 17
NY           72-25 Kerry         76-21 Obama        D + 4
NJ            64-35 Kerry        67-32 Obama         D + 3
MD           62-35 Kerry       70-26 Obama          D + 8
DC           90-8 Kerry       95-5 Obama              D + 5

New England

CT            70-29 Kerry       79-18 Obama      D + 9
ME            50-48 Bush       67-30 Obama      D + 19
NH            57-43 Kerry       61-37 Obama      D + 4
VT            71-27 Kerry       81-18 Obama      D + 10
MA           72-26 Kerry       78-20 Obama      D + 6
RI             68-30 Kerry       68-25 Obama      D + 0

The Midwest

OH           56-42 Kerry       61-38 Obama              D + 5
IN            52-47 Bush        63-35 Obama              D + 16
MO           51-48 Kerry        59-39 Obama             D + 8
IA              53-46 Kerry        63-34 Obama            D + 10
MI             55-43 Kerry         68-29 Obama            D + 13
MN           57-41 Kerry         66-32 Obama            D + 9
WI            57-41 Kerry         64-35 Obama            D + 7
IL             64-35 Kerry        71-27 Obama    D + 7

The Coastal South

VA             54-46 Kerry       63-34 Obama              D + 9
NC             56-43 Kerry       74-26 Obama              D + 18
SC             51-48 Bush        57-42 Obama             D + 9
GA             52-47 Bush        51-48 McCain             D + 1
FL              58-41 Kerry        61-37 Obama             D + 3

The Deep and Inland South

AL            57-41 Bush         51-49 Obama           D + 10
MS           63-37 Kerry         56-43 Obama           R + 6
TN            53-46 Bush         59-40 Obama           D + 13
KY           54-45 Bush          51-48 Obama           D + 6
WV          52-48 Bush         50-50 Tie      D + 2
AR           51-47 Bush         49-49 Tie      D + 2
LA            53-45 Bush         49-48 McCain   D + 4 (but won 18-24 by 53-45)
TX            59-41 Bush         54-45 Obama   D + 13

The Plains States

KS           55-44 Bush          51-47 Obama   D + 7
ND           68-32 Bush         51-47 Obama   D + 19
SD           55-43 Bush         50-48 Obama   D + 7
NE           60-38 Bush         54-43 Obama   D + 16
OK           62-38 Bush         60-40 McCain   D + 2

The Rockies and the Southwest

AZ            50-48 Bush        52-48 Obama            D + 4
NV            56-42 Kerry        70-29 Obama           D + 14
NM           50-49 Bush         77-21 Obama           D + 27
CO           51-47 Kerry         No result                  N/A
UT            77-18 Bush         62-33 McCain           D + 15
WY          72-25 Bush         63-35 McCain            D + 10
MT            52-43 Bush        61-37 Obama            D + 18
ID            65-35 Bush        56-42 McCain              D + 7

The West

CA           58-39 Kerry         76-23 Obama            D + 18 (80% of 18-24 for Obama)
OR           62-37 Kerry          No result                 N/A
WA          50-47 Kerry          No result                 N/A
AK            59-37 Bush         61-37 Bush               R + 2
HI             61-39 Kerry         82-18 Obama            D + 21



Figure that this bloc of voters will get larger in 2012 (it will be under 35 instead of under 30) and that it will be no less liberal-leaning by then. I notice that the youngest voters vote much more Democratic than older voters in practically every state.

The significance? Younger voters will supplant older voters in the electorate as older ones die or go senile and no longer vote. If you figure that the voters in a state like Virginia (which voted about 53-46 for Obama) had young voters going 63-34 for Obama.  So the youngest 16 years of voters in Virginia voted 63-34 for Obama, then the rest of the electorate voted  about 50-50 for Obama.

The math:

(1/4)x(63%) + (3/4) N = 53%

N =49.7%.

Next time with nothing more than the appearance of new young voters and the disappearance of older voters to death or senility, (round up 49.7% to 50%)

(20/64) x 63% + (44/64) x 50% = 54.1%

With no other change than new voters supplanting older voters, such suggests that Obama will win Virginia about 54-44-2.   That's roughly a 1.5% change in favor of Obama without doing much.

