The GOP has to expand the battleground in 2024.

[ProgressiveModerate]

The past few cycles, the Democrats have gotten more and more safe states in their column, with the 2020 election confirming VA and CO as part of the blue wall. Right now, that's ok for the GOP since the final few battleground states lean right, but 2024 might be the last time this "blue wall" is below 250 EVs, at which point the GOP would have to run on table on every tossup state. For the sake of this discussion, I'm considering the blue wall to be any state Biden won by greater than 10%, or 210 EVs. In comparison, there were only 125 EVs in states Trump won by 10%+.

Here's a map for reference:

https://www.yapms.com/app/?m=6n8t

If the GOP doesn't try to break into states that most would currently consider "Safe D", they might find themselves in a difficult position to win elections, especially if TX, which for reference voted about the same as GA did in 2016, ends up flipping and going the way of these other states. If it's a given TX is blue, under the current EV allocations, Republicans could run the table on every state Trump won in 2020 + MI/WI/PA/MN/ME/NH and NV and still lose. Another thing to consider is that most of the states where they have made significant gains these past few cycles have been losing EVs, so it's not like this problem will get better.

Trends are not finite, and both parties have to opportunity to change the course of trends in states that are seemingly trending in an unfavorable election, but the GOP needs to find some sort of way to start making cracks in this new blue wall before it gets too large.

[ProgressiveModerate]

IA and OH are also Safe R.

They probably are safe R, but I think the difference between the GOP and Democrats is that Democrats have more EVs joining the “blue wall” while for the GOP, they’ve just been swapping the states that make up their red wall. OH and IA help but don’t make up for TX and GA by themselves. I think the GOP needs to get FL to a point where it’s pretty safe R if possible

[ProgressiveModerate]

What really sucks is that the Democrats "already" have Republicans beat in sheer number of supporters and Republicans have no real chance at winning the popular vote...it's just that by coincidence the Electoral College keeps them just competitive enough to where it's possible for them to still win.

Once Texas trends D enough it's pretty much game over for Republicans, but until then they're still in the running.  Even with something like a 5% popular vote loss they can still win (which is horrible).

Also, one thing that should concern  the GOP is that they lost a trifecta in the 2020 election despite GOP turnout being like 90%+ or something crazy like that, whereas Democratic turnout was only in the mid-60s. It just seems like the line they need to walk gets thinner and thinner and they're only staying viable through a gerrymandered House, a Senate which over-represents smaller states, and an electoral college that happens to benefit them at this moment. The electoral college, however, can have pretty significant swings in who it favors in just a cycle or two, and House gerrymanders can only go so far, and often fail.

The fact is there are just more registered Ds than Rs, which means Republicans need to get Republican turnout to pretty extreme levels or win Independents, or some combination of both. Trump was able to get very high R turnout but couldn't win Independents, while many argue that a more establishment canidate may be able to win over more Independent voters but will struggle to get base turnout. I'm curious to see if their is a happy medium to this problem, and if so, how the GOP deals with it.

[ProgressiveModerate]

What really sucks is that the Democrats "already" have Republicans beat in sheer number of supporters and Republicans have no real chance at winning the popular vote...it's just that by coincidence the Electoral College keeps them just competitive enough to where it's possible for them to still win.

Once Texas trends D enough it's pretty much game over for Republicans, but until then they're still in the running.  Even with something like a 5% popular vote loss they can still win (which is horrible).

Also, one thing that should concern  the GOP is that they lost a trifecta in the 2020 election despite GOP turnout being like 90%+ or something crazy like that, whereas Democratic turnout was only in the mid-60s. It just seems like the line they need to walk gets thinner and thinner and they're only staying viable through a gerrymandered House, a Senate which over-represents smaller states, and an electoral college that happens to benefit them at this moment. The electoral college, however, can have pretty significant swings in who it favors in just a cycle or two, and House gerrymanders can only go so far, and often fail.

The fact is there are just more registered Ds than Rs, which means Republicans need to get Republican turnout to pretty extreme levels or win Independents, or some combination of both. Trump was able to get very high R turnout but couldn't win Independents, while many argue that a more establishment canidate may be able to win over more Independent voters but will struggle to get base turnout. I'm curious to see if their is a happy medium to this problem, and if so, how the GOP deals with it.

Cite?

