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Quote from: Antonio the Sixth on Today at 09:48:26 AM

Quote from: President Punxsutawney Phil on May 18, 2024, 03:10:53 PM

Challenge accepted. I'll get to drawing when the other Western ones are done.

Here we go!

Alamo

As suggested here a while back, let's name this central Texan state, including its historical capital Austin as well as San Antonio, after the fort that must not be forgotten. With two large and historically progressive (unlike Dallas and Houston which used to be heavily Republican) cities, a diverse ethnic makeup, and less Titanium R rural turf, this is a state Democrats have always had a shot in. Alamo stayed loyal to Dems throughout the 60s and went for Carter in 1976, then flipped to Reagan four years later and stayed Republican throughout the 1980s. In 1992 Clinton narrowly carried it (actually even more narrowly than he carried TX, shockingly), but Dole flipped it in 1996, and it voted for Bush by double-digit margins. Trends started catching up in 2008, when Obama came within half a percentage point of carrying the state, but it was Hillary who finally flipped it in 2016, making Alamo into the elusive Romney-Clinton state. Biden then expanded her 3-point win into a 9-point one, putting the state squarely into the Lean D column and perhaps even approaching Likely D. This actually puts Alamo in a similar place as OTL Virginia (or King, if you want to stay within this scenario), although its trend being more recent means there's more likely to be a lag downballot.

Capital: Let's keep it at Austin, though San Antonio would work just as well.

House Seats (1963) 6
House Seats (2013) 11 (+2 in 2023)

VAP Demographics (2010) 51% White, 37% Hispanic

PVI 2008: R+8
PVI 2012: R+10
PVI 2016: D+1
PVI 2020: D+5

Congressional Representation: AM elected its Senators in 2018 and 2022. O'Rourke won there by a whopping 12 points in 2018, and while he wouldn't be a candidate in this scenario, the seat would still seem ripe for the picking. So that's at least one seat in the Dem column. The other seat is where things get interesting. Hillary did carry the state in 2016, and that year is famous because all states voted the same way for Senate and President. If AM were to follow the pattern, there would be a Dem incumbent in 2022 who'd probably be favored for reelection. That said, we should probably not make too much of the pattern, and the right Republican should have been counted as the favorite in a state that had voted for the party since 1996. So I'm gonna count one seat as Democratic and the other as a tossup. As for the House, Democrats have probably been able to pick up a lot of seats in redistricting, and at this point I could easily see them holding 9 of its 13 seats. The rural areas outside of Austin and San Antonio would provide a solid floor for the GOP, but everything else if fertile ground for Dems.

Local Government: Abbott won the state by a hair in 2018 (when facing a rather perfunctory challenge from Lupe Valdez, and while Dan Patrick lost the state by 8 points and Ken Paxton by 10 at the same time) but lost it by 6 points to O'Rourke in 2022. It seems clear which way the wind is blowing here, and while the right Republican might have managed to hold the state, the money should be on Dems being favored to hold the governorship. Similarly, the trends are strong enough that it's hard to see Democrats not flipping at least one house of the state legislature, and unlike in DS and GV they'd almost certainly be able to hold it in 2020. This means fair maps are guaranteed for this decade, and are certain to only entrench Democratic power further.

Rio Grande

Here we come to perhaps one of the most unique states in this fictional version of the nation. With over three quarters of the voting age population in 2010 being Hispanic/Latino, Rio Grande's political culture would be unlike any other state's, and would likely baffle, outrage or fascinate unfamiliar onlookers. It is interesting to see how RG's political class would handle its large border with Mexico, and how the local population's conflicted feelings on recent immigrants would translate policy-wise. These questions are for people more versed in the local culture than myself to answer. All I can do here is crunch some numbers, and what they say is pretty clear: RG has consistently been the most Democratic part of the state, sticking with Democrats through thick and thin. It gave over two thirds of its vote to favorite son LBJ, and still an absolute majority to HHH, stuck with Carter in 1980 and with Dukakis in 1988. There were only three times its support wavered: the 1972 and 1984 GOPslides, unsurprisingly, but much more impressively 2004, when Dubya managed to prevail over Kerry by just 0.5 points. This impressive win would no doubt have added to the luster of Bush's victory, and definitely crowned him as the ultimate Texas Republican. So let's zoom in to see how he did it:

As expected, Kerry still managed to win the heavily Hispanic Southern tip of the state as well as the key city of El Paso on the far West, but his margins there were anemic even compared to Gore four years earlier (who had won the state by 8 points). Bush managed to rack up the margin in the Whiter, more rural and inland parts of the state, as well as the Northeastern Gulf Coast around Corpus Christi, but also impressively flipped Cameron County (home of Brownsville). This is no doubt a performance modern Republicans will seek to repeat.

