Where do the states fall?

[Nichlemn]

Re: Where do the states fall?

RED: Republican (139)
LIGHT RED: Lean Republican (52)
YELLOW: Bellwether/Battleground/Competitive (84)
LIGHT BLUE: Lean Democratic (21)
BLUE: Democratic (242)

Those with "Leans" may become flipped by the opposing party's prevailing candidate if a national margin of victory were to be strong enough to pull in ones with such opposing tilt. In an election won the party with that tilt…the state will carry.

This map is partly assuming that both parties will continue their stupid "competitive" campaigns of only focusing on perceived "battlegrounds." Since after the 1980s, the most states won a given presidential election were the 32 carried with first election, in 1992, by Bill Clinton.

Note: On the prevailing side, since the 1990s, Republicans have averaged 9 electoral votes (for George W. Bush) with all states carried; Democrats have averaged 11 (Clinton) and 13 and 12 (Barack Obama) electoral votes with all states carried. On the losing side, Republicans averaged 9 (George Bush), 8 (Bob Dole and Mitt Romney), and 7 (John McCain) electoral votes with all states carried; Democrats averaged 13 electoral votes (Al Gore and John Kerry) with all states carried.

lol @ your ridiculous emphasis on the binary outcomes of a few Presidential races. There's no other way to call PA "Democratic" but Indiana only "Leans Republican" when PA is consistently only point or two more Democratic than the national average but Indiana significantly more Republican, other than to cherrypick 1992 as a starting date and conclude the Democrats' strength since then represents somewhat more than noise.

[Nichlemn]

Re: Where do the states fall?

RED: Republican (139)
LIGHT RED: Lean Republican (52)
YELLOW: Bellwether/Battleground/Competitive (84)
LIGHT BLUE: Lean Democratic (21)
BLUE: Democratic (242)

Those with "Leans" may become flipped by the opposing party's prevailing candidate if a national margin of victory were to be strong enough to pull in ones with such opposing tilt. In an election won the party with that tilt…the state will carry.

This map is partly assuming that both parties will continue their stupid "competitive" campaigns of only focusing on perceived "battlegrounds." Since after the 1980s, the most states won a given presidential election were the 32 carried with first election, in 1992, by Bill Clinton.

Note: On the prevailing side, since the 1990s, Republicans have averaged 9 electoral votes (for George W. Bush) with all states carried; Democrats have averaged 11 (Clinton) and 13 and 12 (Barack Obama) electoral votes with all states carried. On the losing side, Republicans averaged 9 (George Bush), 8 (Bob Dole and Mitt Romney), and 7 (John McCain) electoral votes with all states carried; Democrats averaged 13 electoral votes (Al Gore and John Kerry) with all states carried.

lol @ your ridiculous emphasis on the binary outcomes of a few Presidential races. There's no other way to call PA "Democratic" but Indiana only "Leans Republican" when PA is consistently only point or two more Democratic than the national average but Indiana significantly more Republican, other than to cherrypick 1992 as a starting date and conclude the Democrats' strength since then represents somewhat more than noise.

Translation of Nichlemn's post:

Yeah well, even though Pennsylvania has been more consistently Democratic in the last several elections than Indiana has been consistently Republican, that shouldn't be reflected in the map because, well, you know...

Except... it hasn't in any other way other than narrowly voting for Obama in 08.
Even considering that Democrats have done better nationally than Republicans since 1992, Republicans have still won IN by a larger average margin than Democrats have won PA. It's silly to put so much attention on one data point, especially a binary win/loss.

Not to mention that this sort of analysis would have consistently failed in retrospect. 2008, 1992, 1984, 1980, 1972, 1964, 1952, 1932... all of which would have poorly or woefully predicted by a "who won what states recently" approach. You can't explain them away as being "exceptions" or "realignments", they occur too often. If DS0816's analysis has any predictive power, he should be able to show the correlation it has had in the past. But he won't, because it's very weak.

[Nichlemn]

Except... [Indiana] hasn't in any other way other than narrowly voting for Obama in 08.
Even considering that Democrats have done better nationally than Republicans since 1992, Republicans have still won IN by a larger average margin than Democrats have won PA. It's silly to put so much attention on one data point, especially a binary win/loss.

And, yet, you just did that with the previous sentence, "Republicans have still won IN by a larger average margin than Democrats have won PA."

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What?

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You did attempt to explain away 2008 Indiana as an "exception."

AND…

Realigning presidential elections do not "occur too often."

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I am not concerned about "predictive power," Nichelmn. This thread's OP asked a question, and I answered it.

Does "predictive power" mean for you, Nichlemn, that you will be taking everything you have absorbed here and nest at your computer for each of the next 40 years—anxiously anticipating and awaiting the U.S. presidential election outcomes for 2016, 2020, 2024, 2028, 2032, 2036, 2040, 2044, 2048, and 2052? And will you be taking those results and return here to find out who best showed "predictive power"?

I laugh at your emotional responses.


Keep yourself better disciplined with giving a person a chance to respond before assuming whether that individual would be willing. (I may have more to say. Later.)

Of course "predictive power" matters. You've ranked the states and giving them ratings as a projection of how you think future Presidential elections will turn out. If your ratings have no predictive power then they're pretty stupid.

If you're coming up with some kind of model or prediction, it should at the very least have been able to do significantly better than chance when applied retrospectively. It's not meaningless that Obama won Indiana, but it should be considered in light of all other information. If you're going to say that Obama winning Indiana is a really important data point, outweighing all the other data that point to PA being more competitive, then you should be able to point to evidence that the numbers of wins notched up by a party in recent years is significant.

I could come up with hard evidence that it's not as significant as other factors, but that'd be time consuming, so let's just try some intuition first. When predicting how say, RI or MA would vote in 1988, do you think it was more important that they each voted Republican in 2 of the previous 4 elections, or that they had consistently voted considerably more Democratic than the country as a whole for decades prior?

If you still don't get it, I recommend this post, this Nate Silver post, Nate Silver's book, and indeed just about every one of his theoretical blog posts. Over time, you should develop a better sense of what makes for superficial data and models.