The numbers are vague because their estimates and not exact amounts, but if you look at exit polls, it's about 36% of people who voted in 2020 that were registered Democrats and about 36% were registered Republican., or about 57 million each. However, nationally, party registration estimates indicates that there are about 63 million Republicans or so and 92 million Democrats. You can get these numbers by looking at states that have the party registration breakdown (about 30 states) and then estimate the rest using a correlation from the most recent election results, most of these states are smaller states anyways so there is more room for error. These numbers put Republicans at exactly 90% turnout while Democrats only at 62%. Again, these calculations are estimates, and there are many places where there is a MOE, but it can be said with relative certainty that Republicans had a higher turnout rate than Democrats in the 2020 election; it could be 86% vs 68% or 93% vs 58%, there is some room for error, but it can safely be assumed it was at least 10-15% higher.

Some people may argue "muh ancestral Democrats", but pretty much all the data we have indicates that Biden won about the same % of Republicans as Trump won of Democrats; ancestral Ds and suburbanites cancelled out.

[ProgressiveModerate]

As it stands right now there are 6 states coming out of 2020 that are up in the air in 2024 they are AZ/GA/MI/NC/PA/WI. Meaning that MN/NV/NH/NE-02 are leaning Democratic and FL/TX/ME-02 are leaning Republican in a neutral environment. If either party wins any leaning states then they have likely already won the election.

Assuming PR is not a state and the 2020 census yields what we all expect. That gives Democrats 230 EV, Republicans 220 EV, and 88 EV up for grabs. While Republicans are at a deficit they are not completed out of contention. While they lost 5/6 last year they won all 6 in 2016.     

I agree that Republicans and Democrats have about an equal of number of EVs when you include Safe + Leaning EVs, but Democrats objectively have more safe EVs any way you cut the pie. A Democratic TX is more plausible than say a red IL, DE, or RI (all of which have fewer EVs anyways), which is the real problem for Republicans because their path is much more fragile.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Also, the whole premise of this thread is wrong.  It is actually Democrats who need to expand their map, since the median electoral vote votes to the right of the nation overall.  The GOP's current coalition punches far above its weight.

As a gut check, ask yourself this simple question:  since 2008, which states have Democrats brought into competition?  GA and AZ?  Those gains are evened-out by GOP gains in IA and OH.  

Yes, the tipping point at this moment is to the right of the country, but the EC advantage tends to swing back and forth and at this point, and Democrats have generally been favored to win the NPV on the Presidential level barring some very favorable circumstances to Republicans. Only winning the PV once in the last 8 elections isn't a coincidence or getting unlucky

In 2000, this was the electoral map:



2020:



I do acknowledge 2020 was a slightly better year for Democrats nationally than 2000, but both were close elections where the tipping point state was decided by less than 1%. I chose 2000 because it was really the start of the current alignment of blue coasts and red center.

Since 2000, the GOP has:
-Locked down several states in the South like TN and AR
-Made OH/IA pretty reliably R
-Moved MI/WI/PA slightly rightwards, though the big 3 were competative in the early 2000s

Since 2000, Democrats have:
-Made VA and CO go from red to blue states
-Brough NV and AZ into true contention
-Made the North East (ME, NH), Lean D, and locked down states like NJ and CT
-WA went from Lean D to safe D, OR went from tossup to safe D
-Getting TX closer
-Made NC and GA competative

The issue is that all the GOP has done is made some once competative states R leaning or locked down R leaning states, most of which have small populations and therefore few EVS.

Democrats on the other hand have actually attacked the "red wall", reliably winning once red states like VA and CO and actually brining GA/NC/TX/AZ into play.

Republicans have been gaining in some areas, but since 2000, I can't think of any safe D states the GOP has actually been able to make a serious play in; all their gains have been in already competative states. Now, Democrats have more safe D EVs than Republicans, and Republicans are relying on the fact that TX and FL are Republican leaning states, but if either one falls, they have nowhere to turn, whereas at least for Democrats, if the rust belt starts to fail, they can turn to TX or FL. Think about it; if Democrats win TX, the GOP could win every Trump state plus MI, WI, PA, ME, NH, MN, and NV and would still lose. This is all about building the groundwork for their future winning map

[ProgressiveModerate]

This feels basically false, right? The GOP came within 0.63% of winning a presidential election while losing the popular vote by 5 points, and ran generally ahead of their presidential nominee down-ballot (such that the D+3 result in the House "translates" to a comfortable win in the Electoral College). We're at the point where a result like D+1 nationally not only translates to a clear Republican victory for the Presidency, but a filibuster-proof Senate majority if sustained (or improved upon) across three cycles. (Combined with control of the judiciary for the foreseeable future: as the parties are currently constituted, the Republican Party is probably closer than the Democratic Party to being a "natural party of government" under the current alignment.)

