What I wonder is if Georgia or Arizona should be the next state for Democrats to focus on.
Georgia is close, but inelastic. Arizona is further, but elastic.
Of cause North Carolina is inelastic, but Obama was able to win in 2008 with a good ground game and got close again in 2012.
Georgia. It actually trended Democratic this cycle (2008 to 2012), while Arizona did not. Had Obama seriously contested it in 2008, there's a real chance it could have been within 2%.
Arizona doesn't seem to be moving at all, which is very surprising.
Georgia seems to be ~2% more Republican than North Carolina (if contested) although it could be more since North Carolina is moving faster to the left.
I am guessing that after getting North Carolina back, Democrats would go after Georgia.
I wouldn't say that Arizona isn't moving at all. It's just that white voters are becoming increasingly conservative, while minority voters are becoming more liberal. And 3 out of 4 voters in the state still being white. I also strongly suspect that we have been seeing a considerable McCain effect in the state ever since the late 90ies, with him becoming more and more prominent in the eyes of national voters and not to mentioned being one of the best-liked Republican politicians of the nation for all, or most, of this time. However I think that this strong McCain effect of the years say 1999-2013, might slowly start to fade out a bit. He will still be a compromising and well-respected figure in the Senate, but he will never run for president again, of course. I think his considerable shadow over Arizona politics will start to diminish from now on, and we might thus start to see figures like those we witness during the 90ies, when the two parties were at least somewhat competitive in the state.
I agree with you that Georgia should be the most likely pick-up state for Democrats in the years ahead, behind Florida and North Carolina of course. Fourth I would place Arizona, whenever Dem leaders can start to register voters there en masse. Fifth is more tricky. It could be Texas, Alaska or South Carolina perhaps, even Louisiana maybe. Yet Texas will always remain more Republican-leaning than the popular vote. This is simply due to it being such a massive state. It will always remain more conservative than other large states like New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey and Florida.
States that could easily tilt more Republican are slow-growing, poor, traditionally worker-intensive states with a very low percentage of minorities and a considerable number of value-voters. (Yet this is exactly the kind of states where the Clinton brand is stronger, so it might take a while still before it happens.) States like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Missouri and Indiana. Michigan and Ohio have obviously thrived under Obama, due to his auto rescue, but in 8 or 12 years from now, that fact might be somewhat forgotten already. West Virginia is another state that probably won't know many limits, and might in a decade's time or so overtake the position of states like Utah, Idaho, Oklahoma and Alabama, as the most conservative, Republican-leaning state of them all. Unless it's right what I read recently that the suburbs/exurbs of Washington D.C. are extending even across the border of West Virginia? It's incredible how stable Ohio - and to a lesser degree Pennsylvania - has been over the past 30 years or so. However, with an evermore rapidly changing demographic, I have my doubts about how much longer Ohio can remain as
the battleground state of the nation. I suspect that in 10 more years, Ohio will lean Republican by a margin of some 5-6%.