They might get a chance to do so in the coming years. After trending rapidly to the Democrats throughout the Obama years and becoming nearly Safe D, RG took a sharp turn to the right in 2020, with Biden winning it by a shockingly anemic 10 points. Much has been made of Biden's weakness among Hispanics, but its implications would be drawn in particularly sharp relief here, and it remains to be seen how far these trends can go. If the state were to be close this year, we might be seeing a radical shift in local politics.

Capital: Laredo seems like the best compromise between centrality and population.

House Seats (1963) 6
House Seats (2013) 8

VAP Demographics (2010) 77% Hispanic, 19% White

PVI 2008: D+13
PVI 2012: D+18
PVI 2016: D+22
PVI 2020: D+6

Congressional Representation: RG's last Senate elections were in 2020 and 2022, both of which might have spelled danger for Democrats. In 2020, Biden's victory, however anemic, would probably have propelled Dems to victory if they had an incumbent or the seat was open (on the off chance a Republican won there in 2014, they might well have snuck by). In 2022, this could have been a golden opportunity for a GOP pickup, but given that the GOP squandered all its golden opportunities that year I wouldn't make too much of it. Overall, between RG and AM I expect Dems to hold 3 of their 4 collective seats, but it's a tossup whether the one GOP Senator is from one or the other. For the House, meanwhile, Democrats have probably gone down from holding 6 or 7 seats back in 2018 to being reduced to 5 or even 4 (though given downballot lag, 5 is more likely).

Local Government: O'Rourke won the state in 2022, but only by a meager 6 points. Given that the state almost certainly has a Democratic incumbent, I would expect them to do better than that barring a Sisolak-tier f**kup. The state legislature too has probably remained in Dem hands (Democrats hold 14 out of maybe 19 or 20 seats in the Texas House), so for now Dems are probably in the clear. We'll see what the future holds though...

Llanos

We end, a bit anticlimactically, with a state whose politics are rather easy to summarize. Llanos, named after the Spanish name for the plains that characterize its geography, is pretty much as Titanium R as it gets. Since 1996, it has consistently been the most Republican state in the country, putting even the likes of Wyoming and nearby Texas to shame. Recent Republican candidates have polled in the high 70s (McCain fell just slightly below at 74.6%) while Democrats have been stuck in the low 20s. You have to go back to 1996 to even find a Democrat winning a single county in it (though if you want to extend it to gubernatorial elections, Bill White randomly won Foard County in 2010). What puts LN over TX as far as Republican partisanship goes is the fact that it lacks the ancestral Democratic tradition found further East: while LBJ himself managed to crack 60% there in 1964, he wasn't able to carry the state for JFK as a running mate or for HHH as the incumbent president. There was only one other time when a Democratic presidential candidate managed to prevail here, and that was 1976. Carter's strength in the Southern Plains was made apparent with his near-win in Oklahoma, but even more impressive was his performance on the other side of the border. Let's take a look:

Looking just at the map, you'd be forgiven for thinking Carter won in a blowout, but fact, his winning margin was just 0.14 points, making LN the closest state that year. Once again, then, we are transported back to a time where Republicans found their strength in urban areas, and Democrats in the open countryside. LN's major cities (such as they are) all show up in blue on this map, even when they're surrounded by red: Lubbock, Amarillo, Abilene, Midland, Odessa and San Angelo all seem to have voted for Ford by solid to overwhelming margins. Meanwhile, the only somewhat populous area Carter seems to have won is Wichita, by just 7 points. On the other hand, his performance in the state's vast rural expanse was nothing short of remarkable, especially in the Eastern and Central parts of the state. Ford's rural strength seems to have been concentrated in the far North (probably the most Plains-like in political culture) and South of the state. Suffice to say, we are unlikely to see a map like this again: even if lightning were to strike and Dems somehow won LN, their areas of strength would probably look more like Ford's than Carter's.

Capital: Lubbock

House Seats (1963) 8
House Seats (2013) 6

VAP Demographics (2010) 68% White, 25% Hispanic

PVI 2008: R+57
PVI 2012: R+61
PVI 2016: R+59
PVI 2020: R+60

Congressional Representation: Nothing to see here. 2 Republican Senators an 6 Republican representatives. I don't think it's possible to draw a Dem-leaning or even swingy district here even with extreme gerrymandering (another challenge for Tim if he's interested).

Local Government: There isn't a single Dem-held state legislative seat in this area. It's possible there might be a few given a larger state legislature, but it's also not impossible to see a Hawaii Senate style situation where at least the upper house is all-Republican. In a context like this, it's quite likely you would see heavy factional splits within the local GOP, with perhaps a business wing and a MAGA wing jockeying for control of local affairs.

Therapist: Battleground Texas Panhandle isn't real, it can't hurt you.
Battleground Texan Panhandle ^

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