I actually think this election illustrates the GOP’s problem well. They had absolutely stunning turnout, won a number of key swing states the Dems were hoping to, and they still fell up short. They need something close to a best-case scenario (as the incredibly close 2016 victory was) to win the White House; the Dems can underperform expectations as they did this year and still win.

This year was in the aftermath of a horribly mismanaged pandemic and a recession in the year of the election, with a candidate who had persistently terrible favorability ratings for four years and with Democratic turnout so juiced that Biden won the most votes of any candidate ever, though. Long-term trends are what they are, but the circumstances of 2020 suggest it was a local Democratic maximum and probably not a sustainable performance.

(And in fact 2020 was a huge Democratic victory in a certain sense. This was the second-largest popular vote margin of my lifetime after the Obama landslide. It's just that the electoral system really didn't reflect this: assuming universal swing Trump '20 came closer to a victory than Clinton '16.)

That’s the whole point though, the GOP does poorly in the NPV and is relying on a very specific balance; if one thing in that balance falls (looking at you TX), they have to completely revamp their strategy, and they have few states to turn to. The EV advantage tends to swing back and forth; in 2012, it favored Obama because you had all these rust belts states slightly to the left of the nation, but in 2016 it flipped to Trump. The GOP has become so used to losing the NPV that when they actually have to win it, they won’t know how.

Democrats on the other hand have a higher floor or of safe EVs that don’t seem to be going away anytime soon, at least 183 EVs.

Think about it as 2 buidlings; one is a tall skyscraper that is poorly constructed and the other is shorter but is much stronger. A hurricane comes, and the tall poorly built skyscraper falls over and they have to start from scratch whereas the smaller stable building just needs a few repairs, mostly cosmetic

[ProgressiveModerate]

This feels basically false, right? The GOP came within 0.63% of winning a presidential election while losing the popular vote by 5 points, and ran generally ahead of their presidential nominee down-ballot (such that the D+3 result in the House "translates" to a comfortable win in the Electoral College). We're at the point where a result like D+1 nationally not only translates to a clear Republican victory for the Presidency, but a filibuster-proof Senate majority if sustained (or improved upon) across three cycles. (Combined with control of the judiciary for the foreseeable future: as the parties are currently constituted, the Republican Party is probably closer than the Democratic Party to being a "natural party of government" under the current alignment.)

I actually think this election illustrates the GOP’s problem well. They had absolutely stunning turnout, won a number of key swing states the Dems were hoping to, and they still fell up short. They need something close to a best-case scenario (as the incredibly close 2016 victory was) to win the White House; the Dems can underperform expectations as they did this year and still win.

This year was in the aftermath of a horribly mismanaged pandemic and a recession in the year of the election, with a candidate who had persistently terrible favorability ratings for four years and with Democratic turnout so juiced that Biden won the most votes of any candidate ever, though. Long-term trends are what they are, but the circumstances of 2020 suggest it was a local Democratic maximum and probably not a sustainable performance.

(And in fact 2020 was a huge Democratic victory in a certain sense. This was the second-largest popular vote margin of my lifetime after the Obama landslide. It's just that the electoral system really didn't reflect this: assuming universal swing Trump '20 came closer to a victory than Clinton '16.)

It was a “maximum” for both parties. In 2024 neither side is going to replicate 2020 turnout.

If anything, it was probably closer to an R maximum (in the party’s current form) than a D maximum because as I pointed out earlier, R turnout was significantly better than D turnout

[ProgressiveModerate]

Think about it this way; if AZ, GA, and TX become out of reach for the GOP, where do they turn next? Obviously, this won’t be an issue in 2024 but could be in 2028 or 2032, so it’s imperative the GOP tries to narrow a state that could be winnable down the road like IL.

https://www.yapms.com/app/?m=6pps

[ProgressiveModerate]

This feels basically false, right? The GOP came within 0.63% of winning a presidential election while losing the popular vote by 5 points, and ran generally ahead of their presidential nominee down-ballot (such that the D+3 result in the House "translates" to a comfortable win in the Electoral College). We're at the point where a result like D+1 nationally not only translates to a clear Republican victory for the Presidency, but a filibuster-proof Senate majority if sustained (or improved upon) across three cycles. (Combined with control of the judiciary for the foreseeable future: as the parties are currently constituted, the Republican Party is probably closer than the Democratic Party to being a "natural party of government" under the current alignment.)