With someone else's guess on how Congressional seats will be re-apportioned and that the Favorite Son effect will disappear from Arizona (unless Senator John Kyl runs, which I think unlikely). This assumes that Obama will face an opponent as strong as John McCain was in 2008 (which itself is a huge assumption) :

Overpowering Obama win (20%+)
Strong Obama win (10-20%)
Modest Obama win (5-10%)
Weak Obama win (under 5%)
Weak GOP win (under 5%)
Modest GOP win (5-10%)
Strong GOP win (10%-20%)
Overpowering GOP win (20%+)
Nebraska: splits its electoral votes



(Nebraska splits its electoral votes, and the map fails to show it):

NE-01 is "Modest GOP"
NE-02 is "Weak Obama"
NE-03 is "Overwhelming GOP"
the state at large is "Strong GOP"

Obama wins of 2008 are solidified everywhere, and many viewers will be turning channels as the suspense fails to develop. 

Young voters in Georgia are not particularly liberal -- probably many of them are military, and the military tends to attract conservative-leaning young adults. Georgia, close as it was for Obama in 2008, will not go for him.  Older voters in the Dakotas aren't as conservative as those in Kansas, but younger voters in the Dakotas are too close to 50-50 to swing either state. Maybe farm-and-ranch life is good for ensuring that kids really are chips off the old block, so to speak, even in politics. 


 

[pbrower2a]

You might as well make the entire map red since you're a Democrat hack. Seriously, you can't really predict what the election is going to be like in 2012.

You misuse the word "hack".

I state my assumptions and I used statistics and mathematics. I may have used an over-simplified example with Virginia, but only to make the mathematics simple (although I found it a great opportunity). What I showed is a jumping-off point for further discussion. In the example that I gave, I showed Obama picking up Missouri (which was close and wouldn't take much to flip toward Obama in 2012), Montana (likewise), and Arizona (the Favorite Son effect is real; it was enough to allow George McGovern to come close to winning South Dakota in 1972 while losing neighboring North Dakota and Nebraska by gigantic margins). Missouri, Montana, and Arizona are the only states that I showed Obama picking up. The statistics also suggested that Obama would get bigger margins in such states as Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and Florida. I could say nothing about Colorado because no relevant data is available for Colorado.

You cannot deny that the young voters voted more strongly Democratic in 2008 than older voters practically everywhere that Obama won or in which he was close in 2008. The true "hack" would deny the effect or expect to see it vanish without obvious cause.

If I saw the reverse... let us say that North Carolina, which Obama won by a narrow margin, went for McCain by a margin of 58-41  among voters 18-30,  then the model would have forced me to conclude that Obama would likely lose North Carolina in 2012.

My model suggests, contrary to the models that others with Democratic tendencies have, that Obama is unlikely to win Georgia or the Dakotas in 2012 -- and why. If young voters are voting like their elders in the same state, then no youth trend in voting exists that can change anything by itself in that state.  I have explained why Georgia would have so many young conservatives: Georgia has large military bases and lots of soldiers and airmen, that the military tends to attract ideological conservatives, and that many of them register to vote in Georgia.

This model is a starting point for discussion. One can argue that young voters will come to their senses, that they will realize that shareholders and executives are more reliable friends than government or unions, that taxes on rich people that they don't know or care about  do even more harm to young adults than do taxes on themselves, that George W. Bush really was a great President... it's also still possible that vaudeville will make a comeback.

It might be distressing that I show that the state that likely forms the line between the re-election of Barack Obama and a GOP victory -- Virginia -- looks as if it could go to Obama by a small double-digit margin, and that the play-by-play of the 2012 election will have lost all suspense once the networks call Virginia for Obama early in the evening long before polls close on the West Coast. Such happens. Deal with it. Obama looks as if he will win 279 electoral votes by double-digit margins, Virginia, Iowa, and New Hampshire joining those ranks in 2012, and that's before any states that he will likely win by smaller margins.

Remember: it is a starting point. One of the assumptions that I gave was that the GOP nominee would be as strong and effective a campaigner as John McCain and would be similarly appealing to the voters of 2008. We will have a new set of voters -- one with comparatively-young voters voting for the first time and many voters, mostly old, no longer able to vote because (to make it a bit graphic) governments don't ordinarily bring voting booths to the cemeteries.

Demographics matter. Voting patterns with age matter. Political culture matters. Nothing yet indicates that young voters will be more conservative in their social and economic attitudes in 2012. For the Republicans to do better in 2012 they will be obliged to win over people over 35 who went for Obama in 2008; they can forget young adults.