Another alternative US states thread

[bagelman]

http://i.imgur.com/uEs765e.png

This map is for states shifting southwards, it's supposed to be the first in a series of four.

Some notes:

*There is a 51st state, West Florida, the Delaware of the south. WF was 70+% Romney in 2012.
*Oregon and Delaware are possible swing states. Wilmington is part of New Jersey, Portland is part of Washington.
*The state of New York refers to the state centered around the Hudson Bay. It's capital is Bridgeport.
*Nevada is a lot bigger. I allowed it to just take over SoCal, even Orange County.

If there's significant interest (read: any interest) I'll make, upload, and post the other three and see if I can calculate major political changes that occur as a result.

[bagelman]

Beautiful map. Is there a reason in particular most shifts left less straight lines? Or is it just a bit of push-and-pull?

The borders are less straight because I pulled the borders south by county without changing any county borders.

My original motive was to just to see what the county would look like if I just moved all the state borders south by a single county, which would make the former state of Connecticut consist of only southern Connecticut and Long Island separated by the Hudson Bay. The Maryland/Delaware border would have been a mess and San Diego would not be in Nevada.

Reviewing the map, it seems I should have fixed the NE/SD border the same way I fixed the IA/MN order. Also maybe Union County OR should be part of WA to straighten that border.

Regardless, glad you like the map.

[bagelman]

Very interesting. How many people live in West Florida?

274,965, easily the smallest state. Combined with being a southern state with a white population of about 80% and you've got a conservative paradise that supported Romney by double digits.

[bagelman]

So, is this enough interest for you to post the other maps?

Absolutely.

http://i.imgur.com/jHTU93z.png

Here's the map I've made for the states migrating north. There's also 51 states here because MA has split into two.

I've been thinking though, should I do these the way I'm doing now, or by smoothing the borders? The borders in this US are very uneven in some areas, especially the northwest. Of course they are smooth in other areas and the map tends to look better when not editing it.

Anyway:

Cincinnati is now in Kentucky.

Delaware is now the smallest state, but has a larger population than before.

Memphis is now in Mississippi

Dollywood is now in Georgia

The State of New York from the southern migration map exists in this map, but includes most of upstate New York.

[bagelman]

It would be interested to see how each of the state vote and their new EV

I planned to do that but it's a tedious process to add up all the populations county by county. Is there an easier way?

[bagelman]

http://i.imgur.com/qZyLRTd.png

Here's where the states migrate eastward.

What is our Delaware is now an integral part of Maryland. The State of New York refers to NYC and our northern New Jersey, upstate New York is a different state, and the State of New Jersey refers to our southern New Jersey and is a Delaware equivalent.

I'd imagine Nevada is a Safe R state, California has more EVs, and Arkansas is way more competitive with the addition of Memphis and many majority black river counties.

[bagelman]

http://i.imgur.com/APGIzlR.png

Here's the one with the states shifted westward:

Chicago is part of Indiana.

Illinois could be a swing state, although it controls St. Louis.

[bagelman]

I spent way too long on this; an electoral map of the southern migration map (top of thread) that uses OTL borders, just to illustrate EVs and flipped states.

The box normally used for DC is used for WF, DC is absorbed into Maryland (which completely counters the net population loss for giving up Greater Baltimore in exchange for NOVA). Rhode Island and WF both have 3 EVs.

[bagelman]

I arbitrarily added two more house seats to better serve 51 states. Without the two more seats, TX would have 33 seats (-3) and PA would have 21 (+3).

CT gains 14 seats and RI loses 1.

Colors indicate estimated swing, with 30% swings either being very small or more guesswork than estimation.

Overall, in this world, the Republicans need to focus on winning the upper midwest and getting Nevada, once their safe counterpart to liberal California, back into their camp. This leads to a five state strategy: NV, FL, WI, MN, IA. PA is considerably less of a priority. There's also the need to defend swingy states like OR and OH but as long as the GOP preforms better than they already did they should be able to do so. The idea of Democrats winning NC is as silly as the GOP winning NH, and the Dems need to win big to get VA.

[bagelman]

Same idea with the second map, the northward one.

The MA that includes Boston has 7 EV, while the splitoff state of "Cape Cod" has 4 and has a higher population of New England Republicans.

This one also has two extra house seats for 51 states, they went to Maryland and New York, they would be OTL otherwise.

[bagelman]

Yikes, does that version of Nevada have any major cities? It loses Reno and Vegas, and doesn't seem to far enough into Utah to get Salt Lake or Provo. I'm also not sure it should even be called Nevada, considering how far way the entire state is from the Sierra Nevada.

That state would probably be known as "Deseret", a counterpart to Utah and easily more mormon-dominated. Romney would get around 80% of the vote in this state. The state would have a population of 441,962 as of 2010; this isn't too much worse than our Wyoming. Nearest thing to a major city in this state is Saint George.

[bagelman]

[bagelman]

Is there method to this madness? I can see you've moved the numbers around, but I can't see the reasoning behind it.

corresponds to

Here's where the states migrate eastward.

What is our Delaware is now an integral part of Maryland. The State of New York refers to NYC and our northern New Jersey, upstate New York is a different state, and the State of New Jersey refers to our southern New Jersey and is a Delaware equivalent.

I'd imagine Nevada is a Safe R state, California has more EVs, and Arkansas is way more competitive with the addition of Memphis and many majority black river counties.

It's something that would be more clear if I had artistic talent or the patience to actually create an electoral map from scratch after spending several hours copying and pasting numbers into calc.

[bagelman]

http://i.imgur.com/uEs765e.png

I spent way too long on this; an electoral map of the southern migration map (top of thread) that uses OTL borders, just to illustrate EVs and flipped states.

The box normally used for DC is used for WF, DC is absorbed into Maryland (which completely counters the net population loss for giving up Greater Baltimore in exchange for NOVA). Rhode Island and WF both have 3 EVs.

Trump wins with 282 EV. Wisconsin and Minnesota aren't called for days, and possibly Colorado as well. These narrow victories for Clinton are rendered moot when she loses Adirondack, a must win for Trump, and he wins one of the upper midwest state (MI). This election would take longer than a single night to be decided. The loss would be even more devastating for democrats, more like 2000 than 2004.

[bagelman]

Oh hey, it's back! I always like these kind of threads. I assume you will be doing the rest of the maps too?

yep

What an accurate prediction map might have looked like

What a potential map posted on Atlas before the election might look like

With now-laughable optimism about SC and GA, and the potential for ID to go tossup.

[bagelman]

Trump wins with 282 EV. Wisconsin and Minnesota aren't called for days, and possibly Colorado as well. These narrow victories for Clinton are rendered moot when she loses Adirondack, a must win for Trump, and he wins one of the upper midwest state (MI). This election would take longer than a single night to be decided. The loss would be even more devastating for democrats, more like 2000 than 2004.


(map updated with proper shading)

[bagelman]

2012 results for northward migration

2016 results for northward migration

[bagelman]

Eastward migration

2012:

2016:

[bagelman]

Westward migration

(note: while the original map doesn't have it, I opted to include Orange County in AZ...)

2012:

2016:

Two counties in MN are enough to make the state vote D