I actually think this election illustrates the GOP’s problem well. They had absolutely stunning turnout, won a number of key swing states the Dems were hoping to, and they still fell up short. They need something close to a best-case scenario (as the incredibly close 2016 victory was) to win the White House; the Dems can underperform expectations as they did this year and still win.

This year was in the aftermath of a horribly mismanaged pandemic and a recession in the year of the election, with a candidate who had persistently terrible favorability ratings for four years and with Democratic turnout so juiced that Biden won the most votes of any candidate ever, though. Long-term trends are what they are, but the circumstances of 2020 suggest it was a local Democratic maximum and probably not a sustainable performance.

(And in fact 2020 was a huge Democratic victory in a certain sense. This was the second-largest popular vote margin of my lifetime after the Obama landslide. It's just that the electoral system really didn't reflect this: assuming universal swing Trump '20 came closer to a victory than Clinton '16.)

It was a “maximum” for both parties. In 2024 neither side is going to replicate 2020 turnout.

I mean that it was probably a local maximum in Democratic margin (at D+5); I too expect turnout to fall under a Democratic presidency, as it did under Clinton and Obama (but rose under Bush and Trump). Some of the characteristics of the year boosting Democrats (such as Trump being seen as responsible to some degree for the pandemic/recession) are obviously going to disappear in the near future, and it seems no likelier to me that Democrats can maintain this than they could maintain D+7 after 2008.

The difference is that at that time the system tended towards helping Democrats; House Democrats ran ahead of Obama and the Electoral College buffeted him by two points. Obama had a ways to fall and still control the country. By contrast, a fairly tiny slide for Biden and House Democrats (to D+1, which would be an historically successful midterm) would still be a result the system would interpret as a Republican landslide.

That's the point though; the Republican coalition relies on fragile advantages in the structure of the House, Senate, and Electoral College that could easily dissipate fast. At least when the EC had a slight D tilt, Democrats were able to reliably win the PV so when it turned against them they were a little bit better prepared and had already made investments in places that would eventually become key to their winning path.

Also, as I said, it was actually the Republicans who were far closer to their maximum possible turnout as the registered Republican turnout rate was at least 15% higher than Democrats being very very generous with the math. Independents could turn against Democrats more, and they may not vote by the lopsided margin they did for Biden again, but you can't use the argument Democrats were at their maximum in 2020 when only about 62% of registered Ds actually voted while about 91% of registered Republicans voted.

[ProgressiveModerate]

This feels basically false, right? The GOP came within 0.63% of winning a presidential election while losing the popular vote by 5 points, and ran generally ahead of their presidential nominee down-ballot (such that the D+3 result in the House "translates" to a comfortable win in the Electoral College). We're at the point where a result like D+1 nationally not only translates to a clear Republican victory for the Presidency, but a filibuster-proof Senate majority if sustained (or improved upon) across three cycles. (Combined with control of the judiciary for the foreseeable future: as the parties are currently constituted, the Republican Party is probably closer than the Democratic Party to being a "natural party of government" under the current alignment.)

I actually think this election illustrates the GOP’s problem well. They had absolutely stunning turnout, won a number of key swing states the Dems were hoping to, and they still fell up short. They need something close to a best-case scenario (as the incredibly close 2016 victory was) to win the White House; the Dems can underperform expectations as they did this year and still win.

This year was in the aftermath of a horribly mismanaged pandemic and a recession in the year of the election, with a candidate who had persistently terrible favorability ratings for four years and with Democratic turnout so juiced that Biden won the most votes of any candidate ever, though. Long-term trends are what they are, but the circumstances of 2020 suggest it was a local Democratic maximum and probably not a sustainable performance.

(And in fact 2020 was a huge Democratic victory in a certain sense. This was the second-largest popular vote margin of my lifetime after the Obama landslide. It's just that the electoral system really didn't reflect this: assuming universal swing Trump '20 came closer to a victory than Clinton '16.)

It was a “maximum” for both parties. In 2024 neither side is going to replicate 2020 turnout.

I mean that it was probably a local maximum in Democratic margin (at D+5); I too expect turnout to fall under a Democratic presidency, as it did under Clinton and Obama (but rose under Bush and Trump). Some of the characteristics of the year boosting Democrats (such as Trump being seen as responsible to some degree for the pandemic/recession) are obviously going to disappear in the near future, and it seems no likelier to me that Democrats can maintain this than they could maintain D+7 after 2008.

