If I told you in 2008 that Democrats would win Georgia and Arizona while losing Florida and Ohio....

[CookieDamage]

2008 me was 11 and mostly uninterested in politics. But if I were an adult and a nerd, I'd assume there was quite a realignment, although the degree of radicality would depend. A bunch of other states remained the same. Virginia voted dem in 2008 and 2020, as did Colorado, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and the solid blue states. If I had known the full map, it wouldn't be that shocking. I'd probably chalk up the AZ and GA wins to Dem success in booming Atlanta and Phoenix metro areas. Although I wouldn't know what to make of a loss in FL. I'd probably assume there was an explosion in white, panhandle turnout. I'd also be perplexed to why NC was a GOP win. But if I knew better, I'd chalk that up to NC not having as many big cities/one big metro like GA and those suburbs remaining ruby red.

The upper midwest is interesting too. On one hand, I wouldn't be surprised to see IA and OH go red while MN, WI, MI and PA go blue. It happened in 2000 (sans Iowa) and 2004. What would surprise me was that OH and IA were ~8 point GOP wins. If you told me that in 2008 and that alone, I'd assume the GOP candidate swept AZ and GA, won VA, won WI, and won NH and NV. I mean in 2004 when Bush won IA and OH, they weren't blowout wins. He narrowly lost WI at the same, much like Biden narrowly won WI. The only difference was that he kept WI while flopping in OH.

But all in all, if you showed me the map by itself with no shading, i'd be like "omg that's crazy, I wouldn't think GA would go blue while it's neighbors go red for at least another 15 years." Although, I'm not entirely sure a blue GA and red OH would shock me that much, considering that even in 2008 the trends were very clear. Even in 2008, the GA suburbs were growing and diversifying, Atlanta was a growing city... while Ohio was still beset by years of shrinking cities and plagued by the same woes as other rustbelt states.

Now if you showed me all the margins, that would surprise me a little bit.