Next democratic state

[pbrower2a]

Texas, because Texas is becoming more a microcosm of the USA than just about any other state. Texas is not in any region of the United States and is not a region in itself. It straddles regions. Texas used to be more rural, uneducated, and poor than the rest of America; that is over.

Seat-of-the pants urban comparisons for Texas' largest non-suburban cities for their politics:

Houston -- Chicago
Dallas -- San Diego
San Antonio -- Phoenix
Austin -- Boston
El Paso -- Albuquerque
Fort Worth -- Indianapolis
Lubbock -- Tucson?
Amarillo -- Fort Wayne
Corpus Christi -- Mobile?
Beaumont -- Baton Rouge
Wichita Falls, Abilene -- Wichita
Midland, Odessa -- no real analogues except each other

[pbrower2a]

Alaska, like Texas, relies significantly upon oil for revenue and jobs. The Kansas Republican Party is splintering into a Trump-like faction and a more moderate section Should the moderate wing of the  Kansas Republican Party go D, then twilight could be approaching for what remains of the Kansas GOP. Kansas' population growth, such as it is, is in the Kansas suburbs of Kansas City... and those look much like Suburbia elsewhere in America.