The difference is that at that time the system tended towards helping Democrats; House Democrats ran ahead of Obama and the Electoral College buffeted him by two points. Obama had a ways to fall and still control the country. By contrast, a fairly tiny slide for Biden and House Democrats (to D+1, which would be an historically successful midterm) would still be a result the system would interpret as a Republican landslide.

Also, as I said, it was actually the Republicans who were far closer to their maximum possible turnout as the registered Republican turnout rate was at least 15% higher than Democrats being very very generous with the math. Independents could turn against Democrats more, and they may not vote by the lopsided margin they did for Biden again, but you can't use the argument Democrats were at their maximum in 2020 when only about 62% of registered Ds actually voted while about 91% of registered Republicans voted.

I feel Mr. Vosem is trying everything he can to conveniently ignore that or brush it aside, as it pretty much negates his entire take.

Yeah, at this point this thread has gone in like 5 circles already. It’s important that we build off of each others opinions but we literally keep saying the same argument against each other’s argument to back and forth

[ProgressiveModerate]

What really sucks is that the Democrats "already" have Republicans beat in sheer number of supporters and Republicans have no real chance at winning the popular vote...it's just that by coincidence the Electoral College keeps them just competitive enough to where it's possible for them to still win.

Once Texas trends D enough it's pretty much game over for Republicans, but until then they're still in the running.  Even with something like a 5% popular vote loss they can still win (which is horrible).

Also, one thing that should concern  the GOP is that they lost a trifecta in the 2020 election despite GOP turnout being like 90%+ or something crazy like that, whereas Democratic turnout was only in the mid-60s. It just seems like the line they need to walk gets thinner and thinner and they're only staying viable through a gerrymandered House, a Senate which over-represents smaller states, and an electoral college that happens to benefit them at this moment. The electoral college, however, can have pretty significant swings in who it favors in just a cycle or two, and House gerrymanders can only go so far, and often fail.

The fact is there are just more registered Ds than Rs, which means Republicans need to get Republican turnout to pretty extreme levels or win Independents, or some combination of both. Trump was able to get very high R turnout but couldn't win Independents, while many argue that a more establishment canidate may be able to win over more Independent voters but will struggle to get base turnout. I'm curious to see if their is a happy medium to this problem, and if so, how the GOP deals with it.

Cite?

The numbers are vague because their estimates and not exact amounts, but if you look at exit polls, it's about 36% of people who voted in 2020 that were registered Democrats and about 36% were registered Republican., or about 57 million each. However, nationally, party registration estimates indicates that there are about 63 million Republicans or so and 92 million Democrats. You can get these numbers by looking at states that have the party registration breakdown (about 30 states) and then estimate the rest using a correlation from the most recent election results, most of these states are smaller states anyways so there is more room for error. These numbers put Republicans at exactly 90% turnout while Democrats only at 62%. Again, these calculations are estimates, and there are many places where there is a MOE, but it can be said with relative certainty that Republicans had a higher turnout rate than Democrats in the 2020 election; it could be 86% vs 68% or 93% vs 58%, there is some room for error, but it can safely be assumed it was at least 10-15% higher.

Some people may argue "muh ancestral Democrats", but pretty much all the data we have indicates that Biden won about the same % of Republicans as Trump won of Democrats; ancestral Ds and suburbanites cancelled out.

This methodology is.....questionable, to put it politely

Self-reported partisan identification (i.e., what is used in exit polls) is much more dynamic than partisan voter registration.     

Red avatars have been singing the "demographics is destiny" song since 2005 and, as Vosem pointed out, the GOP is really in no worse position that it was 15 years ago.  If anything, their advantages in Congress and the Courts are the strongest they've been since the 1920s.   

Yes, the math is flimsy, which is why I advise there is a very large MOE but even assuming these calculations are off by millions, it's really hard to argue the Democrats had a higher share of their registered voters show up compared to the GOP.

As to your second point, the courts have a conservative skew not because the GOP is in a particularly amazing place but because they chose to play hardball since 2014. Losing a trifecta in just 4 years, especially when the electoral systems moderately to heavily benefit your party is not normal. Losing the popular vote in 7/8 past elections is not normal. Receiving a collective 17% fewer votes than Democrats for Senate across the last 3 cycles is not normal. The whole issue is when these advantages start to wane, how is the GOP going to win elections? Electoral advantages, especially when it comes to the Presidency and the House swing back and forth on a relatively regular basis, relying on minority rule just isn't sustainable in a somewhat representative Democracy.