Electoral College problems for Republicans

[Rockefeller GOP]

JMO, but this board severely overrates how loyal NH is to the Democratic Party.  It would go GOP in a favorable environment with a solid candidate.  A Republican ceiling right now (not counting a big landslide/unordinary candidates) still looks like this, IMO:

Now yes, this is a CEILING, but it's possible.  It's not likely, but presenting the OP as the "best the GOP can do" is way wrong.

[Rockefeller GOP]

JMO, but this board severely overrates how loyal NH is to the Democratic Party.  It would go GOP in a favorable environment with a solid candidate.

NH has same day registration. So does Wisconsin. I think we can all agree there are more Democrats than Republicans in the country. Therefore, these two states are out of reach of the GOP in presidential years when the Democrats are willing to spend huge amounts on GOTV effort.


By the way, could you elaborate on your favorable environment and solid candidate?

I think in 2016, Chris Christie would likely carry NH vs. Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren.

[Rockefeller GOP]

The presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party is Hillary Rodham Clinton.
So, let's consider only her in our deliberation, please.

Okay, well I'd re-read your OP before expecting people to assume that.

[Rockefeller GOP]

To win, Republicans must win back the sorts of people who believe in thrift, investment, enterprise, and rational thought -- essentially the sorts who would have voted for Eisenhower in the 1950s. They have no use for attempts to impose fundamentalist Christianity in the schools or regulate sexuality.

If Republicans ignore such people, then Democrats will pick them up.

These people are rational and they understand that it is usually necessary to vote for someone who isn't a perfect fit for their own vies and beliefs, but who is a far lesser evil. Of course, Ted Cruz and his lookalikes would be off-putting to these people.

Romney won "affluent voters" by a comfortable margin and won affluent Whites by an even larger margin.  Gaining back "Eisenhower business types" isn't the problem; even though Democrats act snobby about the GOP and portray it as a collection of religious zealots and redneck xenophobes, that business-esque group is already in the fold.

With the exception of Blacks and White Southerners, the GOP is winning the same type of people it's been winning since the freaking 1800s ... The problem is those people are making up a smaller and smaller percent of the electorate, especially during Presidential elections.  The GOP's recipe for a comeback will be convincing middle- and upper-income minorities that the party does not contain an anti-minority element and getting their votes on the same economic grounds that it currently wins middle- and upper-income Whites.  That will be an uphill battle, but it's easily the best and only strategy going forward, IMO.

[Rockefeller GOP]

^ Boom.

[Rockefeller GOP]

New Jersey is not going red in 2016, Christie's approvals there are way down and doubtful he can beat Hillary. A lot of Republicans are overconfident about 2016, Obama in the mid 40s probably will not sink Hillary. Hillary had led Jeb and Rubio in every single Florida poll and the electorate there will only be around 64% white in 2016.

If the election were in, say, two weeks between Clinton and Christie, this is how I'd see the map:

Dark Blue = Safe GOP
Blue = Probable GOP
Light Blue = Lean GOP
Gray = Tossup
Light Red = Lean DEM
Red = Probable GOP
Dark Red = Safe DEM

[Rockefeller GOP]

To win, Republicans must win back the sorts of people who believe in thrift, investment, enterprise, and rational thought -- essentially the sorts who would have voted for Eisenhower in the 1950s. They have no use for attempts to impose fundamentalist Christianity in the schools or regulate sexuality.

If Republicans ignore such people, then Democrats will pick them up.

These people are rational and they understand that it is usually necessary to vote for someone who isn't a perfect fit for their own vies and beliefs, but who is a far lesser evil. Of course, Ted Cruz and his lookalikes would be off-putting to these people.

Romney won "affluent voters" by a comfortable margin and won affluent Whites by an even larger margin.  Gaining back "Eisenhower business types" isn't the problem; even though Democrats act snobby about the GOP and portray it as a collection of religious zealots and redneck xenophobes, that business-esque group is already in the fold.

With the exception of Blacks and White Southerners, the GOP is winning the same type of people it's been winning since the freaking 1800s ...

That is not entirely true. A majority of middle- and upper-income voters in the North East and on the West Coast voted for Obama. From 1856 to 1988, Vermont voted Democratic only once and Maine only three times. Vermont's population has barely changed (it is stil 95% white), the Republican party has.

1) If you're suggesting that the Northeast's and West Coast's politics have always been the same and the GOP is just radically different, you're just misinformed.  California gave us Reagan for God's sake, it used to be a much more conservative state.  New England sent several very conservative Congressmen to DC throughout the Twentieth Century; it is a much more liberal region now than it ever has been in the past.  While VT's racial makeup is the same, its population is much different.

2) You may be right, but the affluent vote is still more Republican than the working class or poor vote.  But these are the numbers I could find for the highest income bracket voting in 2012:
NH - 51% Romney, 47% Obama
CT - 53% Obama, 46% Romney
MA - 52% Obama, 46% Romney
NY - 51% Obama, 49% Romney
VT - 67% Obama, 32% Romney

Considering that this includes all races and that VT and ME are tiny components of the average, I don't think it's outlandish to say that a slight majority of White affluent voters in the Northeast sided with Romney in 2012, and those would be "traditional Eisenhower business types."
ME - 56% Obama, 42% Romney