This hasn’t happened in over a century but it nearly happened in 2000 and 2004. What would it take for this to happen?
It last happened in 1924 with a full term for Calvin Coolidge having carried zero of the eleven states of the Old Confederacy.
In 1928, a third consecutive cycle won by the Republicans, Herbert Hoover flipped five Old Confederacy states and, from there, and from time to time, bellwether status has applied to at least one state. His pickups: Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
Florida maintained bellwether status through 2016 and, with that election cycle, realigned to the Republicans. (It voted for all presidential winners, except 1960 and 1992, from 1928 to 2016.)
Now, the best bellwether state in the Old Confederacy is North Carolina. Although 2012 and 2020 winning Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden did not carry the state, it was next in line. (Obama carried 26 states. His No. 27 was North Carolina. Biden carried 25 states. His No. 26 was North Carolina.) Over the last two cycles, North Carolina was the Republicans’s No. 25 and the Democrats’s No. 26 best state. It will likely join Pennsylvania and Michigan—which are also Top 10 populous states—and Wisconsin to regularly vote for presidential winners. This includes Election 2024.
Nowadays, no one will win the presidency carrying zero of the Old Confederacy states. And no one will win the presidency carrying zero of the Rust Belt states. (No one ever has.) These two separate areas of states combine for nine of the Top 10 populous states. Historically, the fewest amount of Top 10 populous states carried by any presidential winners is four. It is, given this fact, highly unlikely anyone could win a map with zero of the Rust Belt or zero of the Old Confederacy states—even if one tried—because there are too many dynamics involved. (One such example already demonstrated: Rust Belt Ohio and Old Confederacy Florida have voted the same, with exceptions in 1944 and 1992, since 1928—for 22 of the last 24 cycles.)
