NC-PPP: Pretty much a tossup, as usual

[pbrower2a]

NC is the Democrat's Pennsylvania. Waste of time.

If North Carolina is close in 2016, then the Democrats are in great shape. Likewise Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, or either Dakota.

On the other side are Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  

The Senate seat may matter far more.

[pbrower2a]

NC is the Democrat's Pennsylvania. Waste of time.

If North Carolina is close in 2016, then the Democrats are in great shape. Likewise Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, or either Dakota.

On the other side are Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  

The Senate seat may matter far more.

North and South Dakota aren't voting for a democratic presidential candidate, ever. Even in 2008, McCain won both Dakotas by ~8.5%

Mike Huckabee would put both Dakotas at risk of flipping D because he is a poor cultural match for North Dakota and South Dakota. Think of all the Lutherans -- oodles of German-Americans who think of Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven almost as family members.

Marco Rubio is just so awful that he could lose one or both of the Dakotas.


There is a limit to "Just about any Republican can win Kansas" or "Just about any Democrat can win Maryland".

North and South Dakota are critical to the Republican effort to win 150 electoral votes.

[pbrower2a]

NC is the Democrat's Pennsylvania. Waste of time.

If North Carolina is close in 2016, then the Democrats are in great shape. Likewise Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, or either Dakota.

On the other side are Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  

The Senate seat may matter far more.

North and South Dakota aren't voting for a democratic presidential candidate, ever. Even in 2008, McCain won both Dakotas by ~8.5%

Mike Huckabee would put both Dakotas at risk of flipping D because he is a poor cultural match for North Dakota and South Dakota. Think of all the Lutherans -- oodles of German-Americans who think of Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven almost as family members.

Marco Rubio is just so awful that he could lose one or both of the Dakotas.

There is a limit to "Just about any Republican can win Kansas" or "Just about any Democrat can win Maryland".

North and South Dakota are critical to the Republican effort to win 150 electoral votes.

Perhaps in an absolute dem. wave, bigger than 2008, these states would choose a Schweitzer-type if the other choice was Carson or Cruz (Rubio wouldn't make it happen, he’s nowhere near Cruz Territory).

But against Clinton, even Michele Bachmann would win the dakotas.

There hasn't been an absolute Democratic wave in a Presidential election since 1964.  That was so long ago that I could not characterize what a 60-40 split of the popular vote would look like for any Democrat. Can you imagine some Democrat winning all but three counties of Michigan, all but fourteen of Indiana, all but five of Ohio, all but four of Pennsylvania, and all but three of Wisconsin?

Sure, Obama won a raft of states with Reagan-like margins... but he also lost some states with McGovern-style margins.

As for Rubio -- he is horrid. He is so awful that he has no chance of winning the nomination. Indeed I see him so weak that he would lose his Senate seat. if you now see a national matchup that looks like a Clinton victory of 65-35, then you most likely see a matchup that just will not happen.  Huckabee? He will win the Southern Baptist base in the primaries, which could be enough for the nomination... but that will be far from enough to win in the general election. Southern Baptists, I figure, are an excellent market for country music but not for classical music. Lutherans are probably the opposite.   

Do you recall some of the matchups between Barack Obama and Sarah Palin as projected in 2009?   She would have had trouble carrying Texas. Some adviser eventually told her that she had no chance of winning, and that it was better for her to become a news 'analyst' on FoX. 

[pbrower2a]

PBrower, a 65-35 landslide nationally, or a democratic victory in today's demographic environment in states like AL/AR/LA/OK/ND (probably)/TX/SD(probably)/MS is impossible because achieving such a feat would literally require winning over people who literally want a republican cat for president over ANY democrat. The same thing applies to deeply democratic states - MA/RI/CA etc. would vote for a democratic cat to be president over any republican.

Sometimes, these states elect their political enemies as governor to apply checks on their legislature/ because they have a governor of Corbett-tier terribleness, but they won't do it on the presidential level, no matter how big the wave. They're simply so partisan that they literally don't have the ability to check the box of their non-favorite political party to be the leader of the free world, no matter what.


In the last fifteen years the United States has become extremely polarized between right-wing Republicans and center-left Democrats. The optimum in which quality and service matter more than ideological identification and even ethnic identity is no longer possible. The cost is in the potential for corruption, incompetence, and extremism.

Can that end? Maybe with an economic meltdown, a badly-bungled war, political violence, or extreme scandals.
 
Bottom line - Telling a pollster that Maryland will vote Republican for president is one thing. People actually voting that way is never going to happen for the foreseeable future.

States can shift. Consider two neighboring states that could hardly be more different: Virginia and West Virginia. For about fifty Virginia was the sort of state that would never vote for as Democrat for President except in a Democratic blowout (between 1948 and 2008 it had voted for only one Democratic nominee for President, LBJ, when Goldwater won his home state and several states protesting LBJ's 'coddling' of blacks in 1964. West Virginia, in contrast, went Democratic for Presidents except for Republican blowouts. In 2000 many were shocked to see West Virginia going for George W. Bush in a close election. By 2012 the Democratic Party shows signs of dying in West Virginia (probably as the once-powerful United Mine Workers Union loses influence). In 2008 many were equally shocked to find that Virginia could go for a Democratic nominee for President in what long looked like a close election.

I have been fooled before. I thought that George H W Bush would be re-elected in 1992  because Bill Clinton wasn't going to win Texas, and as the common wisdom of the time held, no Democrat could win the Presidency without Texas. I didn't see Clinton picking off one state after another that Jimmy Carter lost in 1976 in a bare win.

Can anyone predict what states can surprise us this early? Not at all. If the South goes through a populist phase, then the South goes heavily Democratic with a wave of House and Senate losses for Republicans. If the Republican Party is successful in eviscerating unions in the Midwest, then states like Michigan and Wisconsin can go from liberal-leaning states to bastions of the Right.