You do realise that these states collectively account for nearly 40% of all states? So what you’re saying is that if Republicans were to win a single one of them, they would necessarily have to win at least half of the rest?
I’m saying it’s not
arbitrary.
1992 George Bush, unseated, held 18 states (36%) after winning 40 (80%) in his Election 1988.
When Bush Sr. lost 22 states while becoming unseated, a domino effect took hold geographically and politically. For instance: We haven’t seen many elections in which Vermont voted the same as Alabama and Mississippi. (The trio carried for 1872 Ulysses Grant, and they didn’t vote the same until 1972 Richard Nixon. Grant won 31 of 37 states: 83%. Nixon carried 49 of 50: 98%.) Bush carried Vt. in 1988 — the last year on record that state was in the Republicans’ column after supporting the party from their first election, in 1856, through to Bush Sr. It said no to 1964 Barry Goldwater and gave its sole Democratic vote to Lyndon Johnson (carriage of 44 of 50 states plus District of Columbia: 88%) while Ala. and Miss. — after first voting in 1820 and only disagreeing in 1840 — flipped for Goldwater.
No. That is
not what I’m saying.
In the other scenario, I pointed out as well the type of circumstance for which turning a state the opposite color from how it usually votes would likely play out. (There’s a difference between winning over a state — for a given election — from that of winning it over regularly. This red-and-blue states scenario became a thing of conscience with George W. Bush, in 2000, who failed to win back states his father, and their GOP predecessors, had carried routinely. But so many of today’s states have a partisan voting index beyond 15 percent.)
What I’m saying is this: You cannot retail one or two of these states, in the suggested listings in this thread and the other thread asking for just the opposite scenario. You can guess as to whether any of them will become future bellwethers. (Sure, use Wisconsin. Bellwether states tend to come from different areas. They evolve. But not rapidly.) So, for the most part, these listed states in both threads are in the same camp. Team Red. Team Blue.
Regarding the percentage of states carried, let’s look at the last 25 elections beginning in 1912, when we established New Mexico as the 47th and Arizona the 48th states admitted into the union.
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80 percentile range of states carried: Elections 1912, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1952, 1956, 1964, 1972, 1980, 1984, and 1988.
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70 percentile range of states carried: Elections 1920, 1924, 1940, and 1944 (Franklin Roosevelt won 38, in 1940, for 79%).
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60 percentile range of states carried: Elections 1916, 1968, 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004.
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50 percentile range of states carried: Elections 1948 and 2008.
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40 percentile range of states carried: Elections 1960 and 1976.
A repeating of your question: Percentile range of losing candidacies of the 1990s and 2000s came close or reached that 40-percentile mark: Following the 1992 unseating of George Bush, 1996 Bob Dole won 19 states (38%). 2000 Al Gore, after two terms of Democrat Bill Clinton, held 20 states plus D.C. (40%). 2004 John Kerry won 19 states (38%). And 2008 John McCain, failing to hold the White House for the Republicans after two terms of George W. Bush, retained carriage of 22 states (44%).
Note that a combined 17 of the last 25 election cycles (68%) saw either an overwhelming level (80 percentile range of states were carried — well past the 400 mark in the Electoral College) or a respectfully strong level (60 percentile range of states won that didn’t reach 400; in the case of Bush Jr., not even 300). The 2008 election of Barack Obama, with 28 states (56%), still resulted in a 2-to-1 victory in the Electoral College not unlike his Democratic predecessor, 1992/1996 Bill Clinton. (Adjust the numbers for each decade: Clinton’s 1992 win of 370 electoral votes would have been 366 in 2008. Obama’s 2008 win of 365 electoral votes would have been 369 in 1992.)
For 11 of the last 25 elections boasting 80 percent of states carried: In those elections, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming voted for the winner in nearly every election from 1912 to 1956. (Utah, in 1912, and Wyo., in 1944, missed one each. Montana, which has voted the same as Colorado in every election since 1948, minus 2008, and has voted the same as Idaho since 1892, with exception of 1992, backed the winners in all five of those decades.) Absolutely perfect during that time was Arizona, because it voted for the winner in all. We had more national level winners in that period of five decades. But with 1960 going forward, those states — along with Oklahoma (wrong only in 1924, but not wrong again until 1976; it is now one of the Top 3 most-reliable GOP states) and, later, Texas (which voted for the winner in 10 cycles, 1928 to 1964, and picked up again from 1972 to 1988) — became strongly partisan. It took unviable or piss-poor candidacies to cause another round of 40-state [plus] landslides (1964, 1972, 1980, 1984, 1988) to get them all (well, Goldwater managed to barely hold his home state).
While this happened, gradually the North — which used to vote Republican when the South voted Democratic — countered. Massachusetts turned on the Republicans in 1928 and voted GOP only for Dwight Eisenhower (1952: 39/48 states = 81%; 1956: 41/48 = 85%) and Ronald Reagan (1980: 44/50 = 88%; 1984: 49/50 = 98%). Minnesota — which, like Pennsylvania and Michigan, voted for all winning GOPs from 1860 Abraham Lincoln to 1956 Ike — had the Democratic candidacies for president or vice president in winning GOP years 1968, 1980, and 1984. 1972 is the last year that state voted Republican, when Richard Nixon won 49 states against unviable Democrat George McGovern.
Since 1992, we’ve gone five election cycles in which no presidential winner carried more than two-thirds of the states in this country. Among the 60 percentile range (1992/1996 Bill Clinton; 2000/2004 George W. Bush) have the bellwethers (or, if preferred, the
battlegrounds or
swing states) provided the key to stringing together victory in the Electoral College. (In the past, a 2008 type of election would have resulted in an 80-percentile range of states carried.) The cast of such characters [states] do evolve. But they don’t switch up that rapidly. So, that is why I maintain that if we’re going to see a presidential election, say in the next 20 years, in which a Republican gets elected and carries Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey, Washington, Minnesota, Massachusetts … that winner will amass an 80 percentile range of states. If we see a presidential election outcome, say in the next 20 years, in which a Democrat gets elected and carries Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, South Carolina, South Dakota, North Dakota … that winner will emerge having carried an 80 percentile range of states. (Again, that level.)
Poll
